Tires

Tires

The rear tires on the Corvette needed replacing, and I held off as long as I could--but a light misting would be enough to cause serious traction problems, so I had some new tires put on Friday.

Regular readers may recall that almost three years ago, I replaced the Goodyear F1 Eagle runflats that are the factory recommended tire with Michelin Pilot Sport A/S runflats. They were dramatically quieter and less harsh than the Goodyears, although not quite as crisp in handling.

I had two rear Goodyears with a few thousand miles left on them which I had tried to sell on eBay--without success. My wife thought that it was silly to have kept them, but when the rear Michelins wore out a few months, I discovered that I couldn't get replacements! There was a temporary shortage, so I had the old Goodyears put on a few months back, and they worked well (although noisily and harshly) in the meantime.

Anyway, when it came time to order up some rear tires, TireRack.com showed both the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S and the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S Plus. The only apparent difference was that the Plus was $3 per tire more--and the UTQG wear rating suggested that I would get about 20% more mileage from the Plus. That was an easy choice! They didn't have them in the Nevada warehouse, but they were willing to split the difference on shipping between the Indiana and Nevada warehouses, so it was still a very decent deal.

Anyway, as with the Pilot Sport A/S, the Plus is distinctly quieter and less harsh than the Goodyears--and a bit less precise. As tread on tires wear, handling usually improves a bit--so I am comparing full tread Michelins with Goodyears with effectively no tread. Still, I am inclined to think that even if the difference in handling has little to do with the tread depth, it was a reasonable tradeoff. I'm not racing this car; I'm using it to run errands. Under those conditions, gran turismo is more important than the difference between 0.90g and 0.95g lateral acceleration.