Michelin backorders in Canada, mixing PS4 and PS4S?

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Apr 6, 2006
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Toronto-ish, Canada
I guess this falls in the WWYD category.

In Canada, there seems to be a major Michelin supply chain issue. I run PS4S as summer tires on my BMW F10 and my rears are nearly down to the wear bars. Mid-winter I started working on getting a pair with no luck. I "had" to put the summer tires back on the car yesterday because we're expecting some high 60s weather over the next few weeks and I'm not going to punish my Hakka R2s like that.

I've been told 4-6 weeks before there's INFORMATION (not tires). Looking online, it seems like there might be no problem getting PS4S in the US so I'm considering making a trip cross border. Anyone recommend a good tire shop near 14034 (Niagara Falls, NY) that would work with a cross-border shopper on a weekend for cash-and-carry (not mounted, unless they have a Hunter Road Force balancing machine)? (if recommendations are allowed in this forum).

It seems like I can get PS4 (non-S) star-spec tires in country. They're very close in performance, but not identical. I am never a tire-mixer, but I wonder about putting a pair of PS4 on the rear with existing PS4S up front. I'm also thinking about getting a set of 4 PS4, but that looks like it will run $2500 including disposing of two perfectly good PS4S tires just to get a matching set, which rubs me the wrong way.

In general my sport package BMWs have gone through two sets of rears for every set of fronts when running UHP summer rubber, so this is par for the course.
 
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If there's two tires being close - these are. PS4S is a little
bit better on dry roads, while PS4 is a tad better on wet.
Wet performance on a RWD BMW is particularly important
on rear. For these reasons, if I where you, I'd give it a try.
.
 
EDIT: forgot to mention in my original post.

AWD with transfer case. Rolling radius of PS4 vs PS4S and transfer case life. Granted, my fronts are 6/32" and rears 2/32" so it's not like they're identical already.... I'll see if I can find the detailed spec sheets for my size (245/40/19) and see if the specs at least list a ~1% difference in diameter. Of course reality doesn't always match specs...
 
Anyone know the difference between Michelin SKU 56296 and 11347? Both show as PS4 non-S non-runflat BMW-spec. Costco shows both, and some locations have some of one SKU or the other in stock.
 
If there's two tires being close - these are. PS4S is a little
bit better on dry roads, while PS4 is a tad better on wet.
Wet performance on a RWD BMW is particularly important
on rear. For these reasons, if I where you, I'd give it a try.



Anyone know the difference between Michelin SKU 56296 and 11347? Both show as PS4 non-S non-runflat BMW-spec. Costco shows both, and some locations have some of one SKU or the other in stock.

See tirerack.com for details (tread depth, actual tread width etc.).
.
 
Found that this was not just a Canada problem. Some US retailers made no indication they could not get stock until they tried to fill an order. One described the appearance in their system as if the PS4S was discontinued. I'm surprised I haven't come across any other discussion of this if it is North America or World wide.

Found that Tirerack does actually ship to Canada (last time I checked they did not, but that was not recently) and had stock of what I need. They ship UPS with pre-paid customs brokerage and tax so everything was known up front. The overhead for this (shipping + customs) stings but was acceptable in these circumstances. A pair of PS4S is scheduled to arrive Thursday.
 
EDIT: forgot to mention in my original post.

AWD with transfer case. Rolling radius of PS4 vs PS4S and transfer case life. Granted, my fronts are 6/32" and rears 2/32" so it's not like they're identical already.... I'll see if I can find the detailed spec sheets for my size (245/40/19) and see if the specs at least list a ~1% difference in diameter. Of course reality doesn't always match specs...
oof, you had me at AWD. Supposedly these newer BMW transfer cases are extremely sensitive. @mightymousetech can probably advise further.
 
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