Tyres - Again

I know it’s a tyred topic (sorry), but I’ve just scored myself some Fuchs replicas in 18x8 ET52 and 18x10 ET65 I run PS4S’s on my other money pit and am a fan…but my understanding is that they do not come in Porsche specific patterns/sizes  for the 996.1?. My ‘98 C2 has Pirelli’s P Zeros on them that are way past their use-by date and I’ve never got on with them as a tyre of choice so now’s the time to change. The latest version of PS2’s sound like they’re popular, but would like opinions and if possible tyre size options /recommendations for the wheel size mentioned above. Appreciate any wisdom

Just before I sold my 996.1 earlier in the year I had to replace the rears, and I had been running Yoko V701's all round which were their base Advan tyre, and had been really happy with them - pretty much straight road car, might have done 1 low level track day perhaps.  I have also never been a fan of P Zeros either.  There was only 1 V701 available Oz in the rear size I needed, so I put their new V601s on the back (601s the replacement for the 701), and they were a fair price.  So, these V601s could be worth looking into, certainly the 701s were a very good everyday tyre, with excellent wet weather grip.  I put PS2s on my first 996, a .2 about 6 years ago, and they were very good everyday tyre too, not sure whether current version of them is same as then, but would also be worth looking into. We've been running Yoko V107s on my wife's Boxster, and they've been very good too - next level up for the V701/601,  Think they've now been superceded by the V105, so they may be worth investigating too....

I have run Michelin, Bridgestone, Pirelli and Continental in 285/30/18 rear and 225/40/18 front on my 996. Here are my views from least good to best: iv) I ran Bridgestone in a non N spec tyre and found it to be a great tyre but it was inferior to the Michelin and the Pirelli in the wet.  Given the rear engined nature of a 911 this ruled out a return set of Bridgestones and have not gone there again. iii) I ran Continentals and TBH they were good in the dray and in the wet but their ultimate grip was below both the Pirelli and the Michelin, however they lasted longer than either the Michelin or the Pirelli so perhaps less grip meant less tyre wear. ii) I ran Pirelli P Zero Rosso N4 and they were pretty good and they were a decent performance tyre i) I have run Michelin PS2s for the last two sets of tyre on my 996 and to date they remain the best tyres and are what I will likely seek again. Sadly the 18 inch rear tyres in that size can have limited availability at some times, last time I got rear tyres PR Technology had to ring around and literally sourced the last two tyres in Sydney.  So the tyre you get could also be limited by what are available in Oz at the time. The tyres in this size are not a high volume sell so its always checking any tyre you buy to actually check the tyre's manufacture date as a number of sellers in Sydney sell cheap tyres because they are a couple of years old.

I too have been running PS2N3 225/40R18 and 265/35R18, and am in general very happy with how the car drives with them. They are good in the wet, and great in the dry. If you do start playing around with non "N" tyres, I would recommend that they are "XL" tyres. I was able to get a pair of rear tyres from Jax, but needed to go to Tempe tyres to get the fronts. If you are looking for a wet whether tyre, I hear the SportContact 7s are great from Boxster drivers, how these drive on a 911 may be different. And if you are looking at newer Michelin tyres, you may want to look at the PS5 - these both seem to exist in XL variants in 996.1 sizes - however, I have only driven this on an Audi A3 which is a very different car. The PS4S does not seem to be available as an "XL" tyre for the front, so I would probably steer away from it, but love to hear what experience others have had with it - found turn in pretty sloppy on a friends car.

I had N2 Pirelli's on my car when I bought it.  They were 9 years old so I switched them out to PS4S at the same time I did a full suspension refresh..  There was an obvious difference in sidewall strength.  Whilst PS4S have a good square shoulder and are stiffer than other road tyres they're nowhere near as stiff as an N rated tyre. On a US podcast a Porsche tech talked about this at length and said more often than not handling queries he was seeing related to non N spec tyres being fitted and went on to say that when he's fitting N spec it is a lot harder to mount them due to that stiffness. I only went with PS4Ss because the custom coilovers that I bought for my car the engineer said that they were tuned to them and to NOT get PS5s. I run 36/44 psi. What I do notice is when the rear are down around 40-42 range the rear is far more looser in feeling.  Upon turn in there's a delay before the rear hooks up (not in grip but in stopping latterially moving) and I put this down to the sideway flexing I would love to throw a set of N spec PS2s on and feel the difference.