Boxster 986 tyre advice please? - Page 1 - Boxster/Cayman - PistonHeads UK

Morning all, I have just bought my first Boxster, the entry 2.5 model and looking for some advice on tyres please? It has a set of 17 inch twist alloys on it and I need to replace all four tyres. Current tyres are Pirellis, in these sizes: 245 45 17 rears 205 50 17 fronts Having a quick look around seems I'm looking at about £600-700 in total but not unsure which brand to go for. It's going to be used as a daily if possible so an all round tyre would be ideal. Does anyone have any insight into which type of tyre I should go for please? Cheers Terry

You can only go by your own experiences and everyone will have their own. Popular opinion will be Michelins. I don't like them, as in my experience they turn to hard plastic prematurely if the car is not used much, and don't seem able to recover once this happens. Once they've gone " off ", they've had it. Everything I've used Goodyear Asymmetrics on has responded well, including my Boxster, Evo 8 and Lexus IS. Lack of use doesn't seem to affect the performance. I don't know how much harder than me you would have to drive on the road to get to the point where you would need more from a tyre, but I love them and trust them. They have the added benefit of being noticeably cheaper than a lot of other brands, and great in the wet. They're crap on track though, just too soft a sidewall to work properly. My Evo tore them to shreds at Croft, but I drive it hard on the road and can't criticise them when I do. On the Boxster they weren't available in the latest spec, but I wasn't bothered about that, and they're N rated, if that matters. Didn't to me, just so happened that's how they came. I drive the car harder with them on than I did previously because of the confidence I have in them. Just one mans opinion, many will disagree. Edited by Heaveho on Saturday 8th April 14:04

My Boxster has been gone a while but when I bought it was on a mix of Pirelli P-Zeros. It felt OK but replacing the lot with Michelin PS2 made it a different car. I was never a fan of Michelins but on this it made a huge difference.

Every tyre has its positives and negatives so it really depends what you want them to do... 1) Do you value grip over sharpness or vice versa, or want a balance of the two? 2) Do you care about ride quality? 3) Do you use the car in very cold weather? 4) Do you drive the car hard in the wet? 5) Will you ever drive it on snow? 6) How important is longevity and are you likely to replace them on the basis of age or wear? For example Eagle F1 Asymmetrics offer very good grip wet and dry and decent ride quality but aren't particularly "sporty" feeling. Something like Yokohama V107s are much sharper feeling and offer similar dry grip but are louder, ride less well and aren't as good at resisting aquaplaning. Any pure summer tyre is going to be mediocre in really cold weather and pretty awful on snow. There's plenty of review sites out there which go into huge detail regarding what a tyre is good at and what it's not, but even that only gets you so far because there's also a big subjective element. Edited by kambites on Saturday 8th April 14:51

Just an FYI but that rear size is wrong. It should be a 255

Ours is currently running on Continental winters which actually turn it into a surprisingly decent car in the snow - it'll happily go anywhere the ground clearance will allow. They're quite good the rest of the time too but probably not quite what you had in mind!

Morning all, thanks for the replies. I'll probably go for the Goodyears based on the advice above, and 255 for the rears. Thanks again.

Just to dive-in... for absolute clarity, rears are 255/40.

...look on Jon's website for all latest tyre info - he's always liked the Conti Premium 6 as a brilliant driver's tyre. https://www.tyrereviews.com/ https://www.tyrereviews.com/Article/2022-Tyre-Revi... 205/50 fronts are expensive, as it's an uncommon size, and if cost is an issue you can run the much cheaper 225/45 on the front on a 7J, but the turn-in will be floppier.

Pirelli site says rears for a 1997 boxster 2.5 should be 255/40 so maybe the previous owner put the wrong tyres on as an emergency to get through mot or lack of available correct size.

I have Michelin PS 4 non S on my car. Love them.