Downgrading tires to make your drive more fun?

My 2011 Cayman came with 235/35/19 and 265/35/19 MPSS tires and has a 265hp 220 ft/lb engine. I can take corners at twice the recommended speeds and I've yet to squeal, let alone slide, a tire. That's great for the track but on the street it's pretty antiseptic, like a fricken laser beam. LOL! Someone on one of the Boxster/Cayman forums stated that the base 17" 205/235 tires are much more fun to drive on the street. In the past I would have scoffed at that statement but now it makes a lot of sense to me.  I'm considering going down to 18" UHP all season tires (DWS 06+) to try to make the car a little more lively. Looking at Tire Rack's test data it doesn't appear that the DWS would be that far off the MPS4S in slalom or braking anyway. Have any of you ever gone down this path?

Thanks,

Chris

Yes.

See: Do we like chonky boi tires?

I stuck with a 200tw tire, though, for the known quantity and track-worthiness. 

Still very happy with this setup.

I still have mixed feelings about it as a concept. I did do pretty much exactly what you're describing though, with my 981 cayman s, though with slightly different motivation. The car came to me with conti ECS from 2017 on it. They were good at first but really fell off of a cliff in the last year or so. Earlier this summer I replaced them with DWS06+. I wasn't specifically looking to lower the grip threshold, more like I figured they'd work at least as well as the trashed summer tires, while being a bit better in went and/or cold weather, and maybe last a bit longer. So far that's all been about right. They definitely don't feel quite as crisp and responsive as the summer tires were, but overall performance is still fine. They do make the car more fun, mostly just from being more predictable and working across a wider range of conditions, but I don't think the overall grip level was really reduced any (again, compared to trashed tires, not sure how they'd compare to good summer tires). Having lived with them for a few months now, I think if I had the money I'd get another set of wheels and still run summer tires in the summer and switch to the all seasons the other three seasons. But the desire isn't strong enough to justify another $2000 set of wheels or going back to summer tires full time.

The other thing I'll say is that I went down the same road, and as tempting as it is to do so, you really can't compare tire rack's testing across different tests. Especially if they were done at different times throughout the year.

Absolutely not, sketchy driving is not fun.  The limit is no place to visit in traffic.

A few days ago I had 40 minutes of white knuckles driving in to work, because 38F and raining moderately hard, on Conti ECSs that were at the wear bars a few thousand miles ago and a righteous case of Volvo "side hop".

What amuses me is unperturbable grip under any conditions, which is why I choose all wheel drive and gumball tires appropriate for the season.  Usually, anyway.  (Blizzaks have arrived yesterday)

For me, no.

But to spend thousands on new wheels and tires to make the car have less grip, hard no. 

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

There's varying extents of it. The dws is like one step below good summer tires. They're not going to be dangerous, they'll actually probably be better in a lot of cases. (After having them on my fiesta for a while I think I described them as 90% of a summer tire plus 70% of a snow tire). But also if you were hoping for them to totally kill the car's grip, you're going to be disappointed. More just take the edge off a little.

The other extreme is every now and then someone will post on the gr86 group about how they downgraded from the premium trim tires (Michelin PS4) to the base tires (some garbage economy Michelin summer tire) and how much more fun the car is. Having driven both I'd say that the car is almost intolerable on the base tires but actually pretty good on the ps4s.

Absolutely. 

I once put much wider tires on the rx8 once and although the lap times improved both on track and autocross, the steering was so numb and boring for the 95% of Street driving it did that the next set was back to normal width.

For the street I'd leave it alone. Because you've tracked the car, short of putting 185/60-15s on the car, I dont think downgrading will do it for you.  Ironically if I only tracked the Datsun (vs vintage racing) I'd dump the Hosiers for some skinny tall Avons.

I do not condone just how sketch this would be on the street when taken to the extreme. 

dps214 said:

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

There's varying extents of it. The dws is like one step below good summer tires. They're not going to be dangerous, they'll actually probably be better in a lot of cases. (After having them on my fiesta for a while I think I described them as 90% of a summer tire plus 70% of a snow tire). But also if you were hoping for them to totally kill the car's grip, you're going to be disappointed. More just take the edge off a little.

The other extreme is every now and then someone will post on the gr86 group about how they downgraded from the premium trim tires (Michelin PS4) to the base tires (some garbage economy Michelin summer tire) and how much more fun the car is. Having driven both I'd say that the car is almost intolerable on the base tires but actually pretty good on the ps4s.

Better is better, and lap times cannot be an objective, really.

I had sticky 195/50-15s on one of my RX-7s.  It tramlined and wandered like a horny dog.  Switching back to 185/70-13s was a massive performance improvement in that the car could be driven without becoming a nervous wreck after a half hour.    The short sidewalled tires were a performance downgrade.  The tires were still better than the brakes and engine power, and sticky rubber really serves to highlight the chassis' dynamic handling issues, so peak performance was much worse even if it could pull better cornering numbers on an asphalt lake.

