My 2018 C63S sedan came with Michelin Pilot Super Sport. I live in midwest and we get snow maybe 3-5 times in a season. Couple of days ago, I drove it for the fist time in light snow and the car was all over the place. My car is my DD so I am wondering if I should switch to all season tires. Buying a separate set of wheels and winter tires is not something I am looking into at this time.

1. Is it worth switching to all seasons? How much improvmenet will I see in snow/wet conditions and how much worse they will be in summer? I am looking for people who have swapped their tires and have personal experience with this kind of situation.
Also, I want to take the car on track in summer. I am thinking of putting summer tires back on for the season.

2. Are Michelin PILOT SPORT A/S 3+ tires good?

Thanks

I don't have them on my C63S but have had them on 2 other cars and they are quite good. Remember that tires like the PSS or P4S are not recommended in temps lower than 40 deg F.

If you live somewhere where it only snows 3-5 times a season, I'd rather drive with best street tires (Michelin PS4S) 360-days a year.

For the other 5-days, I'd either drive my spouse's car or take an Uber/Lyft/Work from home on those 5-days. If the cost of that is too high (or too inconvenient), then I would buy a set of winter wheels/tires. It's only like $2K USD, which is like $500/year for 4-years. For a car that's like $80K-$90K, that's chump change.

When you sell the car later, you'll be able to sell the winter wheels/tires for $1K USD, bringing your cost down dramatically.

Personally, I'd rather have the best tires on my car for the best performance all-year round, but I guess everyone enjoys their car differently.

If you're the type that takes it easy in the car and doesn't really push it at all in the summer or winter, I think you'd be happy with the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3+, I saw other people in your position gave that tire positive reviews.

Also depends on how much rain you get. Here in Seattle the summer tires are great for maybe 4 months at the most. The rest of the year we have wet roads and they suck. The as3's handling of the power is much better for the area.

Ahh you have a very powerful Rear Wheel Drive Car.. As you know it won't go in snow. It's also gonna be dicey in the cold and wet with summer tires. If you drive the car responsibly on the street the Michelin AS3 plus will be fine. Winter tires are a requirement in the snow, the AS3 will be ok but just ok since the car is RWD.

i have had great experience both on this w205 c63s and on my previous w204 c63 with continental extreme dws tires. No problem in a few inches of snow.

In some circles, all season tires are known as no season tires. I agree with KJ- use a different car or Lyft if you don't want to invest in a set of snow tires.

I'm sure everyone has an opinion, but few (if any) of us have the time to test both tires (new) on the same car under controlled settings.

Tire Rack tested both tires less than 3-months apart in 2017 using the same car and same tire size. This is as close of a "head-to-head" comparison test as you will find!

Slalom Time:
Dry
Michelin PS4S = 4.91s
Michelin A/S 3+ = 5.05s

Wet
Michelin PS4S = 5.35s
Michelin A/S 3+ = 5.62s

Lap Time:
Dry
Michelin PS4S = 29.78s
Michelin A/S 3+ = 30.36s

Wet
Michelin PS4S = 33.05s
Michelin A/S 3+ = 34.63s

Stopping Distance (50 MPH to 0):
Dry
Michelin PS4S = 80.2 ft
Michelin A/S 3+ = 83.2 ft

Wet
Michelin PS4S = 108.8 ft
Michelin A/S 3+ = 113.9 ft

Average Cornering (G-Force):
Dry
Michelin PS4S = 0.92g
Michelin A/S 3+ = 0.92g

Wet
Michelin PS4S = 0.78g
Michelin A/S 3+ = 0.74g

As you can see, the biggest differences can be found in Wet conditions where the PS4S enjoys about a 5% advantage in performance.

Links for reference are below:
Michelin PS4S Test:
https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/chartDisplay.jsp?ttid=223

Michelin A/S 3+ Test:
https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests...y.jsp?ttid=230

I saw an Engineering Explained Youtube video that showed how well dedicated summer tires work in the cold and wet.

I saw that too!

The summer tires blew the winter tires away!

Also, the Tire Rack performance data shows the summer tires beat the All-Season's in dry AND wet performance for track times, handling and stopping.

Thanks everyone for the input. I am little confused after reading above posts. If summer tires are better than all-seasons in both dry and wet conditions than what is the point of all-season tires? Why are most cars on all season tires than? Longer life span?

I have decided to stick with with summer tires for now. Its almost February and weather is already warming up here.I don't expect much snow in next couple of months. Come next winter, I will switch to winters/all-season.

Summer tires are better for both wet and dry, but useless in snow.

All-Seasons are not as good for wet/dry but passable for snow.

This is true assuming one major detail; summer temperatures.

Do the same Tire Rack test at sub-50 degree F temperatures, and I'm sure the results will be different. Not opposite, but very different.

The video below compares Summer tires to Winter tires (60-0 performance) in 26 degree weather.

Fast forward to 6:50 to see the chart that shows the winter tires get owned in dry conditions.

Since all-seasons are in between summer and winter tires, the all-seasons would probably lose out as well, but by a lesser margin.

Summer tires does NOT mean they are bad in the wet, just temperature sensitive to extreme cold.

First of all, the tires he's using aren't "summer tires" in the sense of what the OP was asking. Those are Bridgestone RE-71R, a pseudo-track tire for the street. There would be a sizeable difference in stopping distance between those (or the Michelin Cup2 or anything comparable) and what most of us here consider a summer tire(Michelin PSS/PS4, Conti ExtremeContact Sport, etc). Apples and oranges, at least in terms of this topic's original question.

Also, his explanation of Glass Transition Temp, while good for the layman, oversimplifies how that functions and really gives no good explanation of how grip changes as temperature decreases and how this differs with different compounds. You don't go from grip to no grip as you cross that temperature; grip degrades as temperature decreases with any rubber, and different rubber compounds react differently. Your tire rubber's Tg is basically when the rubber is completely slick and unusable, not when grip starts to degrade. What matters more is how it reacts before this point compared to other rubber compounds.

And this doesn't even begin to explain how the tires react on ice and snow. The entire point of a winter and/or all-season tire is how it reacts in all the driving conditions you'll encounter during the cold season(s), not just clear roads. It's like saying a slick tire is better than a 'summer' tire in the warm months because it stops better on a dry road. We all know how that'd go hitting standing water at highway speeds....