Today, I spent the afternoon enjoying the car on some very nice and twisty roads. But as always there were some areas that had a few pot holes and very bad patch jobs that can test your nerves!

I plan to buy a set of 18" wheels, mainly for DE and summer time use. Also planning to keep the existing 17s rims for winter use. I realize that Porsche does not suggest using A/S tires ever, but here in Texas we don't have much winter weather. Today was in the 40s for the most part, and these summer tires were very greasy. Has anyone ever run A/S tires on their Cayman?

My PS2s seem to work well enough on the road in the 30s, so I haven't had an experience similar to yours. I'll be driving autocross on them tomorrow in the low to mid-40s, as I've done before. I've never considered A/S for the CS, but have ultra high performance A/S tires (an oxymoron, I think) on the M3. I think the PS2s grip as well in the cold as my A/S do, at least in the dry.

I appreciate the comments, and look forward to hearing more. I've been reading about the whole N-spec thing and while I do agree that a car that has the ability to run at 130+mph all day long (autobahn?) it should come equipped with tires that are known to work well, time after time. But my point is that we the people of the USA can't run much over 100mph for any significant time.

The M3 can go plenty fast and BMW doesn't pre-select tires that I know of. As most of us whom have pushed our Caymans to their limits of traction can hopefully agree that; the road surface, temperature's "cold or hot" and tire pressure are all factors in how the car reacts. Unfortunately for Porsche they can't over see everything, so it is left up to "we the driver". I did not intend for this to become an "N-spec" thread, I know there are plenty-o-them already. If anyone has had success running A/S tires "renegades" speak up....Please?

You may have great difficulty finding anybody and even if you do, I suspect it will be a very, very small minority.

At best an all-season tire is nothing but a compromise. By design, it cannot be as good as a performance tire nor a snow tire. They tend to do well around 30 - 40 degrees and wet.

Our weather here, while probably getting colder than TX (down around the low teens at most at night), we have little snow, in fact no more than one small storm this year. Most of the time in daytime its 30 - 60 degrees through the last 3 months. The PS2s will creak or skip and traction much poorer at 30 degrees than 70 degrees, but I'd never buy all seasons for that car.

Best of luck in finding anybody, or even anyone not running n-specs.

Well, I suppose if tire wear isn't an issue for you, you could just run N-spec winter tires e.g. Michelin PA2s, which would make a pretty good all season tire.

I don't know how they would hold up on those Texas roads during the hot summer though.

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2006 CS Tip (Daily Driver & Part-time Track Toy)
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well my Potenza's (N specs) do become somewhat greasy in the hot summer days, a halfway brake pedal would engage the ABS, kinda annoying if you ask me!

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"Sir! We're surrounded!" - "Excellent! We can shoot in any direction!"

A good car will get you from point A to point B. A great car... will just get you into trouble!

I currently run A/S tires on one of many sets of wheels that I use for different purposes on a CS. I am using the A/S tires on 17” wheels for a quiet and comfortable ride on “date night”. The tires perform exactly as I expected – quiet and comfortable, less grippy than OEM spec, but not an issue given how I drive with a passenger in the car.

Here in Houston, cold weather performance is not much of an issue, so I cannot say how the tires would do in light snow, but they are top rated at Tire Rack (Bridgestone 960 AS).

It takes me about 15 minutes to change a set of wheels in office clothes (20 minutes if I need to add or remove spacers). I think that you would need to balance your willingness to change out wheels with a realistic assessment of winter weather. I have not lived in Dallas for many years, but it seems to me that over the winter it is above 50 degrees about half the time. In those times, OEM tires would do better than A/S. Would you just be trading one frustration (worse warm day handling) for another? Only you can say, but if you are willing to change tires more than once a season, you can always get the performance you want.

Also be honest with yourself about how you drive; I never exceed 100 MPH “unexpectedly”, so I always have tires that match the mission I am on. If you are more impulsive, keep the OEM tires on, because you will never exceed their capabilities.

As a final note based on actual experience, if you use non N-spec tires, your car will NOT explode into a giant ball of flame.

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....its even SAFETY YELLOW! What could be more practical???

do u mean as in speed?? coz as I understand it, they are already Y rated, which (I think) is the highest available speed rating!




lol, nice to know

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"Sir! We're surrounded!" - "Excellent! We can shoot in any direction!"

A good car will get you from point A to point B. A great car... will just get you into trouble!

Thank you, this is what I was hoping to hear. I guess I've found myself questioning weather or not I should buy another rear set of these ContiSport2's, when I'm faced with the option to just replace all 4 with A/S tires for just a little more money.

As you said with "date night" and long weekend drives it makes me feel guilty to waste a good set of PS2's for such a thing. A/S tires would get about twice the mileage, and in temps below 50 should perform pretty close to summer only rated tire. The fact that we live in Texas pretty much 86's the idea of buying a winter tire, besides that on crappy days the Cayman becomes a garage King....