dwboston

So far so good - the ride is really nice compared to the Pirellis. No issues with vibration, which I'm pretty sensitive to - my wife has a GL550 with the 21" AMG wheels and those are a bitch to balance. The DWS06 were road force balanced by the installer.

Baloo588

Well thats great news to hear! Maybe I will consider those tires for my 2012 A8L with 20 inch rims. I currently have the Michelin Pilot Sport AS3 and they are great tires but a bit firm for the car and I went with 255/45R20 and that has hurt my gas mileage and it dropped form 26-27 highway to 24 mpg due to larger size and currently on the 19 inch winters with the proper tire size 255/45R19 and the MPG went back up. I may even consider the 245/45R20 Pirelli Cinturato P7 Plus which have a longer tread wear but now the DWS 06 may be the next choice for me. Thanks!

MP4.2+6.0

FWIW, no issues with the DWS 06's I am overwintering with. Also 275/40-20 and I have now done a few thousand miles on them, both temperate SF Bay Area and Sierra cold and snow/ice. I went for my standard $20-25 a wheel mount with extra super duper, high falutin' computerized spin balance at Mike's Tire and Wheels. Fits me in between the Chevy pickups and the Asian low $ stuff. No lie. Same no issues with the DW's in 20's or the OE's in 21 Dunlops. All Audi D4 OE wheels.

Baloo588

Hey so I wonder if you do road force balancing especially for your Audi? They make a big difference and I couldn't fathom doing a simple dynamic balance again but u mentioned Chevy and low Asian car? So does that means you just do basic dynamic balance for those cars only or? I wouldn't blame you but road force has made my cars much smoother overall. Then again you are probably one of the wiser one on this board and gave me good tips so I assume you do it.

MP4.2+6.0

Nope, I don't do it, consciously so. Post was tongue in cheek but serious. Never needed to. I know what it is, and even grew up in waning days of tire shaving as an option in some high volume specialty places pre-Tire Rack. Thus to me, the tire connects to the wheel...sort of like the footbone connects to the legbone... But, I start with quality OE wheels (if not still the originals) and quality tires. Since I have gone between summer and winter set ups for last 15 years, I have a chance to inspect all four wheels and tires twice a year, or mostly once as I pull them off and clean up for next rotation back on. Also get them rebalanced customarily about midlife, whether I notice anything or not. D3 and D4 wheels of choice have also been the higher end forged Fuchs design ones. Back when Dunlops came with the dots telling the installer how to line them up with the valve stem, I pushed shop to sync those up; actually got dealer to do it on delivery of my 2000 A6 4.2 when the factory failed to--or some test drive spun them. Once in a while if I see a lot of tape weights going on, I'll discuss further and maybe tire gets moved some on rim akin to simplified force balancing. Or, on examination you find wheel is bent/out of true. Shop is small enough and I do most all my tire mounts there to where I can chat it up with the guy doing the work.

Car perfectly smooth. Since I got it with 3200 miles from the 75 year old first owner, I don't think it hardly even got aired out. Same consistently smooth experience with W12 for 100K, delivered CPO at 15K with fresh (new) Dunlop SportMaxx's. And having driven W12, about as smooth as it gets driveline wise. All problems with anything over that 100K were always ultimately suspension or balance over time. On D3 (or 4) design specifically, the ones that lingered and took several go's and attempted fixes to sort were ultimately upper control arms, including things you might guess were a rotor issue since they happened only with braking. Also, since I literally rotate out tire sets themselves and sometimes one set is new and freshly mounted (like DWS06's were), I have literally just before and just after A:B comparisons so can easily deduce if something seems odd ride or balance wise that wasn't there immediately preceding. Probably one of the few guys who adjusted the rack tightness on virtually every Audi I owned, including D3; can sometimes deal with steering wheel feel, some vibrations, and crispness. Since that is now electric though, I guess end of the line there on both D4 S8 and the Q5.

On preceding Audis, same basic story--or knocked up alignment or a bent wheel or two. Did have the road force work done once on 2000 4.2 with fresh OE wheels and tires; frankly felt just the same. Literally about 750K personal miles on Audis and another 500K plus by family on other Audis, been though or maintained probably a several dozen sets of tires. A handful of bubbles over the years, maybe 15 or 20 flat fixes (and one full on freeway shred with catastrophic pre TPMS failure). Rest basically suspension, wheel bearings, long term (100K +) CV joints, and basic balance maintenance as the tread wears. And one set of Pirellis...per some of the thread mentions...that turned rapidly into howlers I had bought used basically to get the OE polished wheels--the old fat 5's. Offed those tires after my ears couldn't stand it any more for some decent summers.

