But they suck on ice too. Roads ice'd over night and I was sliding a little with the TC on and going 25 mph.

 

I didn't know that ANY tires did good on icy roads...

All we can do is keep the speed under control and drive carefully.

 

My Pirellis work fine but I doubt any tires will function well on ice

 

The Pirellis are HORRID on ice and snow. I had them on my GT for a week and they gave me NO traction on any amount of ice, snow, or sleet.

I agree that no tires do good on ice, but some tires do MUCH better than the Pirellis. I've used 4 Michelin X-Ice for 3 Maine winters and they are amazing.

 

+1 on the X-Ice! I've got them on both my Jeep and Caballero and can state with absolute conviction that they are simply the best snow tires I've ever had the opportunity to drive on.

 

Yahoo for silica in the rubber compound and lots of siping.

 

they also suck on dry...lol
cant launch with those **** tires

 

The only good thing about Pirelli tires is that wear very very fast so you can go and buy another brand!!

 

Mine did well in slippery conditions around Detroit last night. I just took off in 2nd and didn't go faster than 40 MPH. I'm probably going to park the car this winter but I am considering snow tires for the few occassions I'll be tempted to drive it during adverse conditions.

 

my mistake was putting p-zero's back on after my first set wore off

 

Yeah, they wear down in a hurry, especially if you have the tendency to shove your foot in it like some folks around here do We've always gotten good service from good years, several sets over 80k miles. One of our car came with BF Goodrich's, and 50k miles later they arent even 1/3 worn.

 

I don't see the problem. For stock all-season tires, they're not bad at all.

 

I agree with the above. Drove all last winter on them with out to much of a problem.

 

What he said.... They are all right for all-season tires, but for ice/snow driving, everyone is better off with dedicated winter tires (I like Michelin X-Ice tires a lot on my Mustang).

I was reading the book on the S197's design and Hau Tai Tang said they chose the Pirelli P Zeroes because they had very predictable grip characteristics at the limits of traction. He said they start to slip gradually, so they are safer for the average driver (like me). They considered tires with more total grip but they would grip and grip then break loose all of a sudden without warning....

 

On a road course that equates to greasy tires and completely sucks.

You can never push the tires to their max traction point cos it doesn't have one. It makes for very slow driving as you know the darn thing will slip on you, guaranteed. You get stuck driving a 6/10s or less the whole track session. The more heat cycles those Pirelli's go through the greasier the get.

For the everyday driver just putting back and forth from work or to pick up the kids, then the Pirelli's are fine, on the track... complete crap.

In the snow and Ice, they are complete crap. Last winter my tires only had like 5000 miles on 'em and I was all over the place and couldn't drive up the simplest of hills with fresh snow on it.

As soon as I kill these pirelli's I'm going to get Bridgestone Potenzas. Had 'em on my last car and they were awesome track tires as well as heavy rain and light snow capable.

 

My Pirelli's just suck on oil spills. Drive throught 20 barrells of spilled Crisco is just horrid with these tires.

 

Alot of that also has to do with the profile of the tire, tires with rounded edges vs a flat edge are also better at communicating the limits of adhesion (progressivity) by making a squealing noise rather than just slipping right out from under you. In a cheap tire you probably get one or the other, but in more expensive tires, good grip and progressive handling are not mutually exclusive (see Michelin PS2s)

 

my Falkens do well on the icy streets of Los Angeles...

 

I forgot to add this to this original post. But I really want to get new tires. The stock P's suck so much, that when accelerating hard, they wont stay planted. You can feel the car move back and forth in the rear a little. It's almost scary. I'm sure if I was on the wrong road, and I did it, the rear end would compltley slide out.

 

I'm sure cost had a lot to do with the stock tire choice by Ford as well. Ford wanted a tire that:

• did not cost too much
• would not be the cause of lawsuits from average joes crashing their Mustangs (sudden loss of control from the tires suddenly losing grip)
• has decent NVH characteristics
• has decent dry traction
• has decent wet traction
• has good tire wear characteristics for the average driver

So it had to be a compromise-- an all around tire for the average driver. Now for more focused applications, like race track or winter driving, there are definitely tires that peform better but cost more, or are noisier, or wear faster , etc.