Summer Tires

Best tires for ultimate summer performance

Ultra-high-performance summer tires and max-performance summer tires are a step up from all-season tires. These are for driving enthusiasts who want the best pure-performing tires on wet or dry roads. They are not equipped for snow and ice at all. Ultra-high-performance and max-performance tires come in 15- to 22-inch wheel sizes. As you'd expect, they have high speed ratings and, usually, high prices. Speed ratings top out at 186 mph with ratings of W, Y or Z.

This year, the relatively affordable Continental ExtremeContact DW (*Est. $160) nabs the Best Reviewed crown from the venerable -- and expensive -- Michelin Pilot Sport PS2 (*Est. $235). The Porsche 911, Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 and other sports cars wear the Michelin tires as original equipment, but the Continental tires outshine them in some ways in head-to-head tests.

"A benchmark that is starting to show its age," TireRack.com experts say of their former favorite, the Pilot Sport PS2, as it falls to the Continental in a recent test. Fitted to a 2011 BMW 328i coupe, the Michelin feels "noticeably more responsive" on the road and clocks faster times on the dry track, but with less wet grip and a harsher ride than the Continental tires.

Similarly, the Continental ExtremeContact DW edges the Michelin Pilot Sport PS2 in owner-posted reviews at TireRack.com. Like the experts, owners like the Michelin tires slightly better on dry roads, but the Continental tires win on wet roads and for comfort and quietness. Owners give both summer tires excellent scores for tread wear, although that's not usually a big consideration with max-performance tires. The Michelin Pilot Sport PS2 carries a 20,000-mile tread-life warranty but gets a lower government tread-wear rating -- 220 versus 340 for the Continental summer tires, which have no tread-life warranty.

The DW in the name stands for dry and wet. Continental molds the letters into the tire's tread. When the W wears away, the tire has enough tread left for dry surfaces only. The ExtremeContact DW tire uses four circumferential grooves and lateral shoulder notches to channel water away, and TireRack.com says the chamfered (angled) tread-block edges in the tire's asymmetrical design make it more responsive and stable when cornering.

When About.com shoes a 2008 Ford Mustang GT with the Continental ExtremeContact DW and hits a road course for a time-attack run, the Continental tire is "the clear winner" over the Goodyear Eagle F1 and BFGoodrich g-Force tires, according to tester Jonathan Lamas. "While many tires begin to fade after several laps of hard driving, the Continental ExtremeContact tires held on to their grip," he says. "No matter what I served up (and believe me I was pretty abusive at times), the tires continued to impress."

For the ultimate in dry traction, TireRack.com experts and users recommend splurging on their favorite extreme-performance summer tires, the Bridgestone Potenza RE-11 (*Est. $220). Racy but street-legal, extreme-performance tires tend to be noisier and stiffer than max-performance tires like the Continental ExtremeContact DW. But in an expert comparison at TireRack.com, the Bridgestone Potenza RE-11 proves surprisingly quiet and comfortable and is dubbed, a "tire you can live with during day-to-day driving." Owners agree, awarding it higher scores for ride comfort and quietness than any other extreme-performance tire, along with some of the highest ratings for wet and dry performance. In the expert test, the Potenza RE-11 runs a little slower on the dry track -- 2/10 of a second behind the first-place finisher on a 1/3-mile track with right-angle corners, lane changes and simulated freeway ramps -- but it grips, brakes and handles better in the wet, making it the experts' top pick in this highest-performance category.

Again, tread wear is an afterthought in this category. The extreme-performance Bridgestone Potenza RE-11 earns an even lower government tread-wear rating (180) than the max-performance summer tires, with no tread-life warranty. However, it does get the best tread-wear ratings in its class from owners at TireRack.com.

Fuel-saving summer tires

Recently all of the major tire companies have rolled out at least one eco-tire -- a low-rolling-resistance tire designed to conserve fuel.

TireRack.com experts decided to test these tires to see if they really do save gas without scrimping on traction. They test two summer-only eco-tires -- the Yokohama dB Super E-spec (*Est. $155) and Bridgestone Ecopia EP100 (*Est. $100) -- against the Toyota Prius' original-equipment tire, the Goodyear Integrity (*Est. $90), as well as some fuel-friendly and regular all-season tires (see our All-Season Tires section for more on how those tires fared in the test).

The verdict? Efficiency-oriented summer tires from Bridgestone and Yokohama really do use less gas than the Toyota Prius' original-equipment tire -- and about 4 percent and 3 percent less, respectively, than a standard all-season tire. The eco-tires also grip wet roads much better than the original-equipment tire, although they give up some dry braking performance and cornering grip.

The Yokohama dB Super E-spec takes eco-friendliness one step further. It's made largely from orange oil, not petroleum. The orange oil is a by-product of the citrus industry and would otherwise be thrown away, Edmunds Inside Line reports. Yokohama also replaced most of the petroleum-based synthetic rubber with natural rubber for an 80 percent petroleum-free tire. Inside Line tests the orange-oil tires on a Prius and finds them "mostly fine" on an autocross course, which is much more demanding than the street use they're intended for. Yokohama is already using orange oil in some of its racing slicks as well. "If the focus on renewable tire materials continues to grow, it could result in a significant positive impact on our environment," Inside Line concludes.