I recently purchased new wheels for my 2004 SL600. They are OEM 2005 SL65 AMG staggered wheels and I am respectfully seeking suggestions to which tires to purchase to obtain the best lateral stability while cornering and in the rain. A little background that may or may not be helpful; the car has the RennTech ECU plug in that adds horsepower and torque and the RennTech air filters. It was just at the dealership and I made them go through it from stem too stern. They checked it all and remarked that my ABC system is the best they have seen a car like mine. (As usual, one of owners offered to buy to from while it was there) I am pretty neurotic about taking good care of her as best I can but still want the best performance possible, if that makes. Basically I would like it corner like it is on rails and am willing to pay for it to do so.

Obviously these will be 19" tires front and rear. I will admit that I clueless with how to deal with new offsets but am open to any suggestions. Also, if this has been asked and answered a million times already please accept my apologies as I have not been on this site in a few years while dealing with a few severe family issues which are mostly resolved at this point in time.

Thank you in advance

 

Here's a tire size chart for your R230; this shows what will fit and the proper sizes to match up front and rear diameter so you'll avoid ABS/ESP problems -
https://mbworld.org/forums/sl-class-...ire-sizes.html

Look on the inside of your wheels for their offset specification, it'll be cast into the aluminum (along with diameter and width).

The thing is, if you want absolute top handling performance, you'd want a max performance summer tire like a Pirelli P-Zero Rosso, Bridgestone Potenza Pole Position, or Michelin Pilot Super Sport. But if you also want good performance in rain, you'd want a good all-season performance tire. You have to consider the weather where you live - I live in an area that doesn't usually get very cold (except last week ) and we do get heavy rains, so I don't need any ice/snow abilities but I do need decent performance in the wet.

I chose the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3 for my car (SL600), as it presents the best mix of values for me - very good handling, good in the wet, nice ride quality, and quiet. There are tires that are a bit better in handling, but at the expense of the other qualities. And, really, the R230 is a great GT car, but not a true sports car - it's just too heavy. It's never going to feel like a 911/Huracan/etc., no matter what tires you put on it, so I couldn't see giving up all other qualities for absolute maximum handling.

I'd advise you go to www.tirerack.com and look through their reviews - they have very good video reviews/comparisons for most of the tires they have available for our cars. Load in your car, select your tire size, then when you select a specific tire scroll down a bit and they usually have a video review there. You can also search through user reviews for users with your specific car.

Also - for maximum handling, you'd want the shortest sidewall available. But even if you can find shorter sidewall tires than the sizes in the chart I linked, I'd advise against that. The R230 is a heavy car, and as such they're notorious for bending rims when loaded up with tires that have extremely short sidewalls. There's plenty of R230 owners that have gone for 20" rims with super-skinny sidewalls and ended up going back to 19" or 18" with taller sidewalls because they repeatedly bent rims and also found that the marginal improvement in handling was not worth the loss of ride quality. It's no fun to drive a car that rattles the fillings out of your teeth, no matter how well it goes around a corner.

I've got 255/40-18 front, 285/35-18 rear on my SL600 and it still handles very, very well, no regrets from resisting the urge to go bigger.

 

I went with Mich. Sport 4s' in 295/30R19 and 255/35R19. They seem to be like a 80% street/20% track tire that has great rain performance.