I think I have mentioned briefly how disappointed I am with the Pirelli Pzero's that came with my 991 GTS. On wet surfaces these Pirellis are very inconsistent and unpredictable in some situations, one moment they seem fine and suddently the loose traction. Fine, dump them, but seems I cannot change for another model  hmm.gif

The tipical example is entering a wet roundabout at normal speeds the car would loose traction and slide, sometimes understeer, but more often oversteer. And I mean at normal speeds, no more speed than other cars around on the same roudabout and at lower speeds than with my 997 on the same conditions. 

Even once on a straight piece of highway on wet (raining but no standing a water on the surface) while accelerating at around 150km/h the rear end started to wiggle from side to side, not a good feeling at those speeds on the wet on a public highway, could have easily spelled disaster. And this is on a highway I drive every week for years and never had such problems on similar conditions and at ever greater speeds.

I have over 400,000km experience on 991's and have gone through many many many sets of tires and brands and models, so I can compare them on the same roads, same weather conditions and similar cars (996-997-991) so I have a good reference its not like "it may be normal behaviour" for those conditions, these Pirellis I'm using are subpar and unpredictable on wet compared to any other having to go slower on corners than ever and accelerate less on wet than ever.

At first I thought it was because they were new, but now with almost 20,000km I think the 1km breakin is over, and still just last week had the rear come out on a roudabout... embarrasing to say the least. And its not wear since this was the same since new. So I can't wait til I can toss these tires on the garbage. And here comes the problem, up until now I though that after siummer I would toss them and put on a set of Michelin PSS and probkem solved.

But today talking to a friend of mine, that has a 991 C4S Cab with 20" tires, he is telling me that he needs to put on new tires and he doenst want to fit the same ones because get this, on roundabouts on wet the rear would slide out at normal speeds and its very unsetteling and doesn't trust the tires on wet. Sounding very familiar I ask him what tires they are and turns out he has the Pirellis too. Problem is he can't find any other tire that has the N rating that is not the Pirelli or the Michelin Cup, which would be even worse on wet. 

So I pick up the phone and call the guys at the shop at the Porsche dealership and after looking it up, its true, only Pirelli's are N rated, aside from the Cups (normal and the reinforced more street friendly version), so far. No Michelin PS2, no Michelin PSS (of course no PS4 either then since they are pretty new), not even the Continental SportContact 6 which I thought as a last resort.

I had taken for granted that I would be able to fit Michelin PS2 or PSS which is a great tire in sport handling, in wet, and in wear, but now the thought of having to fit these Pirellis again is really pissing me off. I would not want them again if they were offered to me for free. And Cups are out of the cuestion since we get a lot of rain where outside the summer and I do high speed highway driving and its a daily driver, and use them all year round including winter since we get no snow here.

Only one N rated street tire available for the 20" wheel Carreras??? really??  that is BS, especially when that tire has such a poor performance on wet. Doesn't matter how good the car is if you bonly get one model of tires and the tires are crap on wet and you use the car as a daily allyear around.

Summer is coming now were there should not be much rain and can hold off a bit, but after that I have to get rid of them, no matter what the wear is on them, before the rainy weather comes in fall Smiley

So does anyone have any info if there is another tire available, or what I can do?
Tire size is 245/35/20 front and 305/30/20 rear.)


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⇒ Carlos - Porsche 991 Carrera GTS