We have owned our S560 4Matic for about a year. It has the basic, 18" wheels. One of the first things we did was replace the factory run-flats with Continental DWS06 Extreme Contact all season tires (a set recommended by our MB-specialist mechanic). I have never experienced hydroplaning like this in any other car, and I lived in Miami, where we had monsoon-like downpours every afternoon in the summer. It has now happened twice, and is downright dangerous, with near total loss of traction, at normal speed levels (sub-50MPH, driving in a straight line), and on large, well-drained roads. Granted, in both instances where this has happened, the rain was coming down hard, but was not any worse than what I have experienced in other vehicles (Audi A4, VW GTI, Honda Accord) and have never lost traction like this before (at least not without hitting a large puddle). The S560 is a much larger and heavier vehicle than anything we have owned before, and it has all wheel drive, so it does not make sense to me, physics-wise, that it would be more prone to hydroplaning. It should be more planted and more stable. I can only chalk it up to the tires, which seems crazy, since they are well-regarded tires, have less than 15k miles on them, and are within normal inflation specs. Did I just get a bad set?

I am ready to swap them out ASAP, so would appreciate any recommendations for a safe, quiet, all-season tire. My local Costco carries Firestone Firehawk AS V2, Bridgestone Potenza Sport AS, Turanza Everdrive, Michelin Primacy Tour A/S, Pilot Sport AS4, and BF Goodrich Advantage Control.

 

Sorry to hear about this. I've had nothing but excellent results with those tires. You must have got a bad set. One thing to check is tire direction; the tires are assymetrical/directional, which means they're designed to roll in one direction. Probably not what's hapening in your situation but worth checking. You'll see a decent sized arrow embossed into the tire wall that says direction of rotation. I had one of the tires on my car installed backwards when I bought it - the dealership I bought it from had just installed them and they had less than 1K miles on them when I bought the car. The car mostly felt fine, but under hard acceleration in wet condidtions it made a weird tire slipping noise, and it was only from the right front. Again, probably not the case with you but worth checking.

 

I'm not sure everybody knows this about the DWS, but the letters DWS are molded into the tread. They stand for Dry Wet and Snow. As the tire wears, one by one disappears. First the S disappears then the W. Once the corresponding letter has disappeared, the tire is no longer good for those conditions. I know you only have 15k miles on the tire, but it's a heavy car, so have you checked which letters are still visible? If the only letter you can still see is D or the W is almost gone, then these are only good for dry conditions.

Technically it's the same with every tire, but the DWS tells you exactly. As tires wear, wet performance goes to nil as the tire can't evacuate enough water anymore and starts aquaplaning.

 

The Conti DWS06 shouldn't hydroplane that badly check tire pressure and alignment first. For replacements, Michelin Pilot Sport AS4 is the best wet-weather all-season for your S560. If comfort is priority, Primacy Tour A/S works too. Swap ASAP and get an alignment your heavy AWD Merc should feel planted. Likely a tire or setup issue, not the car.

 

Questions::

a) at what vehicle speeds does the car hydroplane ??
b) at what rain level does it start (inches/hour or mm/hour) ??

 

Tires are complicated and there are lots of misconceptions floating around out there, so I thought I post these two charts again to put some perspective on things. The thing I wanna point out is that AS tires don't necessarily have better wet performance at warmer temperatures. Summer performance tires tend to have better wet performance when it's warm. I say tend, because as with all tires, there are better and worse tires in each category, but the charts below compare tires from Michelin. You can see in the first chart, that the PS4S outperforms both the AS4 and the CrossClimate 2 in the wet. Either of those tires only gets better once the temperature starts dropping towards winter/snow conditions and then eventually are outperformed by a true winter tire. The most impressive tire of the bunch is the CrossClimate 2, which seems unfaced by the weather and delivers consistent performance in any condition. The second chart shows grip vs compound temperature in more detail. These are things that most people don't really take into consideration when selecting tires, not least because unless you have a tire temperature readout in the car such as is the case in AMGs, you don't really know the temperature of your tires when they don't perform as expected. One reason I always have the pressure/temperature display up in my instrument cluster is to see what temperatures the tires are in my AMG so I can gauge their performance in whatever conditions I'm driving.

