Hello Michelin Super Sports

[MBK]

Reassuringly expensive French tyres, lets hope they are as good as the reviews.

A day and £835 later my RS 3 is freshly shod in Michelin Pilot Super Sports. That's just over £208 a corner to save you reaching for the calculator. I could have paid slightly less (£55 cheaper all in) both locally or by having them delivered and a local fitter but the Blackcircles offer included £93 of Tesco vouchers making it the best all round deal and having the bonus of keeping the Mrs happy too. I've always found Blackcircles service excellent and the local fitter A&S Tyres were knowledgeable, aware of the polished rims, took their time and fitted the tyres perfectly.

Despite my Audi dealer claiming "

We have such confidence in our in this that we offer a genuine price match on any like-for-like tyre quotation." they would not and weren't event close. They started at £279 per tyre and claimed even at cost they could only supply super sports for £249 each. I'm willing to cut them some slack as they have been great to date but it's a bit of a cheek to make the price match claim and not actually mean it.​

Any excuse for a picture including the RS calipers...

It's too early to make any real comment on the Super Sports, the only initial impressions are:

+ they are immediately much quieter than the Conti's

+ The steering felt immediately lighter, but this may well just be the difference between new rubber and the worn Conti's so I will reserve judgement for now.

I admit this marketing test influenced my decision along with some recommendations from other performance car driving friends.
MICHELIN Pilot Super Sport put to ultimate consumer test! - YouTube

One of my driving adventures this year is at the Porsche Sport Driving School used in that test and I'm looking forward to finding out how I, the RS3 and the tyres get on. As I'm also driving a couple of Porche's back to back over the same routes it will be an interesting comparison. I will be taking the Go Pro cameras so my next update should include some video along with my thoughts.

 

[A3simon]

Be interesting to hear your verdict once you've used them a bit as they are the rye ill be putting on mine this year.

 

[geek]

Be interesting to hear your verdict once you've used them a bit as they are the rye ill be putting on mine this year.

+1

These are my current first choice to replace the Conti's....keep the updates coming.

 

[Bodfish]

Great choice, I've had a set on my C5 RS6 for a few months now and I completely agree about the road noise reduction compared to the conti's they replaced. The cold/wet weather grip is surprisingly good too for what's supposed to be a decidedly summer tyre.

 

[P_G]

Good choice. Slight thread hijack, what are people doing when changing tyres in terms of sizes. Are you sticking to 225 rear and 235 front or going 235 all round. Curious as I was thinking the latter, allows tyre rotation ond longevity, gives the rear alloys better protection. But then looking at Goodyears which will be my choice of tyre I notice the 225's are 1dB quieter (didn't expect that for an extra 10mm contact patch) and therefore Class I rather than II and £10 per tyre cheaper. Price in the long run is nothing as it would probably cost more with 235's front and 225's rear.

 

[MBK]

I'm going to have quite a bit of fun on these tyres so they might not last too long but hopefully I will learn a lot about them. I will post up the results.

I've stayed with the 235/225 combination for now. It's definitely worth experimenting with the widths at some point I found wider stickier rubber made the Evo IX much faster and more stable on track yet on the Westfield/Caterham style cars smaller, lighter wheels and higher profile tyres were way more fun. I read that back and it sounded almost scientific but in reality it was just a lot of tyre smoking fun, I sometimes think Toyo R888 smoke actually smells like new £20 notes..!

 

[the_cueball]

I'm maybe the odd one out that isn't very happy with these tyres...

ive got 4mm left on mine on my S4 and they've basically lost grip.... traction control is going off far too much for my liking, and understeer is a nightmare....

I won't be replacing them with the same tyres...

 

[MBK]

I'm maybe the odd one out that isn't very happy with these tyres...

ive got 4mm left on mine on my S4 and they've basically lost grip.... traction control is going off far too much for my liking, and understeer is a nightmare....

I won't be replacing them with the same tyres...

Thanks, all views welcome, it's way too early for me to say yet, you could be right. One thing for sure there is a world of choice out there.

 

[poverty]

Ive had these tyres since just before Inters 11'.

They reduced the TTRS understeer to the point id say the car handles nearly neutrally. Wet grip is massive too, snapped my propshaft launching in the rain lol. And best of all, they last alot longer than the michelin ps2's they replaced. Win win.

 

[CarrG]

I questioned these or F1's and went with the F1's mainly due to price and availability at the time.

I've found the F1's great so far, much better grip.

Agree with you on the Audi tyre price match side they can get nowhere close to the internet types (camskill, blackcirlces, etc).

Enjoy those track days Mark and look forward to the tyre update.

