What are the Best high performance all season tires?

[alz]

??

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[alz]

I have been using Blizzak LM22s for winter driving, but they suck in the dry -- I am thinking of changing ('cause I have to with the New E55 having different tire sizes than my '01 E55) to another set of tires that will give great performance but also be pretty good in the snow/ice.

Thoughts?

[E55 KEV]

go to www.tirerack.com for selection.

[alz]

I would like real world users' perspectives. Luke is great at the technical aspects of what will fit, but he does not have first hand experience.

[E55 KEV]

alz,

Tire Rack has customer reviews for every tire model. The very new Continental ContiExtremeContact has 50 personal reviews while the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S has 145 customer reviews. Good Luck.

[alz]

I was interested in E55 specific reviews.

I have a number of other cars that have different handling characteristics -- I believe the set up by AMG is unique (not like my Porsche 911 or Cayenne, for example), so I was hoping for that perspective.

[E55 KEV]

alz, not many E55 owners use UHPAS tires. Only one member here comes to mind - Jeff Rose from Baltimore is using Michelin Pilot Sport A/S on his W211 E55.

[AMGbest232]

How can I contact Jeff Rose, the guy that is running Michelin Pilot Sport A/S on his W211 E55?

Anyone else have more feedback since the last post? Thank you.

[Busta Riles]

There is no such thing as an all-season tire that will give you decent traction on snow & ice in an E55.

If you have Blizzaks now & drive on them in the winter, surely you must realize that if you went to anything less grippy, you would not be driving very far in the snow.

All-Season tires are only meant for temperatures above -7 degrees Celcius...once you go below that, they are completely useless, as the compound is so hard that it basically freezes & eliminates traction.

[Benz-O-Rama]

For the record, I have the new all-season Continental ExtremeContact DWS on my SL600. This past weekend, I was able to cut 1.79 60' times at Maryland International Raceway. Gonna be hard to convince me that these things don't have decent dry grip.

[motorkas]

I have the new all-season Continental ExtremeContact DWS

Gonna be hard to convince me that these things don't have decent dry grip.

+1 Like Benzo-o-Rama - also live in Maryland have the Conti's DWS. I personally have no intention of driving in the snow with the 55 so that's why I went with these (plus the reviews of Tire Rack v. the Michelin's).

Here's my impressions: In the Dry - awesome grip for an all season tire. Side walls are softer than the summer high performance tires so there is a more "vague" felling with the front end and definitely more push when cornering hard. The flip side to that is I now run my suspension setting in sports 2 all the time as the added softness gives a little more compliance to this setting. With my summer tire - that suspension setting is only hit when I know I'll be blasting through twistes (and even then with 4000lbs - blasting is relative). The difference is most noticable in the first few days (coming directly from the summer tires). After that, not so bad. I will say this - when I found out they had a 50,000 mile warranty (even on a 55) I though, well this may be my all year tire. After the first hard turn, I went back to thinking that I'll run a dedicated winter/ summer set up. Just a personal preference. If these would have been on the car originally, I wouldn't know any better and really would have no reason to switch. Unfortunately, I know better and I will switch back once the temps start to rise (besides its a great excuse to put 19's on for the summer).

In the wet - CRAZY GRIP - we're talking the type of grip that lulls you into thinking you can be a little more cavalier than your really should. We had a five day spell where it rained none stop and they performed flawlessly. During that period I took the opportunity to shake down the wet weather performance with some hard manuevers at speed (isolated roads, no traffic and obvious nothing insane). They're SICK wet tire. Will the yellow light make itself known - absolutely. . . is it something that causes your internal yellow light to flash - not even close. Great Wet tire.

Snow - Have no idea and have no intentions of finding out - I understand if it's a daily driver or the only vehicle in the house but for me - 500 hp on a rear wheel 4000lb sedan set up for triple digit cruising - sort of defeats the purpose - I just can't see putting the car in a situation where conceivably all advantages of owning it are negated and further more all the disadvantages are exasterbated. I could put knobbies on my street bike and go trail riding but... More power to the guys that do it but for me it's staying in the garage unless there's a possibility I can run it.

[lauer87]

+1 for Continental ExtremeContact DWS tires. I recently put a set on a 335xi coupe and they are great tires for an "all season". The Michelin Pilot Sport A/S is also a great tire, but for the money you really can't beat the Continental ExtremeContact DWS for all around driving IMO.

[Benz-O-Rama]

Originally Posted by motorkas

+1 Like Benzo-o-Rama - also live in Maryland have the Conti's DWS. I personally have no intention of driving in the snow with the 55 so that's why I went with these (plus the reviews of Tire Rack v. the Michelin's).

Here's my impressions: In the Dry - awesome grip for an all season tire. Side walls are softer than the summer high performance tires so there is a more "vague" felling with the front end and definitely more push when cornering hard. The flip side to that is I now run my suspension setting in sports 2 all the time as the added softness gives a little more compliance to this setting. With my summer tire - that suspension setting is only hit when I know I'll be blasting through twistes (and even then with 4000lbs - blasting is relative). The difference is most noticable in the first few days (coming directly from the summer tires). After that, not so bad. I will say this - when I found out they had a 50,000 mile warranty (even on a 55) I though, well this may be my all year tire. After the first hard turn, I went back to thinking that I'll run a dedicated winter/ summer set up. Just a personal preference. If these would have been on the car originally, I wouldn't know any better and really would have no reason to switch. Unfortunately, I know better and I will switch back once the temps start to rise (besides its a great excuse to put 19's on for the summer).

In the wet - CRAZY GRIP - we're talking the type of grip that lulls you into thinking you can be a little more cavalier than your really should. We had a five day spell where it rained none stop and they performed flawlessly. During that period I took the opportunity to shake down the wet weather performance with some hard manuevers at speed (isolated roads, no traffic and obvious nothing insane). They're SICK wet tire. Will the yellow light make itself known - absolutely. . . is it something that causes your internal yellow light to flash - not even close. Great Wet tire.

Snow - Have no idea and have no intentions of finding out - I understand if it's a daily driver or the only vehicle in the house but for me - 500 hp on a rear wheel 4000lb sedan set up for triple digit cruising - sort of defeats the purpose - I just can't see putting the car in a situation where conceivably all advantages of owning it are negated and further more all the disadvantages are exasterbated. I could put knobbies on my street bike and go trail riding but... More power to the guys that do it but for me it's staying in the garage unless there's a possibility I can run it.

This is a way better write-up than mine. Well done.