FWIW, in the climate that I live, mostly dry and not very cold in the winter I have summer performance tires on my car for the entire year. One reason for that is with the kind of driving I do, my tires at times reach temperatures above the peak for AS tires >130F. I just went onto one of my favorite canyon drives last weekend and my front tires went as high as 170F, so that's no longer AS tire territory. I'm not saying your tires may get as hot, but just making the point that temperature is probably the biggest factor when it comes to tire performance. Make sure the tires are optimized for the temperatures you put them through. I'm generally a Michelin guy, and the only tire I've ever aquaplaned with was the Pirelli P Zero, partly because it got worn down over the summer and didn't have enough tread depth left when the rainy season started. After that I put on a new set every year at the beginning of the rainy season. That worked out, because I pretty much went through a set of tires in one year. It's similar with my current car, which is lighter than yours, but I likely drive it harder than you do your S560. My front tires are done after about 8k miles and the rears after about 12k miles.

I put the CrossClimate 2 on my wife's car. The CC2 is a touring tire, and is the perfect tire for her car. It doesn't need the high performance that I demand from a tire for my car, but we occasionally drive up to Tahoe and the CC2 outperforms even some winter tires in the snow. The point is there is no wrong or right tire and advising not to buy a certain tire isn't all that helpful. One must choose a tire that fits the kind of driving they do and the climate they drive in and always keep an eye on the wear level. Mileage doesn't mean all that much and keep in mind that with staggered setups where you can't rotate the tires, the manufactures cut their tire warranties in half. For example Michelin's UHP warranty is typically 30k miles, but on a staggered setup it's only 15k miles. It's the same with other manufacturers.

 

Hydroplaning tires are closely related to tire pressure. The speed at which a tire will hydroplane is proportional to the square root of the tire pressure.
Filling tires to their maximum recommended pressure will result in the best hydroplaning margin.
Of course, running tires at lower than max recommended, will result in a lower hydroplane margin.

 

This should be put a different way. The reason tires are more susceptible to aquaplaning at lower pressures is because they have a larger contact patch that can trap more water. Same goes for wide tires vs narrow tires. Wider tires are more likely to aquaplane than narrow tires. Overinflating tires reduces the contact patch as the tire surface bubbles and lifts the edges of the tire off the road surface, effectively making the tire more narrow, hence it traps less water. Aquaplaning all comes down to how effective the tire can expel the water from underneath of it. Having less water get trapped in the first place means the tire has to expel less of it. The P Zero I ended up aquaplaning with were 275 wide in the front for example.

 

Hydroplaning also has to do with tire width.

I have experienced hydroplaning in the S, and although there was some standing water on the road, I was still surprised.

Having 245/275 section widths means you need to slow down when there is standing water. Before the S I had a BMW with 225/245, and this car skated as well.

My old 300TD ran 196/65 on all corners, and never once hydroplaned, even at highway speeds through standing water.

 

Yeah I run those same tires on almost everything, also in SoFL, mainly because of the wet traction but also because I don't want them to run off so fast in the heat and because I may road trip north for the winter holidays. An S55 AMG, an E46 M3 and a 500E I wouldn't dare risk. They're great tires, but in the SoFL heat in anything like daily duty they're completely done after 15k miles. End of story. If I see 20K miles on the rear of either of those cars (all torque monsters except the torqueless wonder M3) I got lucky. For me, that might be 5/6 years. But if you're daily driving the car in that heat for 15k miles, go grab a new set and see if they hydroplane. Given the rain we've gotten this year, snow tires with chains might hydroplane.

For over 15 years on them I've gone through 2 sets of rears for every set of fronts.

Welcome to the game.

GL

maw

 

I might suggest trying to find a real Summer tire, and not these all-season tires.

I run the Michelin Pilot Sport 4 on an S class and an SL - and I'm very happy.

In Florida you don't need all season tires, you need Summer tires only year round.

 

Better to drive on real winter tires in the winter and ditto summer tires in the summerPirelli Winter SottoZero 3 is good in winter

 

What is tread depth for each tire on inside/middle/outside?

Tread depth is most important to prevent hydroplaning.
The water need to be displaced and pushed out to sides of tire has to fit in the tread gaps and crevices as it works it way out...
The lower this volume (less tread depth) then the less water the tire can move and keep tires in contact with road.

