Never had WS50, but had some contenders from 90’s in Europe that could come close. Still, didn’t need purposefully keep additional distance from other cars just bcs. tires.
My winter tire musings for 23-24 - BMW 535 w/ mods
- Thread starter Craig in Canada
- Start date
Just checking in with an update....
We had a very abnormal winter due to El Nino. In hindsight I should have just run the R2s another season to use them up. I only had two short opportunities to be out with any kind of wintery conditions on the road surfaces. In both cases the grip for braking, accelerating and turning were all very, very good. I believe that braking was noticeably better than I ever had with the R2s - quite impressive actually, acceleration was on par, and I have no specific comment yet on turning performance head-to-head.
In the dry and at highway speeds they were the least compromise of any non-sport winter tires I've ever had, and were definitely the most quiet. The R2s were usually pretty quiet, but tended to be more floaty and squirmy. I will note that I had times in non-icy situations (wet, damp, dry) where I had way, WAY more understeer than on anything else I've ever had, and other situations where I had less understeer than with the R2s. I never figured out the pattern in the miles I've had so far. The R2s were always addeding understeer to the balance compared to my summer rubber but they were consistent.
There was one time where the road surface was not icy, and I was not pushing at all (driving at 3-4/10ths), and they scrubbed like crazy on an on ramp. I think I said out loud to myself, "Seriously? What?" since it was a speed I would have been easily able to maintain in SNOW with the R2s let alone clear dry/damp. It happened more than once to some degree so I figure it wasn't some kind of oil spill on that section of road. And, on a different day with similar looking conditions on the same ramp there was no issue.
So - some of the best mixed condition winter tires I've ever had (so far) with excellent highway manners but I'd like to figure out the huge variability in understeer.
We had a very abnormal winter due to El Nino. In hindsight I should have just run the R2s another season to use them up. I only had two short opportunities to be out with any kind of wintery conditions on the road surfaces. In both cases the grip for braking, accelerating and turning were all very, very good. I believe that braking was noticeably better than I ever had with the R2s - quite impressive actually, acceleration was on par, and I have no specific comment yet on turning performance head-to-head.
In the dry and at highway speeds they were the least compromise of any non-sport winter tires I've ever had, and were definitely the most quiet. The R2s were usually pretty quiet, but tended to be more floaty and squirmy. I will note that I had times in non-icy situations (wet, damp, dry) where I had way, WAY more understeer than on anything else I've ever had, and other situations where I had less understeer than with the R2s. I never figured out the pattern in the miles I've had so far. The R2s were always addeding understeer to the balance compared to my summer rubber but they were consistent.
There was one time where the road surface was not icy, and I was not pushing at all (driving at 3-4/10ths), and they scrubbed like crazy on an on ramp. I think I said out loud to myself, "Seriously? What?" since it was a speed I would have been easily able to maintain in SNOW with the R2s let alone clear dry/damp. It happened more than once to some degree so I figure it wasn't some kind of oil spill on that section of road. And, on a different day with similar looking conditions on the same ramp there was no issue.
So - some of the best mixed condition winter tires I've ever had (so far) with excellent highway manners but I'd like to figure out the huge variability in understeer.