You would not put a pair of wing tips on a sprinter.
All the components in your expensive sports car are there to make your tires work.
Want a quicker lap time? The biggest bang for the buck is improving your tires.
Why risk thousands of dollars in body shop bills trying to get another hundred miles out of worn tires?
When the longitudinal grooves that channel water begin to disappear, it is time to replace the tires.
The wear bars indicate an absolute minimum tread depth for wear, but tires should be replaced before they reach this point.
On some sports cars, the rear tires may be worn at double the rate of front tires.
Previous passenger car owners may have been expecting thirty or forty thousand miles of wear. Sports cars are incapable of those figures unless their performance is severely compromised.
Your right foot on the accelerator is related to the amount of tire wear you can expect.
The sticky cup tires will wear quickly even if you’re not too aggressive.
Negative camber (the top of the tire tilted in) is great for handling, but not ideal for driving straight ahead. The inside edge will wear quicker when driving straight ahead.
Check the whole tire not just what you can see from a quick glance at the outside of the tire. Get down and pay attention to inside edge.
Temperatures under 45 degrees Fahrenheit will pretty much render performance tires ineffective.
As the rubber gets colder, it gets harder and less sticky.
Winter tires are horrible in warm weather performance situations.
All-weather tires are neither fish nor fowl. As a rule, they are not particularly good in either extreme. They are adequate for both.
Michelin and Bridgestone make performance all weather tires that both perform and wear well, making great commuter tires (lasting longer than performance tires).
Comparison tests by The Tire Rack are not necessarily the be all, end all answer. They typically use a BMW for their testing. More sophisticated suspensions may be able to utilize a tire a little differently. The new Bridgestone Potenza Sport is better than what the Tire Rack found. The Tire Rack ratings are by customers. Be aware of performance minus expectation equaling satisfaction.
The “N” designation means that Porsche has tested and approved this tire for use with your Porsche.
Porsche has tested and approved “N” rated tires for all around results: dry handling, wet handling, stopping distance wet and dry, noise, wear, unsprung weight, and feel. Choose wisely if deviating from “N” rated tires.
Never mix tires; go with the same model and generation as on your Porsche.
Generation can be determined by the number after the “N”. N0, N1, N2…
Be within 30% of treadwear when replacing less than a set of 4. If your tires are 50% worn, you should replace the set rather than have 3 tires at 50% and one at 100%. Use may be considered. Commuting may be an exception, but in any type of performance application, treadwear should be more consistent.
Never let performance tires go past 6 years of the stamped production date. The date will be week/year… 34/19 means produced in the 34th week of 2019.
Never let Cup tires (higher performance) go beyond 4 years. Think of a basketball player, the older rubber on shoes will get harder and start to slip.
New tires are much cheaper than a trip to the body shop.
Footprint, or contact patch, can be increased both by width and height of the tire.
Law of diminishing returns. Putting on a wider tire may give you a larger contact patch, but also destroy the geometry of the suspension dialed in by the factory.
Some tires may generate great numbers, but not allow for recovery once traction has been lost.
A forgiving tire will permit you to drive to the edge and then be dialed back in to maintain control. A tenth of a second advantage will quickly be erased if control is lost and not easily regained.
Unsprung weight is critical to both ride and handling. The lighter the rebounding mass, the better the ride while also keeping the contact patch on the pavement.
Look at the shipping weight of the tire.
Run Flats have a heavy, thicker sidewall. They increase unsprung weight and negatively affect the ride and handling. Why compromise ride and handling for the off chance that a tire will go flat.
Donuts and run flats are severely limited to speed and distance. Read the warnings. Most are restricted to 50 MPH and 50 miles.
As you can clearly see, tires are the most influential factor in performance and safety. Trying to short cut on quality or driving beyond a reasonable tread depth are not prudent strategies. The risk/ reward scenario will determine two things. First, buy the best tire for your application. Tire Rack lets you prioritize your needs and assists with recommendations based on your input. Second, getting a few more miles out of worn tires greatly increases the chance that something bad will happen.