Baloo588

Interesting..... I cannot say the same unfortunately and I have met alot of people online and in person that will say road force balancing is the state of the art and best thing now days.. I do 28k miles a year and we have 4 cars in our family totaling about 80k miles a year. I get all our tires from tirerack and have them installed at our tirerack recommended installer with the hunter machine for the past 10 years. I am FED up with the pathetic basic dynamic balancing because I would get vibration majority of the time and had to get them road force at a proper place and find that 1 or 2 tire is excessive road force. In the past 10 years, I would say I had about 8 sets that were out of round or had at least 1-2 tire that was more than 10 to 15 lbs road force NOT even a regular balancer could detect. I had to either replace it or have the road force machine help the tech align it better with my OEM wheels. All of our cars had 18 to 20 inch rims and low profile tires. This is nothing like the 1990s or early 2000s with smaller rims of course haha. So i had to bite the bullet and go with road force from the beginning to get a good tire/wheel set with optimal matching of the tire to rim to get below 10 lbs. Then I would just do regular dynamic balancing routinely every 10k miles till tires were worn out and start again. Most of the tire sets of 4 from tirerack were very good but a few of them were bad like the new Michelin pilot sport as3 plus that had more than 25 lbs of road force average that would shake my A8 around 75 mph. It was totally BS and unacceptable. We got it down to 15 lbs road force on some wheels and below 10 on other but still not smooth. So I had to use that as PROOF that my tires were defective and tirerack took them back and refund 100% and I went with the previous version Pilot Sport As3 (non-plus) and the car was super glass smooth with all wheels/tires below 10 lbs.

I find hunter road force to be the BEST machine to match the tire to rim and get the perfect optimal set that will last lifetime of the tire. It gives me peace of mind, smooth ride, and longer lasting tires without issues compared to dynamic balancing. HECK, my 2012 BMW 5 had all 4 defective tires and our 2013 Mercedes ML350 had 3 defective tire and I had to have dealer road force and make sure what their numbers where and I had vibrations so I couldn't accept average run out. They both replace the tires and both cars were smooth below 10 lbs road force.. Hence my point is that road force has proven itself to me and I cannot do without it unfortunately.

Your experience is very unusual however but I consider you lucky. Did you recall another A8L owner with non-ohm tires complaining that his A8 vibration because all the tires were not good run out? Alot of us are sensitive so hence road force is necessary. At the end you have given me good advice and guidance about my 2012 A8L with 125k miles in terms of the suspension work and so far its running great! I plan to replace the front 2 air struts with OEM ones this fall.

drwdds

2015 A8L 3.0 with 25,000. Have been doing a lot of online research about replacement tires as original equipment 265/40/20's Pirelli's were starting to get noisy. Hit 2X4 on turnpike at 85 and put a large gash in the right front which sent me to my tire guy the next day. Debated on the larger Conti's but opted for the new noise-cancelling Pirelli's. Arrived the next day and have been absolutely amazed at the difference in noise level and ride quality. Will be watching for how much mileage we'll get out of these, but for now, am a big fan of the new tire.

dwboston

And just to confirm our senior member MP4.2+6.0's point upthread on the speedometer with 275/40/20 tires, I checked to and from work yesterday with the GPS Test app on my phone and the speedometer is spot on with these tires.

I hope no one thinks I'm criticizing their choice of tires if they stick with the OEM Pirellis. I drove on them for a month before making the change (forced due to a gash in the sidewall of the front passenger tire). They had decent tread life left, but they just felt kind of vague and floaty to me on the highway at speed. The DWS06 definitely feel more stable - we'll see how they do over time. I've never been a huge fan of Continentals - the stock ones on my A6 wore quickly and were awful in light snow. It would be nice if Michelin could produce something in this size. If never had a complaint with a Michelin tire, beyond price. I'm running the Michelin Premier A/S on the A6 and while not the sportiest tire out there, it's been great in all weather conditions.

Baloo588

There is a new tire AS3 N-spec on tirerack in size 275/40R20!

https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires...XLN0&tab=Specs

I plan to get these when my current AS3 wears out.

Kevin_33

I have the 26/45/20 Goodyear's, had them for over a year now with 12,000 miles and are happy with the wear and noise. looks like I can get another 12-15k and have been on the look out for a better quitter tire. Not sure how much better the AS3 can be, but it is the tire that I want to get. Not too concerned with cold weather, being in CA.