I replaced my 4 Pirelli Corsas of my Evora S and have been running the new Michelin PS4s for a week now. I went a notch wider on both front and rear (245/35/19 and 285/30/20) to compensate for the fact that the PS4s is a less aggressive tire than the Corsa (the PS4s is more comparable to the Pirelli P Zero). As there is limited information on these new tires installed on an Evora S, I thought this little write-up would be useful. If you want to know the bottom line, well go the bottom line of my post.
On the first drive, what’s striking is how comfortable the PS4s are compared to the Corsas. I didn’t find the Corsas so bad but the PS4s reduce a lot the vibration on rough pavement and make street driving quite smooth. Plus the road noise is much lower, almost quiet. Unlike the Corsas that tend to carve into the asphalt with a lot of kickback, the PS4s behave much better on imperfect roads like we have in Toronto. But then I got worried that they might be too soft and I would lose the magic of the Lotus handling…not a chance, but there is a compromise.
In selecting a replacement for the Corsas, I thought that what was important was the traction in general, especially the rear wheels. The PS4s have plenty of traction and the wider tires feel quite planted. The compromise is not the traction but rather the rigidity of the sidewalls in general, especially the front wheels. For 90% of my daily driving time this week, I got the benefit of a smoother ride without any compromise on traction and handling. The steering feel is a bit more filtered in a good way as it removes the bad parts (kickbacks, rough pavement, …) without losing much on the good parts. All good. But under aggressive cornering or hard acceleration, although traction is still there, I can feel the tires flexing while the Corsas would never give a hint of the g-force. For example, on a 270 degree ramp, the Corsas feel that they would never let go no matter how fast I go. With the PS4s, the tires are flexing which increases the roll and made me nervous at first as I thought I was losing traction…nope, traction was still good. Interestingly, although they flex more under load than the Corsas, I couldn’t make them understeer (within reason on legal streets), something that was not that hard to do with my Corsas even when they were new! Thanks to the extra width? At the rear, the softer sidewalls translate into a bit of squatting at the back under hard acceleration, something the Corsas would never do.
To make the sidewalls harder, I’ll be trying to increase the tire pressure by a couple of PSI and see if it helps. Talking about tire pressure, I noticed that it tends to increase by 3 or 4 psi after only 10 minutes of regular city driving vs about 2 psi with my previous Corsas (current outdoor temperature here is between 10 and 20 C) ... does it mean they get warmer faster?
My next step is to further explore the traction limits of the PS4s on the track, which is scheduled at the end of the month. I’ll report back at that time but I suspect this is where I’ll see the biggest compromise with the Corsas.
Other pluses for the PS4s over the Corsas include:
- Wet: I haven’t driven the car in the rain but another strength of the PS4 is supposed to be superior traction in the wet, something the Corsas are not good at.
- Cost: Here in Canada, the PS4s are about half the price of the Corsas and will last at least twice as long so this is a factor of 4+.
- Look: It’s odd to talk about the look of a tire but the PS4s have beautiful sidewalls highlighted with velvet finish to add some contrast. Because I went wider with the same profile, they are only a notch taller than OEM but they look much bigger from a side view, nicely filling the gaps with the fenders (see pics below).
Bottom line, except for aggressive corners, the PS4s is certainly a better tire for daily driving than the Corsas as it provides extra benefits without losing the magic handling and steering. For aggressive corners, is it a matter of progressively gaining confidence that the car won’t break lose when the tires start flexing or is it the limit of these tires? I hope it’s the former (because I like aggressive corners!) More to come after my next track day.
Note to self: make an appointment for an alignment as my new tires are wider and taller.