Pirelli P Zero PZ4 Reviews - Page 3

No problem at all with dry grip/handling/braking... whatever involves dry tarmac you will be more than happy with it. You do of course have to be careful on tyre pressure as it really changes the steering fell and ultimate grip of the car. I kept a cold pressure of around 2.0 front 1.9 rear (bar) and once they are nice and hot rising to 2.3/2.2 you really feel confident also on higher speeds. You do have to check wear, once you have worn tyres the car starts to behave a bit unpredictable at times and it's not very pleasant. In the wet having a 200hp fwd car (with quite worn tyres) you don't have assured grip until 4th gear if the street is not in good condition but I guess it's normal. Speaking about straight and curved aquaplaning I haven't had any real issue. I didn't really push the car too much on wet tarmac so I will not express other feedback. The tyres lasted a bit more than a year used only in hot weather (from mid april to mid november) and around 15,000 km (never tracked the car). Having a relatively small shoulder (as the size of the tyre is 215/40 r18) as well as definitely not doing much to preserve their life of course destroyed them sooner, yet I still think other similar tyres would worn less. As for comfort again the car itself is pretty stiff so I can't really tell. To sum up, nothing to say about overall dry performance and it's definitely a tyre which can give you satisfaction. That said I will likely want to try sport contact 7 as next tyre to compare it

The Pirelli P Zero PZ4s came with the car from the factory and I have driven over 12,000 km on them within 6 months.
Given the type of my car – a small lively hot hatch - I did not spare the tires and enjoyed frequent sporty driving style, be it on the highways or on the twisty B roads.
The grip and handling in dry conditions were very satisfactory and even in sharp turns the tires held their own perfectly.
They are not the best in the wet conditions though and you have to be careful with the wet braking.
I always said jokingly that PZ4s are great for figure skating with your car on the wet/slippery surface.
The tires wear quickly, after 12k kilometers I am on ~3 mm at the front and ~5 mm at the back, so they lasted exactly one summer season.
Around 10k kilometers the tires started occasionally slipping on wet surfaces when turning in very low speeds (e.g. when pulling out of a parking lot).
For the 2025 summer season I will buy either Michelin Pilot Sport 5 or Continental Sportcontact 7 and I will expect better longevity and wet handling.

To summarize the PZ4s are a solid sporty tire for the dry conditions where they perform excellently and you will have a lot of fun with them, however bear in mind that they provide questionable safety on the wet surfaces, and if you like to drive sportingly, they will go after one season.

I was experiencing a lot of road noise with existing tyres, as close to legal Limit and recently purchased the car.

My previous car was a ford ST2 got nearly 30k miles out of Pirelli and 124k out of car. Got me through uni and traveling length nd London driving.

I purchased Pirelli P zero PZ4 and those developed with Mercedes.

I was a bit sceptical that the Mercedes tyres were a bit more expensive, just because they were Mercedes and no real difference to other same tyre by Pirrelli? The tyres fitter assured me they were different and explained the a MO on tyres wall for Mercedes, AO for Audi etc.

The reviews on tyres on all forums can be a bit confusing and a few decibels different in tyres, I didn't think would make much difference bearing in mind weight of car. Plus trying to put all that weight and power of the car on onto a thin strip of rubber and Britains abysmal roads would make much difference.

Wow! As soon as they were fitted road noise was greatly improved and much better feel to the car.

I came from a set of Michelin PS4S in a staggered 225/40/19 and 255/35/19 setup on a 2015 F31 335d which met their untimely demise on a pothole. I replaced the full set with these through BMW as it was convenient at the time (council was paying). I'm running a 300bhp diesel estate which got about 10k from the rear PS4S's (down to about 1mm) with the fronts still at 4.5mm, with 50/50 trunk and twisty country roads with a little weight in the back. Even with uprated pads in the 370mm brakes I still run out of brakes so I do drive hard, but while some complain that the X drive chassis understeers I never found it with the Michelins. However, with the Pirellis, like all other Pirelli's performance tyres I've used over the years across a number of cars, they don't turn in with any precision. On dry roads they do turn in but are woolly, and on wet roads they actually glide quite readily on turn in to the point where I'm a gear down on normal and turning in 2-3m earlier at 60mph just to get the front to bite where you want to - on Michelins this just isn't the case. And of course because you're having to be more aggressive at the front this then swings the back around more aggressively too. Understeer on corner entry leads to oversteer on exit if you're using the power to get the car turned through the corner effectively. The upshot of this is that in the wet the car feels unstable on these tyres, and braking performance is reduced too with very heavy braking triggering the ABS way more than I have been used to on this car in the last 60k miles. If all of this was only at 10/10ths driving then they could be forgiven but they're not. They're unimpressive, uninspiring and lacking in confidence across the breadth of metrics. They don't even wear well (unlike the also underwhelming OEM Bridgestone S001's which at least lasted to 30k miles on my car), as at 5k miles the rear tyres are down below 4mm. Very poor tyres and I suspect will be replaced after the winter (I use separate winters) rather than put back on until they're worn out. Another fail for damp and greasy British roads from Pirelli.