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Michelin Primacy 4 or Pilot Sport 4


Rich
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The Lexus tyres don't have much tread left, between 2.8-4mm (according to Lexus) with an average of 3mm. They'll probably last until the winter tyres go on but now we're not doing as much mileage I might replace them anyway.

 

Looked at Hankook (what's on there now) and Uniroyal, they work out between £80-£90 a tyre fitted. Costco are doing an offer where we can get a £50 voucher back on Michelin tyres.

 

The Primacy 4 is fairly new so doesn't have many reviews but some don't sound great. They would be £102 each fitted not including the voucher so the equivalent of £89. The PS4 would be the equivalent of £97 a tyre. They have much better reviews but some say they're very hard and don't last long. Although Uniroyal would only do 10k miles on the front anyway.

 

Anyone used either of these tyres before, would you recommend them? Or should I just get the Uniroyal and save the extra £40-£60 over the Michelin's?

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I tried the PS4's last year and in spite of what other folk say about them I'm afraid to say I was rather underwhelmed.  Sure they had great grip wet and dry, but steering feedback was not at all reassuring and they seemed quite fragile - lost both fronts to potholes/kerb within 3 months. OK, my driving style is "sporting" :ph34r:  and people of a gentler disposition might find them better, but since they're called Pilot SPORT 4's I expected them to live up to that. This year I went back to Nokian Z-lines and can't stop grinning when I drive  :thumbsup_anim:

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I tried the PS4's last year and in spite of what other folk say about them I'm afraid to say I was rather underwhelmed. Sure they had great grip wet and dry, but steering feedback was not at all reassuring and they seemed quite fragile - lost both fronts to potholes/kerb within 3 months. OK, my driving style is "sporting" :ph34r: and people of a gentler disposition might find them better, but since they're called Pilot SPORT 4's I expected them to live up to that. This year I went back to Nokian Z-lines and can't stop grinning when I drive :thumbsup_anim:

Thanks for the review, seems to echo some others I've read.

 

I think I'll wait until next year before replacing them and see if the Primacy 4 get any more reviews. Or something better might come out by then.

 

If the Uniroyal were a bit cheaper and didn't wear so quickly I'd get those. I'd also consider the Falkens if they didn't puncture so easily, I've had a few with nails in them now!

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  • 4 weeks later...

I've got the primacy 4 on my Octavia and I'm quite impressed.

Lots of grip and very quiet. Very sensitive to tyre pressure though. Mine were over inflated by 1 psi at the shop and they were skittish at high speed. Dropped just 1 psi and it was amazingly different. 

Not done enough miles to comment on the wear rate or the wet weather ability really (Will it ever rain again?) But generally much prefer to the falkens they replaced which I never quite got on with.

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Thanks for the feedback. I'm going to wait until next year now before getting them as we've hardly used the car these last few months.

What Falkens did you have? I have the 452 on my Accord and we had them on our Civic. I think they're ok but I won't get them again as they puncture very easily!

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I fitted 4 Primacy 4 to our Prius , it only really needed two the rears still had 4mm left but i figured due to the £50 I would go for a set . The wife is thrilled the ride is much much better and road noise reduced , they seem to be fine grip wise but this is isnt the car to fun to play in

 

Not noticed any drastic change to economy and too soon to see how they will wear  

 

Dont regret them one bit , we have 17" wheels and the OEM tyres were Bridgestones- Potenzas i think 

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10 hours ago, goatboy said:

I've got the primacy 4 on my Octavia and I'm quite impressed.

Lots of grip and very quiet. Very sensitive to tyre pressure though. Mine were over inflated by 1 psi at the shop and they were skittish at high speed. Dropped just 1 psi and it was amazingly different. 

Not done enough miles to comment on the wear rate or the wet weather ability really (Will it ever rain again?) But generally much prefer to the falkens they replaced which I never quite got on with.

I'm really struggling with this. I've always thought that setting tyre pressures for varied road use is not an exact science, since the actual pressure achieved while driving is subject to so many environmental variables. I have tyre pressure sensors on my car that output to a dashboard display so that I know what pressure is in each individual tyre while I'm driving. The pressure variation during a journey can be quite large. Yesterday for example when I took the car out of the garage, the tyres that had been on the cool side of the garage were showing 37 psi. The tyres on the other side were showing 38 psi. By the time I had driven a few hundred yards, all the tyres were showing 38 psi. I drove about 6 miles to a public car park and when I stopped, three of my tyres were showing 40 psi while the rear tyre on the shaded side of the car was showing 39 psi. There were similar variations on the way home.

I can't say that I noticed any significant difference in the handling of the vehicle but I was driving quite gently on speed restricted rural roads. I do find it quite difficult to see how 1 psi in setting up can make such a difference when  the environmental "noise" due to temperature effects can cause pressure changes that are much bigger than 1 psi.

