New Tires for C55
I have experience with PS2's and they are quiet and pretty sticky. They seem to wear prematurely on the outside shoulder since they tread depth on the outside shoulder starts out several millimeters shallower than the center grooves. An on top of that add a caster settting by MB that generally wears tires quickly and the PS2's have a short life. My last set of PS2's on my CLK 430 were bald on the outside shoulder and had lots of life on the rest of the tire. MB said the alignment was within spec.
I am looking for a quite summer tire that wears pretty flat across the entire tire. Anything new offered to consider in my purchase decision?
Thanks for your input!
Instead of getting new tires, go to the podiatrist and get the extra weight taken out of your right foot.
I've found that to be my problem, not the tires.
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Took a friend out Saturday - let him drive. We came to a crossover on a highway. I said 'remember high school days?'. I told him to turn the wheels slighly and gun it. Turned off traction control.
After 75 yards of rubber on the road, he let off and said Holy ****! That was fun.
I said yeah, that just cost me $60 bucks (tires).
The "hot" tire for pure performance is the Yokohama Advan Neova. It seems to be topping all the usual characters in tests. I'm thinking they might be my next tires. They may not be optimal if you favor long life or quiet ride.
Picture is below.
Last edited by Fifth Ring; May 11, 2007 at 09:02 AM.
That said, it looks like there's nothing close to a 255/35/18.
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* did not want tire that has exceptional grip but is not quiet
* did not want tire that looses significant grip at half way its life
* did not want tire that becomes loud at half way its life
* wanted tire with decent tread ware
Read a bit about tires on this forum and reviews on Tire Tack, but have no personal experience with performance tires, aside from my winter tires (excellent set btw).
if you want to correct the problem with the front tire wearing on the outer edge you might want to look into the camber kits because no matter what you do the stock setup will wear out the tire faster on the outer edge. The only other way is to flip the tire side-to-side once a while to keep the tire life longer.
Last edited by smackjack; May 15, 2007 at 12:03 PM.

If anybody else has suggestions for a good tire for occasional track use and everyday use, let me know.
Here is another question for the track junkies here. Do you think there is an advantage in going to wider front and/or rear tires over the stock size in terms of track performance/grip? I don't care about looks, but I wouldn't mind having a slight edge in grip IF slightly wider tires will make a noticeable difference.
I'm sure all of you know, but the stock C55 tires are 225/40 R18 in the front, and 245/35 R18 in the rear. I'm going to stick with the stock AMG 18" rims (7.5" wide front and 8.5" wide rear).
Here is another question for the track junkies here. Do you think there is an advantage in going to wider front and/or rear tires over the stock size in terms of track performance/grip? I don't care about looks, but I wouldn't mind having a slight edge in grip IF slightly wider tires will make a noticeable difference.
I'm sure all of you know, but the stock C55 tires are 225/40 R18 in the front, and 245/35 R18 in the rear. I'm going to stick with the stock AMG 18" rims (7.5" wide front and 8.5" wide rear).
I thought about going up the 255s in back, but I kind of like being able to rotate tires front-to-back.
Picture below.
Last edited by Fifth Ring; May 15, 2007 at 03:08 PM.
I have the matching p zero fronts coming in tomorrow and the car should be even better. I would have thought that the car would handle like **** with the greater pressure but the handling and balance is better.
FWIW I have experimented with lower pressure up front to make the front end understeer less (a few pounds lower than stock) and while it would understeer less, the turn in was sloppy as hell, which is what most feel and assume that it handles worse although it will grip better when driven properly. I then started bumping the rear pressure up and it was more neutral yet still.
I then test drove a clk63 and loved the balance. I noted that it does run a 8" front and 8.5r but that it runs 225/255 setup. I decided to mimic this hence the clk63 pressure. I like it!







