Given
69%
while driving a
Audi A3 Sportback
(225/45 R17) on
a combination of roads
for 22,000
spirited miles
Before the Potenza, I had two set of Dunlop Sport Maxx, RT as OEM tire and then RT2, both great great tires, the perfect blend of sportiness and endurance, with only wet grip as weaker point. I decided yo give a chance to Bridgestone.
I've made already 35k km (22k miles) on them. The tires are quite worn, I think I could put another 5-6 k km before change.
I'll split the review into two main sections, NEW tire and WORN tire because the feedback has changed during quite two years of ownership.
NEW tire. Coming from Dunlop, the first thing I've noticed was a slightly better initial turn-in, not a huge difference however. The feedback at the steering wheel is more or less the same. But with Bridgestone the car feels more nervous; if you push hard on a curvy road you can feel the rear weaving too much. I think that's because the overall balance for the tires is front-oriented. And, for me, this is not confident inspiring.
As for the grip, on summer's hot tarmacs the dry grip was not so good. The tires feels "soapy" and too much sensitive on inflate pressure. At the OEM pressure, the tires offered very poor dry grip; reducing it of 0.2-0.3 bar, the overall feeling improved a little, but with an increase in fuel consumption. Bridgestone doesn't like hot temperatures and they need to work with low pressure. Copy-paste with Battlax S22 OEM tires I found on my bike.
WORN tire. Ageing seems to be great for Bridgestone. But I think that it's not wizardry, but just wear who has improved the tire surface in contact. With quite 40k kms and two years old, now the car is less nervous, it feels more planted. Dry grip is improved and the pressure-sensibility is reduced. Only cabin noise is getting worse, but it's directly related to wear (less rubber = noise increment).
As for wet grip, in this scenario the Potenza are phenomenal. Even now that there're worn, they've loosed nothing about grip, feedback, precision and safety. They are really a wet UHP tire!
Will I buy them again? Balancing dry and wet grip, fuel consumption (increased), road feedback, feeling, and wear the answer is NO. They are good tires, but I think that there's something better on the market. The think I really disliked was the road behaviour on dry surfaces, too nervous from new. For me there’re not a sporty tire; struggling at the wheel could be funny for someone, not for me.
Next tires will be Michelin PS 5