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Author Topic: Pilot Super Sport vs. Potenza S04  (Read 16457 times)

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Offline Critterman

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Re: Pilot Super Sport vs. Potenza S04
« Reply #25 on: June 24, 2014, 07:41:40 PM »
Knowing that Treeman's turbo seized at the track, you are still taking credit for working on his car GJ? 

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Re: Pilot Super Sport vs. Potenza S04
« Reply #26 on: June 24, 2014, 08:01:50 PM »
Looks like you misspelled that too.  :lol:
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Offline kwtoxman

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Re: Pilot Super Sport vs. Potenza S04
« Reply #27 on: June 24, 2014, 09:33:25 PM »
Been away for a while.

Sorry you don't think much of my experience. As for setup, you have one tire that shows tremendous tire wear difference from one side to another. The camber was such that it clearly ran on that outside edge most of the time. You have another tire with excessive tire wear in the middle of the tire. That is typical of over inflation. I don't have a diagnosis for the sidewall separation but would not be surprised given the other 2 if it were under inflated. Any tire will fail if mistreated or driven beyond its design limit.

It is your sauce that looks weak to me and to discount my experience and call me and those I run with slow when you don't know me is even weaker. I am not Mario Andretti but I am not slow or ignorant.

Your experience doesn't mean much. As I said before, it is only a small part of the overall picture of experience out there. It's called the weight of evidence and it is basic logic. People should not draw conclusions from limited points of experience when there is much more information to draw upon to give a full picture, and consider. What you are doing is called cherrypicking the evidence, a basic logical fallacy. When looking at the overall evidence from user experience and reports, one does see some PSS issues at the track that were evaluated in detail and could not be explained by car issues. That is all and it's pretty straight forward.

You seem to not even bother reading those links. Surprising. Your "diagnoses" were all discussed and refuted in the links. The posters were not track newbies.. -3 degrees camber is not too little. And they were not under inflated. If you look closer at what you call an overinflated tire, you will see abnormal tire wear on the outside as well (the outer edge of the outer half of the treadblocks all show excessive wear), similar to the other pictures but much less track time. As those links discuss in detail, the sidewall is too soft for track driving if you are fast. It rolls over and leads to the uneven wear.

I find it rather childish to get offended by being called slow. As if an adult should get all upset if they aren't called a "fast" guy at the track. Too much ego out there. It is more childish to get offended when I never even called you slow. What I said is that there are fast and slow people out there. That's just a general reference. It's called the standard normal distribution bell curve. If one is not getting those shown tire issues they are not the of the fast track day drivers . Occam's razor leads me to that and what is a logical and reasonable conclusion from what evidence is available. Many people are not the fastest. I saw it all the time over years of road-racing, and many many track days. And it doesn't mean I called you slow.

When ever we ran autocross, we usually pump up the pressure because the standard pressure is for ride comfort, I usually ran 40 PSI for auto-x.  I agree with Treeman, the alignment is out.

As I said, the info is in the links, the driver's were experienced track people and their car's had no issues with camber/alignment, etc., and they monitored tire pressues. There are other links where the OP had the same issues and checked his car alignment to find no issues as well. Since other tires he used before had not had those effects either, he moved on to other tires.


Having watched Treeman running the inner road course at Pocono International Raceway on those tires, I can tell you that he had no problem keeping up

That feedback means nothing. There is no reference point, or comparator to judge the outcome and interpret it. It adds nothing to the overall evaluation of the PSS at the track. There no doubt the PSS is a high performance tire. And one can go fast on them. But as posted and links, there are fast track guys have destroyed the PSS tires. It is not an extreme performance category tire (tirerack).




Those links to PSS tire issues are from drivers who've been on the track before, have used various tires before without said issues, and have set-up their car suspension for track HPDE. No one in those threads, let alone here has been able to show any car/driver issues as the cause that the owners did not account for in the discussion.... unless you ignore or disregard all the owner/car info and feedback in those threads. Which some people seem to be happy to do.