 

[klauster]

another vote for F1s, price wise they are the best tyres you can buy, I ran them on my RS4 and they were superb also

 

[Kelza]

Just been looking at tyres on camskill and tyrereviews.co.uk,plus that utube video nearly sold me ,so as i,ve had f1s in the past which where a great tyre and on conti 5p now ,be great to see how you get on now subscribed ...

 

[geek]

Good choice. Slight thread hijack, what are people doing when changing tyres in terms of sizes. Are you sticking to 225 rear and 235 front or going 235 all round. Curious as I was thinking the latter, allows tyre rotation ond longevity, gives the rear alloys better protection. But then looking at Goodyears which will be my choice of tyre I notice the 225's are 1dB quieter (didn't expect that for an extra 10mm contact patch) and therefore Class I rather than II and £10 per tyre cheaper. Price in the long run is nothing as it would probably cost more with 235's front and 225's rear.

Would putting 235's out back make it stickier?
You get the impression that the wider track at the front with wider section width along with narrow / narrow at the back is to create more of a neutral bias; with ESC in sport or off it feels to shift the balance slightly reward under all but the most ham fisted of cornering.

I like the idea of 235's out back but don't want to upset the balance.

4 F1's at under £600 with discount is ****** good value; I almost want to stash 4 in the garage for change time.

I flip from wanting PSS and F1 as often as I think of the subject!

 

[Kelza]

I,m not sure i had 235/35/19 with f1's on my s3 and they where great,ok alttle rubbing ,when flooring it and on full lock but the grip was something else

 

[MBK]

I can tell you that 235's on the front and 225's on the rear confuses tyre fitters! "Have you had the wheels of this before and put them back on wrong?" was the first question. I explained the reasoning to quell understeer with the quattro etc, they looked at me like I was slightly mad. "It's not like that on my BMW." I decided not to comment.

I'm not sure how much difference there would be with 235's all round, the track would be a good place to find out. The Megane R26.R on 235 Toyo R888's was as good as unstickable - unless you wanted to provoke a slide which was possible. If the RS3 performs as as well as I think it might on track I may well try a set of wide and sticky R888's later in the year.

 

[RYes3]

I am tempted to put 235's on the rear of mine at change time as I have the 255 wheel/tyre package up front!

 

[Kelza]

Wow nice one,you running Front alloy wheels 19x8.5" ET53 255-35-19 and 19x8.0" et50 225-35-19 up back ?

 

[RYes3]

Yep there the ones

Think they may be 255 30 19 on the front though??

 

[Kelza]

Hi mate they sound the nuts ,wonder if the rs3 could handle 255 all round with those alloys....john where are you

 

[RYes3]

Hi mate they sound the nuts ,nice one

They're certainly nice and wide up front mate and in the wet the rear is the first to skip

 

[RYes3]

Hi mate they sound the nuts ,wonder if the rs3 could handle 255 all round with those alloys....

Hmm, maybe, may result in understeer though?

 

[Kelza]

Uprated arbs and 255 all round

 

[RYes3]

Front



Rear



And they are 30's on the front

 

[RYes3]

Uprated arbs and 255 all round

Nice, I like your thinking

 

[Kelza]

Ohh my 235 are great 255 are a winner lol

 

[Kelza]

255/30/19s

 

[RYes3]

255/30/19s

They're the ones, be interesting to see how they wear in comparison to the rears!

 

[Kelza]

Very true keep me posted, you on conti 5ps ?

 

[RYes3]

Will do mate

 

[RYes3]

Yep still on the stock tyres

 

[RYes3]

The thin black line

 

[Kelza]

Wow no pot holes for u....

 

[poverty]

I'm maybe the odd one out that isn't very happy with these tyres...

ive got 4mm left on mine on my S4 and they've basically lost grip.... traction control is going off far too much for my liking, and understeer is a nightmare....

I won't be replacing them with the same tyres...

its a hyper summer tyre not recommended to be used in the winter. Michelin say in the current temps we are seeing people will struggle...

 

[Evan@APR]

I love PSSs--best street tyres I've run on a performance vehicle I drove them HARD and they still maintained a respectable tread life of 20k miles.

 

[MBK]

Today I've had my first chance to experience the Super Sports and I'm truly amazed. It was proper quattro weather, 8 degrees, wet and sometimes muddy in deepest West Wales and best of all the roads were quiet.

I've reserved my judgement until now but these are without question the best road tyre I've experienced to date apex hunting turn in, lighter and true steering feel, the ability to create and easily catch a neutral slide, agile direction changes, massively improved braking, slingshot grip and go even in standing water. I thought the Conti's were pretty good but the positive difference is remarkable.

A real improvement that just adds to the appeal of the RS3.