DaveB99

Well my tire nightmare is over. I am a happy camper now. $1000 lighter in the pocket – Acura rat bas__rds. Acura has handled this flat spot issue about as bad as you can get – (truly horrible corporate performance – worst I have ever experienced in anything I have ever bought!! I’ll stop ranting now)

Review of A/S Sport:

No flat spot. No flat spot. No flat spot. I had to reinforce that. It is such a pleasure to drive the car in the morning now without thump thump thump of Turanza Nylon.

Grip - is awesome. It will hang on any turn. I got it up to 70 on curvy backroads and it held no problem. Much more confident in turns than the Turanza.

Balance – I got the Sports put on by a Hunter shop. I had a little vibration at 80-90 with the Turanzas. Now – solid as a rock right up to 90MPH. Feels great.

Noise – Maybe a little noiser. Real hard to quantify this. Depends on surface. But on a real cementy highway at 75 you are going to hear them. Really about the same as Turanzas.

Feel of road - You are going to feel the bumps with these tires. You are suppose to I think because they are a performance tire. I’d say a little more feel of bumps than Turanzas.

Overall – Highly recommended.

Note on Turanza LSZ’s: I had these on the car for a 30 day trial. Do not get them if you want to cure flat spotting. They flat spot even worse than EL42’s. It is a pretty good tire once you get them hot but I would definitely give the nod to the Sports for this car. Turanzas are just not a good fit for this car. My LSZ’s vibrated at 90MPH.

svtmike

Thanks for the info, Dave. I'll be getting my Pilot A/S's early next week, but the out of pocket will "only" be $640. I can hardly wait to be rid of the Craptanzas.

Mike

gbriank

How did you get them for $640? Dealer swap? Does that include any warranty or rotation plan?

Modeler

Costco is mounting my Falken ZIEX ZE 512 right now. It's a much cheaper and very highly rated alternative to the Pilots. My total cost is $105 per tire installed (no extra taxes or fees). That's half the price of Pilots. I'm going to be reviewing these in couple of days.

9000RPM_RENAMED

Pilot Sport sidewall is too soft and the performance is not twice the cost of others. It's still a great tire but there are better alternatives.

lakeman

dulnev, Those are the same model I put on my wife's BMW. They are a very good performing and a very quiet tire.

svtmike

Local Discount Tire store offered me $50/tire trade on the EL42s. Their mounted price for the A/S is $211, so it's net $161 per tire (OK, that's $644, not $640).

Mike

KJSmitty

Congrats DaveB99!,

"Feel of road - You are going to feel the bumps with these tires. You are suppose to I think because they are a performance tire. I’d say a little more feel of bumps than Turanzas."

What tire pressure are you running?? Did you stick with the 235/45-17 size or go larger? (245 or 255?)

Post a picture if you can - whatever the tire size, I would like to see how they look in relation to the rim size. I hate how the BS's look too small for the TL rim...

Thanks

Smitty

DaveB99

235/45 17

Air pressure - I honestly don't know. I assume they went by what my door said - 32 psi.

I will call them on Monday to see what they did. I can never get an accurate reading when I put my gauge on.

Do you think I should try going lower than 32??? What whould it be like?

need4spd

Dont go lower than 32

partagas

Hah, I've posted over and over, I put the Pilot Sports on my 330i and they are way better than the Turanzas. I put Goodyear F1s on the TL. They cost $30-40 @ less and I like them even better. They are beyond the grip limits of the car and they are quieter than the PSs.

For what it's worth.

KJSmitty

I know the local shop here using the Hunter 9700 has their machine set to 32, but you never know what shops will do. I ran my A/S's at 30 psi cold thus were about 32-33 hot. I did not drive them aggressive at that pressure though. If you do more aggressive driving a cold 32 psi setting would be my min also.

Anyway, I was just curious because you said you could feel the bumps more than the Crapstone's. When the dealer installed my A/S's (04 Maxima) they set them at 40+ psi and they road very hard. 30-32 psi made a huge difference from 40 in ride quality... All tires are different, but it's amazing what 1 or 2 psi difference can do for the ride quality in some.

If able pictures would be great! I'm real close to spending the money and dropping the stock EL42's. Mine are pretty smooth at speeds less than 80 but the flat spotting is hell. This spring when the massive rains hit TX and I have issues with wet performance it will be a done deal...

As with everyone here, spending $600-$1000 dollars on tires for a brand new $35K car is quite hard to stomach. No matter what your income bracket... My guess is Acura paid less than $20 bucks a piece for the Crapstone's.

Smitty

lflorack

I've got my Pilot Sport A/S's on order as well. They should be in on Monday. With the trade-in of the (4) Bridgstone EL42's, I'm paying $150 ea -- including removal of the old tires and mounting/balancing of new. So, Acura cost me $600 -- but I'll feel much safer in our snow.

LED Master

Those who are getting trade ins on the old tire, where are you getting this from?

Hybrid

As another good source of these tires, you can special order them from Costco. For the next few weeks, Michelins are $60 off per set of four. That brings them down to $804 (plus your sales tax, if any) for the set. Mounting and balancing is included in that price. There's no shipping charge as the tires are shipped to Costco. The tires can be ordered on-line. You need to be or know a cooperative Costco member to order. The 2004 TL isn't in their database yet (or wasn't last week), so you need to search for tires by size (235/45 x 17).

Unless Tire Rack has decreased their price, the Costco deal is currently cheaper, particularly if you include mounting and balancing and the ~$60 charge for Tire Rack shipping (which may about cancel out sales tax savings, of course). Plus you don't have to find someone to mount and balance. And you don't have an $800 set of tires sitting on your front porch all day while you're at work. A Costco disadvantage would be that I don't think they'd take "trade-ins" on the EL42's, as they don't sell used tires.

DMZ

Can't wait to read your review. I've heard nothing but good things about these tires. Does Costco offer a Road Hazard Warranty on them?

lflorack

I now have the Pilot Sport A/S tires on my car. I can't speak a lot about how they are on DRY pavement yet, but I can comment on how they do in snow (we've received somewhere betwen 70 and 100 inches of tha damn stuff THIS MONTH!) and in wet conditions (salt-melted snow, of course).

The handling is excellent -- much better than the Turanzas. In snow, specifically, it's like driving a different car. When before, I felt that the car had no traction on any significant snow, the new tires perform exceptionally well for such a wide tire. During the few times I was able to actually have the tires hit the pavement, they seemed to do very well too. More whenever the snow stops here. The Michelins do produce a bit more noise. Not as bad as snow tires, but you will notice it.

Is it worth the extra noise for the extra safety and handling capabilities? You bet!

Chplummer

Hey DaveB99 I had some tire problems/alignment problems as well. Please see "Alignment off???" thread. I hope acura will do something for us. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

frqwntbyr

I traded my EL's for the Pilot Sport A/S last weekend. Guy at NTB couldn't access price on the 42's, so we both agreed to wing it. A/S's @$210 less $80 for the EL's; since I ended up at $590 out of pocket, I was OK w/that. I expect those who'll accept new OEM swaps want to pay NMT 40-50 percent of list for the tires. I know the A/S's are pricy, but I wanted the piece of mind...turns out we got nailed with ice and snow all week and I know the A/S's saved me kissing my insurance deductable goodbye at least once.