Michelin Pilot Sport PS2 Reviews - Page 4

These were once talked about to be the best road tyres to go for. So I went for them. And they were excellent. No complaints from me. I found they wore out quick on the rear of my car but the fronts lasted ages so theres mixed feelings there. Also as they got near their tread limit I had one of the scariest moments in my driving life. I went into a 180 degress spin around a roundabout. Something thats never happened to me before with any other tyre. But still I cannot really blame the tyres because they were near their tread limit, it was wet and I was overtaking a car in the inside lane of the roundabout in a rear wheel drive car. Plus I guess I didnt have the skills to correct my driving mistake. So if I ignore that incident, these michelins have been superb. Have got these on my girlfriends Golf GTI and she rates them highly too. Infact they are the only tyres she wants in future because she hasnt been too impressed with other midrange brands I bought her in the past. These PS2's used to be the ones to go for but now there are a few other newer choices that from reviews seem to be better. I think I might give the Goodyear Eagle F1 asymmetric 2 to her next time because they seem to be a highly rated tyre right now. And me Ive got some Toyo T1 Sports as I dont mind the midrange brands.

I had these fitted on my BMW 3 Series Saloon (E90, LCI) 335d M-Sport, May 2010 car. To put this in perspective, this is up to 286hp and 580NM of torque from low down in the rev range - the car was pretty much in the maximum torque zone for most of the driving.

These tyres came with the car as new, I had the car from c. 6,000 miles. I swapped to winter tyres around 17,000 miles and at this point, the rears were down to around 2mm so I binned them. The fronts were 4.5mm so had plenty remaining.

Driving was mainly motorway and A roads. I checked my pressures every 2 weeks at least.

The wear on these rear tyres was even.

When down to around 2mm, there was a substantial amount of rain for a week, with huge amounts of standing water on motorways. With the torque nature of the car and low tread on the tyres, I was slightly nervous and expecting the traction control to have to intervene, or perhaps some aqua planing. Nevertheless, the grip shown by these tyres in deep water was extremely impressive and the car was planted the whole time.

When accelerating hard you can really feel the rear tyres biting the road.

On my previous 3 series (same 18 inch wheel and sports setup) I had Bridgestone Potenza run flats and I can say that these Michelin PS2 run flats are significantly superior, in terms of grip, comfort and noise. For a run flat tyre, they are very comfortable.

Power delivery is good and when pushing the car really hard on twisty A-roads the tyres felt really strong in the corners.

Having swapped back from winter tyres to summer tyres a few months ago, I purchased another set of these for my car which is the acid test. They lasted 17,000 miles on the rear of a 335d which is pretty good going. I have full and complete confidence in the tyres which I why I purchased them again.

The PS2's delivered what I would expect in most areas from a premium brand tyre with above average grip in both the wet and dry. However, I feel that they were severely let down by the wear, and it is for this reason I would never buy them again. I just took the car in for a service and the minimum treads were measured at 2.0, 2.5, 1.6 and 2.5 after just 14,000 miles covered. I had to mount the curb (at 2 or 3 mph) when a lorry came around a corner, which resulted in a chunk of tyre being removed. I am not sure if this was due to a particularly sharp pavement, soft rubber, or the wrong angle I approached the curb at but I've not seen this before.

I feel that spending nearly £1300 on a set of tyres should last more than 14000 miles (around 5 months for me). As winter is just around the corner, I feel that I can't risk letting the tread get much lower, especially as one is already at the legal limit. Perhaps I am changing them to early, I hope my experiance helps others.

This time I am going to try the Matador MP 46 Hectorra 2, they have very good reviews so far (10 reviews to date on this site), similar to the PS2 reveiws, but at less than half the price.

I love this tyre: Michelin PS2 has it for me. After having ContiSportContact2 and Pirelli PZeroRosso's on the Lexus IS 200 compressor, the Michelin PS2's have proven to be the best tyres I have ever had on any of my cars. I drive the car regularly in the daily commute to work where it proves to be very comfortable and stable.
The part where this tyre excels over other tyres (even the PS3) is the progressiveness & consistency when losing its grip. That is a key feature to me. It announces clearly that you're overdoing it and lets go in a fashion that allows you proper and timely response. This year alone I have done over 80 laps on the legendary Nürburgring Nordschleife with these tyres in all kinds of conditions (wet & cold to hot & dry), and added a trackday and a drift course. On every occasion, the PS2 performed really well. The compound is out of this world: sticky all the way but it doesn't wear like a sticky tyre! Even with the textile coming out from under the rubber, the tyre keeps on going. The PS2 shows less understeer than the PZeroRosso and simply outclasses the Conti's. I have not had any punctures or other problems until now (2nd set of Michelin PS2's), whereas one of the Conti's carcass tore prematurely and the PZeroRosso's carcass showed a profound imbalance that could not be properly resolved with even loads of lead.
Drawback from the loads of grip this tyre provides, is the initial difficulty to provoke the car into drifting. That means it will not drift unless you force it to, which is a good thing for a road tyre.
The steering response is very good: changes of direction are accurate and the feel is very good. The tyres did more miles (22000mi or 35000km's) than any of my previous choices. Seen the track use and spirited driving, that's an excellent performance.
They are very pricey and had to be specially ordered, but I prefer these PS2's over the newer generation PS3. That choice is now also confirmed by Michelin by telling us the PS3 is not the successor of the PS2, but the Supersport is. But we knew that already...