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2 minutes ago, Sagitar said:

I'm really struggling with this. I've always thought that setting tyre pressures for varied road use is not an exact science, since the actual pressure achieved while driving is subject to so many environmental variables. I have tyre pressure sensors on my car that output to a dashboard display so that I know what pressure is in each individual tyre while I'm driving. The pressure variation during a journey can be quite large. Yesterday for example when I took the car out of the garage, the tyres that had been on the cool side of the garage were showing 37 psi. The tyres on the other side were showing 38 psi. By the time I had driven a few hundred yards, all the tyres were showing 38 psi. I drove about 6 miles to a public car park and when I stopped, three of my tyres were showing 40 psi while the rear tyre on the shaded side of the car was showing 39 psi. There were similar variations on the way home.

I can't say that I noticed any significant difference in the handling of the vehicle but I was driving quite gently on speed restricted rural roads. I do find it quite difficult to see how 1 psi in setting up can make such a difference when  the environmental "noise" due to temperature effects can cause pressure changes that are much bigger than 1 psi.

You are partly right. I quoted 1psi and it was actually 0.1 bar. Which is 1.5psi!

Joking aside. I was surprised too. The 1st long journey I took the steering was far too sensitive and skittish at speed. This is a car I have had for 5 years so I am very used to how it drives. I was expecting the tyres to be 5-10 psi too high. I doubted myself when they only needed deflating 0.1bar but it was day and night difference. Hence why I mentioned it.

I also used to have a car with the pressure monitors and I noted how much the pressure went down in winter, mpg with it...

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3 hours ago, Tony said:

That's why nitrogen is the only way forward when it comes to inflation. As for tyre noise it's the road surface that generates the harmonics.

You and I have discussed this before Tony and I can only repeat that the nitrogen issue is a big red herring. Both air and nitrogen are perfect gases and if you substitute one for the other in the gas equations you get exactly the same answer when looking at the relationship of temperature and pressure for gas in a closed vessel.

The perceived differences arise because nitrogen is generated and stored in a way that does not allow water to contaminate the gas. Whereas the gas  that is used to inflate road car tyres is generally just atmospheric "air" that has been passed through a compressor. The stuff that we breathe is not pure, dry air, but a mixture of air with some small quantities of other gases such as carbon dioxide, but most significantly with a variable quantity of water vapour present.  Compressing atmospheric air gets rid of quite a lot of the water (watch the maintenance routine on a compressor and it's not unusual to see several litres of water drained from the receiver) but some of it gets through to our tyres. Water vapour is not a perfect gas and a tyre with a significant amount of water vapour present will give a greater change of pressure for a fixed change of temperature.

But, but, but, although the change of pressure for a fixed change of temperature is less in a nitrogen filled tyre, it is not true to say that there is no change of pressure at all. Given how difficult it is to completely fill a tyre with nitrogen and to maintain it in that state, I have grave doubts whether it is worth the hassle for normal road use. 

I am surprised that the nitrogen red-herring is still swimming. Practical Motoring did an item on it two or three years ago called something like "Should I put nitrogen in my tyres" . Their answer was a pretty resounding "no" and they challenged the other side to answer their arguments. I don't think anyone did.

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Currently we generate a vacuum before inflating which is a solid step forward from the past air/ water/ nitrogen mix. F1 and aircraft use nitrogen are they also buying into fools gold?.... I've also read F1 use a corrosive form of nitrogen is that true?

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4 hours ago, Tony said:

Currently we generate a vacuum before inflating which is a solid step forward from the past air/ water/ nitrogen mix. F1 and aircraft use nitrogen are they also buying into fools gold?.... I've also read F1 use a corrosive form of nitrogen is that true?

Nitrogen makes complete sense for F1 cars and aeroplanes, but until I have an F1 car or an aeroplane in my garage, I'll not be bothering with Nitrogen . . . . . :-)

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I don't understand?.... F1 and aircraft use nitrogen for stability and yet for cars it's deemed worthless.

I know the Vayron uses nitrogen but this form is corrosive resulting in new wheels for every third set of tyres. To me this doesn't make sense because i would think the nitrogen is time dependant rather than tyre dependant.

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1 hour ago, Tony said:

I don't understand?.... F1 and aircraft use nitrogen for stability and yet for cars it's deemed worthless.

I know the Vayron uses nitrogen but this form is corrosive resulting in new wheels for every third set of tyres. To me this doesn't make sense because i would think the nitrogen is time dependant rather than tyre dependant.

F1 and aircraft use nitrogen because it is dry and inert. They both operate at the extremes of performance and this makes even marginal advantage worth while. There is no similar benefit for my daily drive.

The only explanation that I have seen for the early wheel changes on the Veyron is that the tyres are glued to the rims and they will not re-glue more than a small number of times. I don't know of any corrosive form on nitrogen. I worked in a hydraulics laboratory for a time where we used bottled nitrogen for every gas inflation task (because it's dry and inert). I never saw it corrode anything.

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