Such disregarding of the full information demonstrates confirmation bias (also called confirmatory bias or myside bias), which is the tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses. People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. I see some people very attached to their tire choice and the need for total validation.
« Last Edit: June 24, 2014, 10:13:41 PM by kwtoxman »
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Offline 2kwk4u

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Re: Pilot Super Sport vs. Potenza S04
« Reply #28 on: June 25, 2014, 06:32:57 PM »
Wow he's a diplomat but he still manages to make fun of Critter's spelling right at the end.  Good job!
. :thumbs:

Offline Treeman

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Re: Pilot Super Sport vs. Potenza S04
« Reply #29 on: July 01, 2014, 10:02:23 AM »
OK, kwtoxman.  I read your links.  I go back to my statement "Any tire will fail if mistreated or driven beyond its design limit."  Those folks should have been driving track tires.  The PSS is a street tire and was not intended for such very hard, high-speed track use.  Folks were very impressed with the times set on that track and it was clear they were pushing it very hard.  This was an HDPE but these drivers were driving harder than the norm to the point of being at racing speeds.

I also note the comment about soft sidewalls.  That seems to vary by application.  For the 245/45/19s, the sidewall is stiffer than other comparable tires.  And, unlike the comments in your links, they did a lot to eliminate understeer in my car. 

On the other hand, for applications short of that, these are great tires.  They are expensive and that is why I was hoping for the ZIIs since they are better than the Star Specs (which were also great tires but maybe a little less street friendly).  And the treadwear is less than they claim (I am getting 15,000 but that is with a lot of autocrossing).  I am hoping that my new sway bars taking out the rest of the understeer will help that but that may be wishful hoping.

I stick by my experience, and that of those I run with, that these are great tires for their intended purpose.
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Offline kwtoxman

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Re: Pilot Super Sport vs. Potenza S04
« Reply #30 on: July 01, 2014, 11:54:17 AM »
Basically that is what I said all along here. I said the PSS were great street tires. I said they were fast tires. I said that on the track or AX for the fast drivers there are better options, with links to some fast drivers demonstrating PSS tire issues. My posts showed there is a lower design limit on the PSS tires as compared to some other options.

The extreme performance tire class at Tire Rack are a step up from PSS in the max performance category, and something people should consider. EP tires are closest to full competition tires (without actually being full competition or "track" tires), with the associated benefits of such. Whether a driver needs that is a personal decision dependent on individual factors as well as preferences. I didn't find your posts acknowledge a lower design limit for the PSS until your last post here. But I now see more common ground. 

It's great that the PSS tires work well for your own personal driving habits. It means you don't need to go up to extreme performance class tires if you don't want to and you can get better mileage tires as well. I believe many other drivers would have the same experience per se as well.

From my research, the star specs are a great extreme performance tire which works well for all applications. I have a friend who did an endurance race with them in Japan and was very impressed. When I saw them on closeout at TR, the price was too good to pass up. It seems the Z2's are now on closeout and people are saying that Z2SS's are coming, hopefully OEM size too. More options are always a good thing. True, I don't expect either of those Dunlop options to last as long as the PSS and they have notably stiffer sidewalls so on the the street the ride will be firmer.

In the extreme performance category tires in the oem 245/45/18 size one can still get Bridgestone RE11, but that is all at this time. TR's website is wonky for me and it doesn't show that tire when I selected the EP category only, but it is there and it shows up when other categories are selected. I'd love to try that tire as well, but it will be stiffer and have less mileage than the PSS too.

Softer sidewalls on the PSS are discussed a fair amount in those links and experience from the hard chargers backs that up, though I don't know size to size differences. Post up links of that info for people to read. Of interest, the S04 tire is notably heavier than the PSS in the same size, which has been attributed the stronger sidewall on the S04. It fits in with the other information previously linked.
http://www.m5board.com/vbulletin/e39-m5-e52-z8-discussion/200598-bridgestone-potenza-s04-pole-position-michelin-pilot-super-sport-4.html#post4509386



If you want to lessen the understeer, only go stiffer on the rear. Some of us AXers discussed this issue long ago and ended up running the Z0K bar on the back and the OEM FE3 GXP bar on the front with good results. Or if one has those adjustable swaybars that took 7 months to come in from PAW, one could run softer on the front.
« Last Edit: July 01, 2014, 12:19:39 PM by kwtoxman »
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Offline Sky Pilot

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Re: Pilot Super Sport vs. Potenza S04
« Reply #31 on: July 01, 2014, 04:34:26 PM »
I have 4 Michelin PSSs coming. I'll let you know. I stepped up to 255/40/18s though. Dave Gilbert is my tire advisor and a good friend works at Michelin...Wahooooo
I'm running the 255's too and like them. There's just a tad more sidewall and it gave me just enough height so I don't rub my chin on my driveway as I back out and pull in.

