Given
54%
while driving a
Mercedes Benz CLS 220
(225/45 R17) on
a combination of roads
for 1,000
spirited miles
The tire is fine, and okay, however it is pretty useless in the wet. Or...even dangerous.
I have a 2016 CLS 220d, sport package. I've used it with an average 245 wide winter tire. The grip was fine, fuel was fine.
I just put these on back(the car is a fresh buy, but the rear tires had 1 season already on them)
Front tires...i've bought hankook s1 evo3.
Setup is: 255 r18 s1 evo3 fron
285 r18 Pirellies at the back.
car is fine in the dry conditions. However the back is a bit wobbly...but the car is 1800kg, so i guess its fine.
But in the wet. HORRIBLE. The rears are useless. For searching for the limits... In a wet normal road (far from filled with water, just wet) And the car was trying to driftin in a simple straight line hard acceleration. Like I'M having a drift car. Elcectronics were on so there was no problems, but what thell... its just a 400nm diesel with oversized huge rears...should be 0 issues, or some minor slipping. but not drifting.
1 week later i was having a hard corner to get on the highway. It was same wet, i was having some fu, so reached the corner with 55kph. (an average car with fine tíres could have it with 65-70 easily) I did not accelerate, just wanted to check the corner. The fronts were gripped like heaven, but the back. OMG. they lost their grip, exactly like on an icy road in the winter. I've managed to handle the unexpected huge drift/spin since im used to this; and the electronics helped as well. But it was a horrible experience... This tire cannot handle wet. this tire thinks that wet is ice. :D The loss of grip is not progressing. Its like fine-fine-okay- and once something more swift happening: instantly loses all the grip. Tire pressure is fine in all of the tires.
The Hankook fronts are like glue in the same situations. The replaced front-back 245 snow oriented winter ones were much stable as well. 285 rears on a 1.8ton car, with underpowered engine should be fairly good weapon in the corners, no matter what is the weather...
Summary: Please dont buy this crap, if you want to survive wet conditions.