Likewise my Volvo's summer tires are a -1 fitment.  The stock 18s feel like they have a much larger amount of unsprung weight compared to the 17s, which is probably mostly due to the tires' internal springrate.  Makes a huge difference on the lumpy frost-heave riddled roads we have.  As a bonus, 17" wheels are more likely to be round and not septadecagonal   The stock wheels are kinda wrecked, and two of them had to have cracks welded last winter, so it is a strange case of having rubberband winter tires and relatively poofy summer tires.  Fortunately almost everyone making UHP summer tires makes a 235/45-17, which is a great size for a 3200lb car.  (It's a shame it weighs 4000...)

In highschool I had an FC RX7 that was handed down to me and it was wearing several year old dried out continental all seasons. Had plenty of tread and were fine in the rain oddly. But if you approached a turn going faster than 15mph they'd start making a ruckus. Needless to say I slid through many many corners.

There was less traffic back then and the Northern Illinois roads were a bit better than they are now. Those were teenage foolish ignorance days. These days there are far too many inattentive drivers and horribly maintained roads for me to intentionally have lower grip tires.

I totally get what you're after, but the risks seem too high for me these days.

In reply to CAinCA :

I understand this, it's essentially what toyobaru did with their rwd 86 platform.  You may want to try it before you buy it if possible.

Regarding the dws06+

One of the best tire review channels out there.

wearymicrobe said:

 

https://www.youtube.com/embed/HPh90yNX-mY?rel=0

 

I do not condone just how sketch this would be on the street when taken to the extreme. 

We pondered a race series using these as the spec tire. Yes beer was involved. Lots of beer in fact. 

@OP

Get the best safest tire for the street. Get a second set for the track that performes to the level of fun you want. 

dean1484 said:

wearymicrobe said:

 

 

I do not condone just how sketch this would be on the street when taken to the extreme. 

We pondered a race series using these as the spec tire. Yes beer was involved. Lots of beer in fact. 

I would honestly like to see something like that. Takes power completely out of the equation. I have 155 tires on my 550 spyder and even with only 150ish hp on the low tune they can and will break loose at will. 

In reply to wearymicrobe :

I have 185 tires on my Gen2 Prius.   They don't and won't break loose at will. 

In reply to Gettingoldercarguy :

On the first gen and lower trim levels of the 2nd gen.

The higher trim level of each 2nd gen gets the Michelin P4. Which I still have no problem getting the car moving around in the turns.

I'll be curious to how the 245/35/18 Conti ExtremeContact Sport do when I get the new wheels on.

I went the other way, from tire shredding rubber chucking, begging for mercy 14in tires to 16in wide summer's that don't break a sweat.  It wouldn't surprise me if the car feels more nimble with narrower rims and tires.  Also smaller wheels  might weigh a bit less.  I lost 1mpg with the bigger rims and tires.  Also with higher profile tire it might ride better on bumpy roads.  

Sorry, I was in a hurry and should have been more clear. I have a couple motivations for moving to 18" wheels and tires.

1. I'd be going back to stock sized wheels and tires. The PO added the 19s and 35 series tires.
2. A lot of the roads around here are too rough for these 35 series tires.
3. These tires ride rough and are pretty noisy. I think part of that may be due to their age. 
4. SWMBO would probably enjoy going out on drives with me if it was a little quieter and more comfortable.

No matter what tire I choose I'll be making the switch back to 18s.

I also failed to mention that I have a separate set of track wheels and tires. This set would be for street use only. 
 

Tire Rack has tested the PS4S against the PSAS4 and against the DWS06+ in separate tests. If you normalize the PSAS4 numbers from each test you can get a rough idea of how the DWS06+ would stack up against the PS4S. It looks like it's only a couple percent behind the PS4S in most cases. Interestingly the PS4S was rated higher for ride and noise than the PSAS4. 

In reply to CAinCA :

This is blunt, but it's not meant to be mean or dismissive.

It sounds like you had already made your mind up and were looking for validation vs actual input on the idea. 

So, buy the 18s and DWS's and enjoy!

In reply to CAinCA :

Yeah, put the stock wheels and tires on it. It will be so much nicer to drive in every way.

SWMBO would probably enjoy going out on drives with me if it was a little quieter and more comfortable.

You don't need to say or ponder this any further.  Do the stock 18s

I specifically picked the Kumhos on my "mountain therapy" car for this exact reason.

Sporty enough to not suck but limits low enough to have fun and also just keep me in relatively in check on the street.

My only issue is these particular tires have an odd on center feel at higher speeds

Driving cars with the tires at or near the limit on the street is just stupid.  But most of us do it once in a while. Maybe more in a snowy parking lot.  But I am not going there.  My first DE event was in a 914 with 165 mega metric radials.  Learned so much about smoothness I never forgot and got really fast when the track tires went on.  No I wouldn't put donuts on a 400 hp car, but lowering the speed of traction loss can help many drivers.  I think it is an education worth considering.

For me it depends on the car and the driver.

I will say, the most fun I ever had on the street was a 1.6 miata with the cheapest 185 black-n-round all seasons, redlining every gear, 4-wheel drifting through corners, tires scratching, and barely keeping up with a mini van.