vdubpower

i have a 2005 c320 sport with ~ 23K miles
the rear tires are essentially slicks now. They are the continentals that the car came with.
what is the general concensus with all you guys who still have stock 17inch setup as to what is a great tire to buy. i live now in ft lauderdale so weather is ok. some rain but also lots of dry.
i want something that will last long.
also, my fronts appear to be fine thread wise, im thinking of only changing the rears for now until fronts need it. opinions please
local tire places here are tire plus and tire kingdom, i reckon that would be cheaper than dealer.
also , second serviceis appraching, how much will that run me?

rlee02135

try tirerack.com
they have the best prices

BlackLiquorish8

I've never had any luck with continentals they seem to not last long and get noisy as they age.... traction is also not very good.... your car is RWD so the back tires should wear out faster than the fronts. Make sure the car is aligned and make sure to check the pressure for the tires. A good all season tire i would recommend is the Faulken Ziex if your lookin for a good performance all season with good tread wear.... But since you live in FL you can go with summer tires if you want.


hit up

www.tirerack.com

www.tires.com

www.edgeracing.com

TA-9FF

I just bought 4 new Kumho Ecsta ASX's from TireRack and I love 'em. Far superior to the OEM Michelin Pilot Primacy's the car came with. My car handles much better, brakes better, and is a hell of a lot quieter than it used to be. I was looking for a good performance All-Season tire that has good tread-wear, and TireRack recommended the Kumho's. You might also want to check out Avon M550 A/S's.

A couple of members gave me flack for buying Kumho's, saying that Michelin PS2's are the best tires, hands down. And they're right. That is, if you're a lunatic and would want to spend $200+/tire thinking tires alone will increase your performance. But I'm a realist. We have slow cars. PS2's on an AMG would make more sense. But that's just me.

Hope this helps.

Just my $0.02.

C43AMG

Unless I am misreading your post didn't you give 3 reasons your tires made your car perform/behave better? IF you go Michelin , look at Costco , great price - nitrogen fill - and FREE lifetime rotation and FREE Road Hazzard Warranty.

RonKMiller

+1. Continentals are GARBAGE.

Even though I hate the thought of Korean tires on my German car - they are simply an unbeatable value for the money. An all around excellent, inexpensive tire with excellent grip and low noise. I don't think I'm going to get huge mileage out of them, but at their price point I can slap on a new set for the cost of one set of Mics.

You can always go to JD Power and Associates for a different point of view - Mic's win pretty much across the board - and I have to agree they are hard to beat if you can swallow the up front costs - worth it in the long term if you buy a "mileage" vs. performance tire.

RonKMiller

If you negotiate with Discount they'll throw in the free road hazard warranty -EVERY time... No nitrogen, but am I really going to go to Costco EVERY time I want to top up my tires?

Discount of course has free lifetime rotation, flat fixes, spin balancing, and hundreds of convenient locations in my turf.

Not to mention I know the owner's wife.

TA-9FF

My point was: for $200+/tire, Michelin's are not worth it.

C43AMG

My bad - that's 2 points you failed to get across in your post.

TA-9FF

Haha, I agree. The prices are unbeatable! The price of 4 new Kumho's was the price of 1 and 1/2 Michelin's!

That may be true, but I have a soft spot for Bridgestone's. If it's good enough for Ferrari F1 and all of Ferrari's production cars, it's good enough for me. If I'm going to pay an arm and a leg for expensive tires, I'd pick Bridgestones over Michelin's anyday.

C43AMG

Do your homework , nitrogen is the most stable gas you can fill your tires with.

RonKMiller

Hmmm - have to disagree with you on that one - Pirelli's seem to have picked up a lot of ground lately... I'll certainly take another look at them:

RonKMiller

As a Commercial Pilot, I can ASSURE you I have done all my homework, homey.

Sure, Nitrogen has larger molecules that are less likely to leak out than plain old air, has less corrosive effects on the interior of the rims, reacts less than air with the interior carcass of the tire prolonging life, and generally allows them to run cooler as well -

BUT - the first time you air up without pure Nitrogen you have lost ALL of the above advantages.

I prefer to spend my time airing up my tires with my garage compressor versus standing in line at Costco... (sniff)

RonKMiller

BTW - that wasn't my quote - it was another poster's talking specifically about Bridgestones.

C43AMG

You contradicted yourself. If you rotate your tires every 3-5k miles you won't have any inflation issues.Stick to flying and let your mechanics handle the maintenance.

C43AMG

Corrected as noted.

RonKMiller

I'm also an FAA Certifed Airframe and Powerplant Mechanic. That means I take AIRCRAFT engines apart, rebuild them and re-certify them for flight.
I also instruct and certify FAA Certified Repairman (mechanics) for licensing.

WTF does tire rotation have to do with the discussion?

You REALLY need to get off the Crack dood...

C43AMG

I would hope your mechanics at "Discount Tire" would at least check tire pressure when you bring the vehicle in and do the tire rotation.At that point the tires should be "topped off" with nitrogen.I never had more than 1-1.5 pounds of variance when I've had my services done on my vehicles.

vdubpower

can u 2 go hijac k another thread, wtf

to the rest of you who are trying to help. do u change out the rears first if the fronts are still good?

with tirerack, is the price including install

rtking

I believe your car has the staggered rim setup. So you'll almost always have to change out one pair (whether front or rear) before the other since rotation is not possible except side to side (and even then, that's impossible if you have directional tires unless you plan to dismount and remount them for the appropriate corner.)

Having said that, I agree that Tirerack has very good prices. The prices on the website do not include shipping and mounting/balancing. You'll need to see, on their list of recommended installers, is closest to you. You could probably even have the tires shipped directly there so you won't have to carry them in your car.

I am using BFG G-Force Sports on my C230 Coupe and they're pretty good. I've got 20K miles on mine and I rotate them every 5K miles. The rears are at 4/32nds and the fronts are at 5/32nds and that includes some hard driving and hard launches. I am guessing that I'll get 30K out of them.

Bob

white_w203

the stock michelin tires are high performance. they're a very sticky tire. the stickier the tire the faster it will wear out. just get a tire with a tread wear that will last longer, but performance might be sacrificed.

BKLYN_C

Make your decision, what is more important to you performance or milege and get the appropriate set of tires, but after that don't complain about noise or wear. IMHO, the OEM Continentals are piece of crap, Mercedes could put on something better

vdubpower

most important factor is safety
my wife drives this car 90percent of the time
i get to lug the w126 around
performance isnt really the isssue. if kumho are legit tires, they seem like a deal

jolenicz

One thing to note about Discount Tire and TireRack is that Discount Tire will match TireRack's prices. They don't volunteer that necessarily, but they are able to check TireRack's prices at their terminals. Also, this price-match method is the only way to skip lifetime rotating and balancing if you don't want to pay for that (my tires are staggered and directional, so no rotating for me). It ended up being much easier for me to find the tire I wanted, determine the TireRack price, and have Discount Tire order/install the tires for me.

As far as which tire, I bought Dunlop SP Sport Maxx tires, and loved the performance. The rears only lasted 20-25k miles, but I didn't try to conserve them. I can't directly compare them to the other tires everyone tries, but I heartily vouch for their dry- and especially wet-weather performance. They are eerily silent at their traction limit, but that isn't much of a complaint really. They are cheaper than the Michelins, but more than the Kumhos obviously.

BKLYN_C

On Tuesday ordered 4 tires from TireRack. Received them all on Wed and istalled them at local tire shop.
Lately I saw many complains about different vendors posted on the forum, but these guys are great. I didn't even have need or time to track the order, it just came in the next day. Many thanks to TireRack team!!!