Offline Sly Bob

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Re: Pilot Super Sport vs. Potenza S04
« Reply #32 on: July 01, 2014, 06:49:43 PM »
I'm running the 255's too and like them. There's just a tad more sidewall and it gave me just enough height so I don't rub my chin on my driveway as I back out and pull in.

On the stock rims I would assume?
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Offline kwtoxman

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Re: Pilot Super Sport vs. Potenza S04
« Reply #33 on: July 01, 2014, 09:26:09 PM »
I have 4 Michelin PSSs coming. I'll let you know. I stepped up to 255/40/18s though. Dave Gilbert is my tire advisor and a good friend works at Michelin...Wahooooo

I'm running the 255's too and like them. There's just a tad more sidewall and it gave me just enough height so I don't rub my chin on my driveway as I back out and pull in.

Michelin recommends a minimum 8.5" wheel width for those 255 tires. On stock wheels (8") I wouldn't subject them to AX or the track as they may roll off the bead.... not good. 
:drive:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Michelin&tireModel=Pilot+Super+Sport
Click on specs and you'll see the rim width recommendations for each size.

A 245 tire width is the max recommended for the stock wheels 8" width.
And fwiw, a 245/45/18 tire (OEM) will have more sidewall than a 255/40/18 tire.   ;)
« Last Edit: July 01, 2014, 09:59:53 PM by kwtoxman »
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Offline critter

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Re: Pilot Super Sport vs. Potenza S04
« Reply #34 on: July 02, 2014, 08:24:34 AM »
I'm running the 255's too and like them. There's just a tad more sidewall and it gave me just enough height so I don't rub my chin on my driveway as I back out and pull in.

Got them in. Get them installed Saturday. The only thing I won't like is the wait at the tire shop to get them mounted. I will also need a chase car for delivering the new tires and then picking up the old ones. I'll keep the old ones and use for storage time and not have the new sit for 3-4 months with dead weight on them...
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Offline critter

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Re: Pilot Super Sport vs. Potenza S04
« Reply #35 on: July 05, 2014, 07:15:52 PM »
Got them in. Get them installed Saturday. The only thing I won't like is the wait at the tire shop to get them mounted. I will also need a chase car for delivering the new tires and then picking up the old ones. I'll keep the old ones and use for storage time and not have the new sit for 3-4 months with dead weight on them...
Got them on and I like them. I am not a gear like a lot of you guys but I can certainly feel a difference between these Michelin PSS 255s and the stock F1s - why wouldn't I guess would be the response from one of you. Beat ya to it! I was surprised that there was only 4mm left on the stock tires when we measured them. Not a lot for 25,500 miles or so. I could be wrong and 30,000 is the norm. I have no feel for that.
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Offline Jim

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Re: Pilot Super Sport vs. Potenza S04
« Reply #36 on: July 06, 2014, 02:14:48 PM »
Do they give a quiet ride? I'm still on the stock F1's and while I like the way that they ride, they are pretty crappy for traction. I will need to replace them in a few thousand miles which in my case will probably be next spring.
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Offline critter

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Re: Pilot Super Sport vs. Potenza S04
« Reply #37 on: July 06, 2014, 06:23:29 PM »
Do they give a quiet ride? I'm still on the stock F1's and while I like the way that they ride, they are pretty crappy for traction. I will need to replace them in a few thousand miles which in my case will probably be next spring.
What you will get is most who express an opinion will say that their tire is the best - that's human nature. I will give you my take from my perspective on my car. The F1s I had would chirp and spin sometimes out of first gear when I was trying to have a little fun. They are A/S tires so a bit hard compound I'm guessing. Anyway, I tried this same maneuver with the PSSs and they held and leapt forward - no spin at about the same point that the F1s were letting go of the road. I did have Conti DWs on my last Redline and my opinion is that I like these better. I am running them around 34 lbs cold at the moment and the ride is nice and much better. That's all I can tell you but I think you will like them if you can find a good price and stick them on. I have the 255/40/18s on the 8 in rim and there is no bulge to speak of. It looks pretty much how the 245/45/18 F1s looked on the same rim...Hope you find something that will keep you happy for about 30,000 mis...I forgot to tell you that Tirerack also has test reports of the PSS against 3-4 other comparable tires in the same class for at least 5 different elements - noise being just one. If you want to see them go the Michelin PSS and click on the tests tab...
« Last Edit: July 06, 2014, 07:13:33 PM by critter »
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Offline Jim

