Alright, I've read through a bunch of threads here, and a bunch of reviews. Basically, here's my situation--I would value your input.

- I have a set of Revolver (17") wheels with brand new all-seasons on them
- I now have a set of Montreal (20") wheels with no tires yet

My current plan is to run Summer tires on the montreal wheels, and if things get really cold or very rainy, or if I'm unsure of the road quality (need more sidewall), I'll switch over to the smaller wheels with all seasons (I luckily now have the equipment to do this pretty quickly).

In non-winter months, I daily drive the car either to the train station or to work. This usually involves a lot of traffic. I open it up on the weekends, trying to find windy forest roads and at the very least letting the car breathe on the highway (usually both). Also run errands in it. But I'm not doing any track work or autocross. I also occasionally do road trips in the car (generally under 500mi).

I'm trying to figure out what summer tire I should buy. I'm looking a the Michelin Pilot Sport 4S, Hankook Ventus V12 EVO2, and possibly the Bridgestone Potenza S0-4 Pole Position.

I don't really have a price range. Tires are fairly important to me, since they're the only part of the car that touches the road. Obviously, I'd love to spend less rather than more, but it's not the main criteria. I was leaning towards the Michelins (which would be about $1300 for the set), but I'm worried that I may not use them to their full potential. Perhaps, then, I'd be better off buying the Hankooks (about $750 for the set), which still have pretty good reviews, and I had a pretty solid experience with them on an older Cayman S I drove last week. Thoughts? Perhaps also relevant may be how quickly either would dry out/rot.

 

I live where summer is about 10 months a year and I don't run summer tires. Their wear is atrocious and noise is excessive.

I prefer the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3+ since they more than support my driving capabilities in wet or dry, gave me about 40K rear and 50K front from the first set I had, and are always a smooth quiet ride. I am on my second set now with 19" wheels. Not cheap at about $1300 but worth it to me.

 

^^ I concur, summer tires are indeed a poor bang-for-the-buck unless somebody gives you a set for free. I have been running Yokohama YK580 tires on my wife's 2006 XK8 with 19-inch wheels since we acquired the car in 2012. They are available only at Discount Tire / America's Tire. Great all-around tire and reasonably priced. She typically gets 45,000 to 46,000 miles out of the fronts (the sweet spot is 32 to 33 psi) and 33,000 to 34,000 miles out of the rears (the sweet spot is 28 to 29 psi)....

 

Interesting! I had thought it might be redundant to run all-seasons on the newer wheels since I'm already running new all seasons on the old wheels, and since I'd probably not put too much mileage on the summer tires (maybe like 50-60% of the miles). But if, for example, the pilot sport A/S 3+ is a flat out better tire for the car, then maybe that's the way to go.

Or, in an extreme case, I could wait until the current set of all seasons on my smaller wheels is used up, put winter tires on them, and put all seasons on the newer wheels. Probably won't do that, but hey.

Or, if I wanted to just be stupid, I could stick Toyo Proxes track tires on the new wheels and have them run out of tread in like a year. (joking)

 

I don't drive my XK8 in winter, in fact Tire Rack recommended that a set of Continentals that I bought years ago were not rated for driving in any snow at all. IMHO, a car such as an XK8 is a second car, garaged and only driven when there is no chance of snow. I've driven it in below freezing temperatures on a few occasions, but it has never seen salt or snow. The Continentals provided good wear, but now I have Firestones on the car and they provide better grip, which I like. Maybe they're softer. I'm not so worried about wear anymore since I don't put as many miles on the car as I used to. In the end, it's personal preference. Try something that you think you might like and see how it goes.

 

Favorite tires out of 4 I've owned on my XKR were Bridgestone Potenza RE760 Sports. Got 40k out of the set before replacing; sadly seeing they were not offered anymore. Was advised if I liked those, I'd like the Firestone Firehawk Indy 500s; which I put on about 2 years and 10k ago. Those are a close second. The Toyo Proxes I had on it were 3rd and a distant last place were the OEM Pirelli P Zeros.

Idk about you all, but I only run summer tires on these, but want ones that have decent wet performance as water doesn't bother me at all. My XJR, which is really a sister to the X100 XKR, was my winter car for 4 years and I run Michelin Alpin PA2s on that year round, since I only drove like 500 miles a year outside of winter on it. It's still rust free underneath but being sold this spring being replaced with my X3. It has crap ground clearance, an open diff, and even with good tires is mediocre in snow.

 

Of course summer tires won't last long if you buy summer tires that aren't made to last long. I'm also a fan of the Bridgestone RE760s, though haven't bought them for my XKR, which has Continental SureContact LXs. You can only get them from NTB and some other places, but I got a buy 2 get 2 free package with a whole bunch of perks so it came out reasonable in the end. I used to have a set of Sumitomo HTR Z III on an XJR, but they had a big flat-spotting problem so I wouldn't recommend them.

 

I was wondering about this. I'm going to check what my current tires are, but I would've thought that summer tires were the best I could get for my climate, which is basically summer 24 hours 7 days a week, 12 months and 365 days a year. All I get here is sunshine and rain.

I was looking to get summer tires for my Jeep, since, being FWD, all-terrains make no sense. I also thought all-seasons would be pointless, but I can't find any summer tires that fit that vehicle. Are most summer tires meant to last a short time?

 

A lot of summer tires are performance tires, so yes they tend to be sticker and don't last as long compared to ordinary all-season tires that aren't made for performance. There are touring summer tires that last longer but don't have the ultimate performance of a performance summer tire, but in warm weather at least are better than all-seasons. https://www.tirerack.com/tires/types...at.jsp?perf=GT That being said, some performance tires like the Bridgestone RE760 do last for quite a while, though as a result they aren't as sticky as more extreme performance tires.

 

So, I'm mostly likely going with the Firestone Firehawk Indy 500. As much as I'd love to have "Michelin" on the side of my tires (i.e. the PS4S), I'm not sure it's worth the premium in a car that frankly isn't performance oriented enough to get proper use out of them. I'll still be running my all-seasons on the smaller wheels when it gets colder out. Swapping the wheels doesn't take long with proper equipment, so I don't mind.

Will let you all know my impressions once I've mounted them and driven for enough distance for them to show their true colors. They're about $500 cheaper for the set than the Michelins, so that'll be nice.

 

2 years ago I got them in the spring where Firestone Auto Care centers were running a deal and I paid $666 out the door for those tires on my factory staggered Double Fives (18 inch). They often run a $100 off 4 each spring event, no rebates, just pay less; and they did NOT jack the price up for the event so it wasn't like save $100 off tires jacked up $60. slickdeals.net often shows when they have the sale (or Costco, or Discount, or Belle; it's just a discount enthusiasts website).

 

Good to know! Weirdly, the firestone website doesn't have the correct size online, but Tire Rack does. Strange. I will probably end up purchasing through Tire Rack (road hazard warranty is nice to have). But I'll definitely check out slickdeals etc. before spending any money

 

Same thing happened to me. There is a firestone a mile from me and they just ordered based on a phone call.

 

Good idea. Easy to overlook the possibility of actually speaking to human these days...

 

In case anyone was wondering--I'm now about 2500 or so miles into the Firestone Firehawk Indy 500s. Pretty good so far. Ride is not bad, especially with 20" wheels and as of right now a pretty shot front suspension (which, yes, I will be repairing--waiting on parts to be delivered). Road noise on the highway is not great, but passable. They grip like all hell, though. And they definitely throw stones. Wear seems fine, but will remain to be seen later down the line. So far, so good though. I'm happy with them.