The product line now includes 76 sizes, in widths ranging from 215mm to 345mm, aspect ratios from 25 to 50, and rim diameters from 17 to 22 inches.ġ. The additional sizes are commercially available in the United States starting this month. The Pilot ® Sport 4 S bears a (Y) speed rating (186+ mph) and offers a 30,000-mile warranty.
Tested against five top ultra-high-performance tire competitors, the Michelin Pilot ® Sport 4 S ranked first in dry braking 1, first in wet braking 2, first in dry lap times 3 and first in wet lap times. The Pilot ® Sport 4 S tire offers unprecedented driving pleasure, exceptional steering precision and tremendous directional stability, while also providing maximum grip on wet or dry roads. 1 rank for a max-performance summer tire by Tire Rack.Īdditionally, the tire has been selected as original equipment among some of the world’s top manufacturers of high-performance vehicles, including BMW, Ferrari, Ford, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche.ĭesigned for sports cars and high-performance vehicles, the tire combines the best aspects of the Pilot ® Super Sport with key attributes of the Pilot ® Sport Cup 2. Since its launch last year, the MICHELIN ® Pilot ® Sport 4 S tire has proven to be a leader in the category, earning a No. An additional 11 sizes will be introduced between March and May. The tire is now available in 76 total sizes with original equipment and replacement applications. The same supplier wants £138.18 for the Bridgestone S001, and while the cash you’re saving getting the £150.98 Continentals will be offset by the heavier wear, Pirelli P Zeros are only a few quid more than the Contis, and should last almost as long according to that Dekra test we mentioned earlier.Michelin has released 34 new sizes of its category-leading ultra-high-performance tire - the MICHELIN ® Pilot ® Sport 4 S.
You’d kind of hope the PS 4 S is demonstratively better than its rivals, because it’s quite a bit more expensive.Īfter looking up some prices to have the 225/35/19 rims on ‘our’ VW Golf GTI Clubsport fitted with PS 4 S hoops, we found that you’d be looking at £193.88 a corner. There is a ‘but’ coming, though, and it concerns price. So in a way, the testing we did at Thermal Club served as more of a “told ya so” sort of experience, and quite an effective one at that. Perhaps most dramatic though is wear - according to Dekra a set of these will last twice as long as the heaviest wearing tyres of the major rivals, the Continental Sport Contact 6. In many cases, that could be the difference between hitting something/someone and not, although it’s worth pointing out the Goodyears were only 10cm behind. According to German independent tester TUV, PS 4 S-shod test cars pulled to a stop 2.41 metres sooner than the worst performing boots, the Bridgestone Potenza S001. None of this should come as a surprise really, independent testing has shown the new rubber to be better than all competitors in pretty much every area. With that in mind we don’t want to make any concrete conclusions - and there’s also the fact that the sunshine was doing an annoyingly good job of drying out the wet section of the autocross test circuit, no matter how hard track staff tried to keep it moist. With a huge group of journalists to get through, the allotted time for the proper tyre testing ended up being relatively short, at around 15 minutes each. Some wore the new PS 4 S hoops, others with competitor tyres, with all taking to the same tight and technical track with wet and dry surfaces, culminating in a hard braking test. So, the important bit was the autocross test, done using a group of BMW 340s. A session of follow-the-leader in M3s and M4s at Thermal Club’s tricky but rewarding circuit was memorable but again didn’t tell us masses given it was a new track to us, and the cars were all shod in the new Michelins giving no basis for comparison. On the morning of our test day in Palm Springs, Michelin sent us out on an incredible drive through Joshua Tree National Park (full report on that soon), which was amazingly fun, but not really intended as a learning experience. Effectively testing tyres is a tricky old business.