The tread is designed to meet the water and start to move it away as the rest of the tire rolls thru and keep contact.
If it cannot pump enough water out of the way then the tire will ride up on this extra water and then you start to loose traction and we get hydroplaning.

so go check tread depth across tire width. if you have issues then maybe tires worn too much for amount of water on your roads.

I have same tires - albeit smaller and lighter MB and I have not hydroplaned - but I have before with the stock pro-conti it came with - but I also was not far from wear bars.

Nothing like getting your blood flowing then having your car's rear end start to slide out on interstate in rain after passing a bunch of 18 wheelers.
Whoa nelly (Kieth Jackson voice)

As someone above said - Next set of tires can be summer only tires but do check WET ratings on Tire Rack - I live in deep south and the heavy afternoon downpours are too often not to have proper tires.

 

Are you getting tire meat at the dealer or somewhere else? Is there a Discount Tire in your area? Lots of good info kicked down here already

 

I have driven these tires nearly as long and echo the same. Fantastic tires. They last 15k in the rear for me, 25-30 up front on a 63 rwd wagon.

 

They're "performance" oriented tires. Such tires typically have very soft tread rubber. That aids in the tire's ability to stick to the road. Unfortunately, that same soft rubber wears relatively quickly, as compared to a tire made with harder tread rubber. 15K-20K may be all you get out of them. More-so if you're driving... spiritedly on a regular basis. Heavy car, and all that.
Ironically, the only time I've unintentionally hydroplaned in a vehicle, it had contis under it. A bit of a larger tire than what the S takes, but still.

 

Hey everyone, thanks for all of the great info. I took the advice above and measured the tread depth, looking for the DWS indicators (never knew about that trick). The rear tires were nearly bald. barely 1/8" left, and the DWS indicators were totally worn out. The front tires, weirdly, were fine, with over 1/4" left, and all three DWS clearly visible. So I guess it's not a problem with the tires, per se, but with the unexpectedly (at least for me) quick, and uneven wear. I would have expected a car with AWD to wear more evenly, especially since we don't drive it hard. It is primarily my wife's car. She commutes in it, and even when I drive it, I don't push it because it's a giant luxury cruiser. I guess I also had unrealistic expectations of tread life. I keep the the tire pressure at the 35psi per the gas cap recommendations. I suppose I would get more life if I inflated the tires a bit more.

 

I've seen Teslas with tires worn down to the cords. You've just got to take a regular peek at the tires with anything this torquey, imo.

 

Damn really? I thought Tesla people were more involved in their cars

 

I've seen this type of wear with RWD S-class, but not with AWD S-Class. Is this normal? I'm running Michelin PS-4AS all around and my tires look fairly even front to back with over 10K on them. And my brother has used DWS06s on his V8 Camaro SS for the last few years, with excellent results and fairly even tire wear.

Is the OP's tire wear normal? Why???

 

In so much as it relates to being their entire personality, they are.

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/thre...photos.201532/
To be fair, I've seen bald tires in forums for everything I've owned with high torque. One difference is Teslas are the first powerful cars many people ever own.

 

I had those tires on my W222. They were one of the very best tires I’ve ever had on any sedan/SUV I owned, and I owned close to 13 in the last 15 years, probably spanning all good tire brands. The Cont DWS were the most quite and comfy tires our of all tiresl... Never had the issue you referenced. The 2nd best are my current Perilli P ZERO PZ4 on my sedan but they were designed for the car.

 

Wow the MXM's that came on my car from dealership that were new for CPO have hardly worn in 12,000 miles, I don't love them but wow they are so expensive now just going to run them for a few more miles. They do great in wet and while I hear that the MO's don't ride as well as non runflats I really don't have any compliants.

 

15k miles on a set of tires on these cars mean that they are likely near or at the end of their effective life. These cars are heavy and the tires can't be rotated due to different sizes front and back, so they wear out pretty quickly. The warmer the climate you live in, the quicker they will wear. I'm in the Chicago suburbs and my last set were at end of life at less than 15k miles. When it comes to tire warranty, most tire companies will cut the warranty time in half since they can't be rotated front to rear.

It's also a good idea to have an alignment performed if you haven't done so recently.

 

To your point about the treadwear warranty...Costco has NO treadwear warranty for tires that can't be rotated. So in effect, no treadwear warranty at all for staggered fitments. I dealt with this problem a couple years ago. I felt cheated!