Best Tyres for the Mercedes Benz SLK 230

On a daily use: as good as any other UUHP tyre. Easy to lose grip in RWD but also easy to restore it. Not reliable in rainy conditions but good grip on a track where the tarmac is good and the tyre is heated. On a track: Easy to overheat. When overheated loses grip dramatically. With optimal temperature very reliable on corners and excellent in braking and accelerating. I expected better road feedback though. Unpleasant rollover. After 6 months, 5 events and 5 track days (and daily use) there was no rubber left. I can not recommend this tyre for competition driving on sunny days. I will buy it for my wife's car :-)

Once but never again. Initially fantastic tire, however, more and more noise during a few kilometers and even a front tire became unbalanced. Uncorrectable. Worthless. Better buy second hand a tires than these new.

Well. I’m pretty sure I reviewed these two years ago when I thought they might be near the end of their life... here we go again. These two pieces of volcanic bedrock were on the rear of my SLK230 when I bought it in 2017 and had approximately 5K and 6 months of use already on them. Fast forward to today: 26th of August 2020. Three and a half years have passed, 35000 miles have been slipped/slid/burnt/tumbled through and I’ve have my third MOT with no advisories aside from ‘worn rear tyres’. These things are made from armor-grade depleted uranium and hold in the wet as you’d expect being made from a material harder than the compressed centre of a dead star. In dry they are acceptable. In the wet they will continuously try to murder you in an admittedly progressive and slidey fashion. For the price; I’d put these on any non performance car simply because they’d outlive the driver. For any vehicle with the capacity to do 0–60 in less than an epoch I can not recommend at all.

Had these installed on my 1998 SLK 230. The car is on lowering springs and Koni yellow shocks, therefore the tyres a bit more diagonally placed. These tyres wear pretty quickly on the inside, but that has something to do with the fact that my car is lowered. So maybe I am not the right person to say anything about the wear on these tyres.

One thing I can say something about is noise, these tyres are bit noisy. After that I replaced these Bridgestones with Michelin PS2's, I noticed that those tyres were a lot quieter. The Michelins also absorb the bumps in the road far better I must say. The Michelins also seem to be more stable during high speed cornering, that doesn't that the Bridgestones handle badly, high speed stability and grip is fine. But the Michelins are better.

Overall I would recommend this tyre if you can get it cheaply. Otherwise I would recommend the Michelins.

Had these installed on my 1998 SLK 230 after my Bridgestone Turanza T001's were worn. I drove those tyres from new and I must say that these Michelins feel much better. Lower noise, better comfort. It gives the car a bit more "floaty" feel, but not in a bad way. Feedback from the tyres is good and they can cope with a pretty high cornering speed, without feeling too soft or unstable, though I must say that the Bridgestones gave better feedback during high speed cornering. But that is something these tyres aren't made for. Can't say anything about the wear yet, because I only drove them for 1000 kilometers.

My car, a 2000 Mercedes Benz SLK 230came with these tires. Staggered fitment with a wider aspect on the rear.
Overall very pleased, i rear them as a aummer tire, as i live in a desert area. Plenty hot, and dusty. Top down every chance, so road noise is negligible. I trust these tires, they give good feedback, with a little twitch. Hot summer road temps help with a sticky feel to the road.
Always buy the best tires you can afford. And don't expect more than what you pay for. For me these tires will drive.

I have these fitted to two SLK's having grown to like them on one first.
To be honest, they are not pretty, looking somewhat agricultural with tread rolling up the sidewalls a bit too much. But then that's there to aid the wet handing thing I guess so a small price to pay as in such conditions they are brilliant.
The SLK's are not a car that feeds tyre feel back to the driver much. But, as that means you have to have some faith in the tyre, by leaving it to do its thing without letting you know much about it, I've found these have given me that confidence quickly. In the wet there's little difference in the sensation of sure footedness, and far fewer flashes from the traction control indicator when pulling away firmly than previous tyres.
We like them, plus the free replacement accidental damage thing is something we've used a couple of times on other cars which is a real plus to have from Cooper Tyres.

Against all the online research I purchased a set of Toyo Proxes T1R 91W's 205/55/R16 front and 225@s for the rears. I really had my doubts but a very good friend owns a tire garage with over 40 years experience. I can't say how I doubted his advice but man o man I'm so glad I had him fit them and had the tracking tweaked. Well 10K miles under the belt and there still running so well. Awesome dry grip and on hot days they just give and give and right on the limit you just start to feel a very progressive break away, always controllable. In the wet again great, they love heavy rain, but like any good tire greasy roads take way more care, but that's common sense.
They are on a highly modified SLK, we even had a track day on them which I thought would show some short falls but again they were good, not a track tire but the odd mad day, great.
As they where cheap I thought they'd feel cheap but no no no. Comfort? If you've been using run flats, then I would have given them an easy ten but if you pay more than double the price for some so called top brands, then you may say 8 is fare, so a 9 I think is the right choice on this Merc. As they are so comfy I uprated front and rear bushes and there still super smooth, so that surely is good praise for budget money. They get a poor fuel economy rating but I have seen NO reduction in mpg what so ever and I had B rated tires before!
Would I buy again? Oh yes and in fact I have a full set of Proxes R888R on order for my summer track day wheels.

Absolute rubbish, they were already on my car when I bought it. The droning noise they made was so bad I thought a wheel bearing had gone, the steering felt dead, ride was very harsh. Replaced them at the earliest opportunity with a quality brand, the car was immediately transformed and is now a joy to drive.

Excellent in the dry, but in a light powerful RWD car in the wet, shall we say interesting.
Quite noisy on the road and the wear rate on a 140 rated tyre was spectacular, about 10000 miles for the rears and a little more for the fronts. However the car was driven with gusto so I expected a high attrition rate.
I might have bought them again but I can no longer find them in the size I require, so I opted for Pirelli Cinturato P7s, wear rated at 260 as I would like just a few more miles for my money