AudiWorld Forums - Pirelli P Zero AS+ ; 91y

Bottom Line

Meets expectations as a summer tire, I am satisfied with performance in the dry and comfort. Too early for wear evaluation. Review applies only to this specific model .See below for reasons.

Use

I am fortunate to live in a mountainous region with twisty roads but the weather is hot and dry in the summer and cold/snowy in the winter. I use dedicated snow tires. The heat/traffic bakes the bitumen out of the tarmac in about 3 years, exposing the aggregate. Luckily the cold weather heaves the roadways enough after 4 years to need resurfacing. The rough surface causes constant and very annoying noise with some tires. The noise was the main complaint with the 19” Continental 5P OE summer tires. The 18” Michelin X-Ice are noticeably quieter and somewhat less jerky but the latter was not a real issue for me.

Most of the time the S3 stays with the traffic on suburban roads but 5-10% of the time its gets its exercise on the twisties. The limit for me is not traction but my reaction time on roads with gravel shoulders and blind corners. I have never reached traction limits except in icy conditions.

Expectations

Mainly I wanted a quieter summer tire without giving up useable performance. This seems to have happened objectively but there is a definite change in subjective feel from the Continentals . The Contis have stiff side walls which impart a very planted feeling. The Michelin winter tires are softer and less noisy but subjectively less planted on dry pavement. So far I do not miss performance feel but definitely prefer the P Zeros’ for comfort/noise. Tire Rack review is very favorable to these P Zeros, judging them the best for street use among performance tires. The difference in lap times/braking between the best, the PS4S and the P Zeros seemed too small to matter for my use. The wet performance was judged a little weaker but not a factor for me, we get 10” of rain per year.

The wear rating is 500 UTQG compared to typically 300 for the ultra-summer tires. I hope (expect?) that the P Zeros will perform well longer than the full on tire. The price is about 2/3 of the PS4S so that does not hurt even if price is not the prime consideration. I hope to get at least 20k miles of top performance but too soon to tell.

I also considered 18” wheels and had gone so far as to buy 18” rims and later sold them. Those were OE A3 , MY2003 and heavy beasts , total weight 52 # with 18” P7s. The 18” Mich. winter wheels weigh 47.8# vs 46# for the 19” Pirellis. Glad Istayed with the 19”.

There have been a number of strong but not detailed criticisms of Pirelli tires on this forum. But that can be misleading if the specific tire model and application is not made clear. I hope this post may help someone else with their choice. Opinions from other users are welcome/ appreciated.