Hello all,

I am really close to leasing a 2004 Crossfire. Some cars at the dealership have the all season tire option. Should I stay away from those? Are those tires useful? Do they affect perormance/handling/noise?
I live in Florida where it's sunny most of the time, except for summer thunderstorms and a few hurricanes. What should I do?

Thanks

P.S. I'm also undecided about manual vs auto, and color choice...but I guess that's a question of preference and taste.

 

It depends on what you are going to do with the car. If you want to do any real performance driving get the Michelin Pilot Sport 2 tires. They even do pretty well in wet weather. If you are going to be driving in bad weather get the Conti AS tires.

As for wear I have over 11k on my Michelins and even autocrossing on an average of 2 weekends a month my tires are in very good shape and I'm pretty sure that I will get around 25 - 30k out of them..... Not too bad IMO.

 

I also live in Florida and am very happy with the Michelin PS2's I have 19,000+ miles and expect to get at least 30,000

 

i agree w/ what wes and willie said. one thing that as a lessee you may want to consider if you're intent on minimizing your maintenance costs would be to lease a car with the all season tires. as an option they add around $185 extra to MSRP, but if you drive at all conservatively they have a good shot at lasting your entire lease. they will also give you some drivability in snow or ice. on the other hand, the PS2s will very likely need to be replaced by the time you hit 39K (typical mileage of many crossfire leases). even if you replace them with a cheaper tire, you'll still be looking at close to $1K out of your pocket that the next owner of the car will get to enjoy. so with any luck, you'll pay $0 for tires with the all seasons. also, ironically, it's cheaper to replace one of the all season tires in the event of a road hazard than it would be to replace a PS2.

on the other hand if you don't want to sacrifice the least bit of dry and wet pavement handling, don't need to drive on snow or ice, and don't mind spending for replacement tires, you will be thrilled with the PS2s. i bought my Crossfire with the PS2s, but that was mostly because the dealer with lowest price i could find only had those tires. otherwise, given a choice, i'm not sure which i would have picked.

 

That is actually my problem. The dealer with the lowest price has only 3 2004s left and they all have the all season tires. I think of myself as a pretty relaxed driver. I push my car only once in while. But still, I don't want to lose a lot of performance and handling with the AS tires, especially since there's no snow or ice in Florida, last time I checked.

I guess my question is: Should I keep looking for a good price with PS2s or just go for the AS and I won't probably be able to tell the diffrerence???...

 

If you're not doing any "performance" driving... ie, autocrossing or closed course. The All Season tires will do you just fine. You more than likely won't notice any difference.

 

Concur.

 

I'd like to post my two cents here, too. I bought my Crossie in March 04 with the Continental All Season tires. They are quite good in the rain.
I have run them all this year and I will be parking the car for most of the Winter as we get a fair amount of ice and snow here. I have done a fair amount of research and I am going to try a different set next Spring. I will be parking the car on a set of PS2 Michelin tires, if they ever show up. I ordered them a week ago and will be waiting another week at last report. No, I didn't buy them online, I am beginning to wish that I had. One large factor to consider is replaceability if you should have a problem. At this point in time, I am not impressed by the availability of the PS2 in this market. Tire Rack seems to have them, everywhere else that I have shopped locally just gives me a blank stare. The local Goodyear outlets are aso the Continental outlets here, and there seems to be good availability on both brands for the Crosssie. A wordy reply, but don't forget the topic of ease of replacement in your decision.

 

I will be going with the Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-D3 tires on my next round - they are rated better in every catagory and I have a friend running them on his car...

Here are the survey ratings for max performance summer tires at tirerack.com:

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/survey...ay.jsp?type=MP