Anonther tire question - I have Continental

265/35 ZR19 (94Y) Sport Contact 2 tires on the rear and like tires on front. I have 14,000 miles on my 2008 Cayman S and will need rear tires soon. Can I put a tire from a different manufacturer on the rear and keep my existing front Continental's? Have about 5K more miles to go on fronts. Also I would like to soften the ride a bit - any tires you recommend? Thanks, Bob.

It's not recommended to mix different brands of tires as handling characterists differ from tire to tire. You also won't likely be able to get Sport Contact 2's any more. Two years ago, I did run Sport Contact 2's on the front and 3's on the back as the 2's were no longer available and had no problem with those as both have a very similar design.

I think about the only way to get a softer ride is to go with 18" wheels so you have more sidewall to cushion rough parts of the road.

What you say is true. The F/R handling balance will change if you mix tires. But ditto mixing old and new of the same tire.

It also makes a difference how you drive. Drive at 40% like most folks? Then who cares? Drive at 80% or on track? Might make a big difference.

There will be no first -order troubles. But the break-away characteristics will differ, simple as that.

Grant

Minus 40 degrees... Is that Fahrenheit or Celsius?

is exactly what when compared to the amplitude of putting new tires with differing tread depths axle to axle? Under what conditions does a difference exist? Wet, deep wet, cornering at what speed on what surface? Where is the comparative data to back our opinions? My guess is it doesn't exist.

So my opinions...

With 19" rims, you are stuck because of the need for that rigid sidewall to keep the road from intruding into your rims.

But you still have choices....made more expensive because of the rims you have leads to expensive tire sizes...

1. Get 4 cheaper tires now. Ignore the N rating but get some that others recommend in your tire size.

2. Replace only the rears with something similar in tread design to what you have up front.

3. Replace all 4 with expensive but not N rated

4. Or go most expensive and replace all 4 with N-rated.

5. Get an alignment too from someone who really knows the car and who knows how to set up for the best wear for your kind of driving.

I'll confess I did the most expensive and then sold the car 500 miles later. So sometimes the right move isn't right after all...or maybe it was as the car sold quickly.

but as long as the tire is tracking closely to the vehicle's direction, I'd say that's ok, and what I interpret as grant's "first order troubles." I interpreted "break-away" as a bigger trouble of sorts, i.e. of the "second order." Anyway, I was just going along with grant's exposition, and expressing my own notion that everything matters in a big or small way. Deus est in singula.

Minus 40 degrees... Is that Fahrenheit or Celsius?