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Re: Pilot Super Sport vs. Potenza S04
« Reply #38 on: July 06, 2014, 08:51:45 PM »
Thanks critter! Real world feedback on the same type of car is worth it's weight in gold.
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Offline Treeman

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Re: Pilot Super Sport vs. Potenza S04
« Reply #39 on: July 07, 2014, 06:54:50 AM »
They don't seem noisy to me. Of course, my car is not the quietest either.
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Offline Treeman

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Re: Pilot Super Sport vs. Potenza S04
« Reply #40 on: July 14, 2014, 12:19:21 PM »
Just received this email from Tire Rack:

"Pilot Super Sport Reigns as Number 1

The Michelin Pilot Super Sport has been impressing us since its introductory track drive in November, 2010 and when it won its first Tire Rack team test the following summer.

Now with over four million miles of reported driving experience, the Pilot Super Sport continues to confirm our initial praise was well deserved. It's claimed the top spot in the Max Performance Summer category since it first appeared in our consumer survey results in August, 2011.

The Pilot Super Sport is available in over ninety 17" through 22" rim diameter sizes to meet the needs of sports car, sporty coupe, performance sedan and super car drivers looking for Max Performance Summer control and fun in warm, wet and dry conditions."

Survey results are at
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/surveyresults/surveydisplay.jsp?type=MP
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Offline critter

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Re: Pilot Super Sport vs. Potenza S04
« Reply #41 on: July 14, 2014, 02:42:54 PM »
Just received this email from Tire Rack:

"Pilot Super Sport Reigns as Number 1

The Michelin Pilot Super Sport has been impressing us since its introductory track drive in November, 2010 and when it won its first Tire Rack team test the following summer.

Now with over four million miles of reported driving experience, the Pilot Super Sport continues to confirm our initial praise was well deserved. It's claimed the top spot in the Max Performance Summer category since it first appeared in our consumer survey results in August, 2011.

The Pilot Super Sport is available in over ninety 17" through 22" rim diameter sizes to meet the needs of sports car, sporty coupe, performance sedan and super car drivers looking for Max Performance Summer control and fun in warm, wet and dry conditions."

Survey results are at
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/surveyresults/surveydisplay.jsp?type=MP

Got them on last week. On SAturday we had a shitload of rain quickly. I was out and was coming back through the end of it which was still pretty heavy and with standing water in spome spots on the roads. These tires held real real well in some tight turns. I actually pushed a few of the turns to take advantage of the situation so I knew how they gripped in case I really needed to know. They were very snug with no slip or slide that I could feel. Did not feel the wheel pull at all when I hir some of the standing water either. All in all I like them very much. But as I have said before I don't have a ton of test drives under my wing - but I know what feels good from my 35 years on motorcycles of all kinds and all speeds. Now, on that subject we can talk tires and handling....
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Offline kwtoxman

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Re: Pilot Super Sport vs. Potenza S04
« Reply #42 on: July 14, 2014, 04:18:47 PM »
Good stuff.

If one is not doing track or AX, the PSS is tops IMO, great street tire. Pricey, but hopefully it comes down a bit. PSS are the best max performance tire available at the moment, but they are not to the level of the extreme performance tires (the top non-r compound tire performance category).

As mentioned before, there is lots of experience that can be found for people that research all the options. None of this is news though.

Quote
When I called Tire Rack, they said PSS will get greasy quickly when autocrossing compared to a real extreme performance tire

Quote
I've run Star Specs, NT05s, RS3s. And PSS. PSS: No better tire in wet, quiet, great grip. NOT best suited to track or AutoX, but for your intended use they'd be perfect IMO.

http://www.zpost.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13812012#post13812012
http://www.zpost.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13812599#post13812599

The one quote confirms your experience with the wet performance of the PSS.  :thumbs:
« Last Edit: July 14, 2014, 04:25:33 PM by kwtoxman »
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