Owners broadly agree the Michelin Pilot Sport 4 S delivers standout dry and wet grip, with over half mentioning strong dry traction and nearly half praising its wet confidence. Comfort is also a common plus for a max-performance tire, though noise is more mixed, with a noticeable minority finding it loud. Longevity gets a more divided reception: many report solid tread life, but around one in eight complain about faster wear or uneven wear, and a smaller group say performance drops off as it wears. A further recurring criticism is a soft sidewall feel, with around one in ten owners reporting less support or precision than expected.
What owners mention most counted across 154 reviews
I switch from Dunlop Sport Max 050 which come from my Lexus GS 200t when I brought my car one year ago. The Dunlop one after 10,000km become slippy when wet and noisy, just right after the switching, thr passengers also noticed the breaking distance is much less, at least 2m shorter than Dunlop, also the handling and grip are excellent, the car now stick to the road which provide confidence and I can drive faster with low noise. I like this tire very much.
Have it for around 2 year now. I have fitted PSS and cup 2 before.
The tires were ok initially.
Dry performance was not as good as PSS. Feels a bit weird on extreme driving.
Wet performance is better than PSS and cup 2.
However, after around 8000km of driving, the performance of the tires drop drastically.
For the next set of tires, if I am looking for longavity, I will go back to PSS. Will go back to cup 2 if looking for out right extreme performance types.
Which tires do you drive?
Researching the Michelin Pilot Sport 4 S? Rate the tires you actually drive - and help the next buyer choose.
This tire is a revelation! My XF never did feel quite right of Dunlop Sport Maxx tires, these are totally different. Responsive, excellent road feel, much quieter than the Dunlops, good fuel consumption.
grip in wet and sub zero T conditions is phenomenal. quite predictable. lightweight. road feedback is not as direct as expected. relatively soft sidewall. comfy ride
I am not a dear friend of these tires, not even at gunpoint.
On race tracks or on roads that have the surface of a good racetrack, these tires are very good both wet and dry, the grip is very good in turns, the handling and response is way up there with the very best tires.
In fact the category of grip in turns is at the level of scaring the gee-bees out of me.
However, even on racetracks I have a little issue with the direction stability both in straights and turns, these tires have a tendency to make their own choices where they want to go when they hit something that is not totally flat.
Out on normal roads these tires loose big time with me, as others have stated here, they do make the car bounce around and ruin the stability of the ride, it is jerky.
When I hit bumps or irregularity on the road the car reacts with instability and sometimes shakes and jumps around, the car needs constant corrections and in high speeds there is no room for mistakes.
Compared to my OEM tires it is extremely little difference in feel handling and response but I did prefer my OEM tires, they had that little edge and they certainly did not bounce around and loose stability like the Michelin's.
Despite the very good grip, I give dry and wet grip only 7 points because of the bouncing and loss of stability, without that problem it would be easily maximum 10 points.
Not for me, not for my cars, there are better tires with more complete performance for normal roads and on track-days there are real race tires that will do the job better.
I have to say, I believed the hype around these tires. I changes from sport contact 6 to these and I'm disappointed.
At slow speeds they are good, Comfortable and the starting is noticeably lighter, but that's whhe positivity ends I'm afraid.
At speed the tire is less responsive than the contact 6 and feels like the tire wall has a lot more give/flex. When the tire actually grips under moderate acceleration it kind of upsets the whole stability of the car. It's hard to describe what I mean by that to be honest. The grip while cornering and acceleration at the same time is not solid, firm and smooth like the contact 6, it's jerky.
My advise would be although the contact 6 will not last you long as maybe the PS4S will, it's a better tire and the OEM tire of choice for a reason.
Second thoughts after my initial review... starting to get disappointed a little bit.
The tire excells at slow - medium speed corners on low grip surfaces (either wet or low grip dry - old tarmac, very often met in Greece)
But the sidewalls are weak at high speeds (>120 kph)
The car is bounching - swaying upon the tires midcorner and the steering feels soft during sudden direction changes.
I really miss the "stiff" - "direct" feel of bridgestones.
I changed wheels to 19 inch genuine 361 rims with PS4S on my BMW M240i.
Totally different car, no tire shiver under full acceleration,
huge levels of grip, great lateral strength in side walls allowing
great handling through the corners, comfortable ride & different car when overtaking at high speed.
I had a 135i with P Zero tires on last car which were pretty good but these tires are on another level should also be great on a 135.
Member
Renault
235/35 R19 W
700 miles
Mostly Country Roads
Spirited
I have already used them for 1000km on dry and wet (fast driving - b roads).
Compared to my previous rubber (potenza RE 050A), it is a totally different experience. In terms of outright grip, ps4s' are noticeably better in the dry and much much better in the wet. They are much better in terms of ride quality and comfort too..
BUT, bridgestones are definitely better when it comes to dynamic abilities, such as feedback , turn in, steering response and linearity to your inputs under pressure (above 8/10 ) even though comfort is suffering on bad surfaces.
Michelin hasn't solved the "soft sidewall issue" of pss even though ps4s has been improved just a little bit. On the other hand, due to the sidewall deformation (variable patch technology etc) they provide such tremendous grip almost everywhere. You can't have it all...
In conclusion: Ps4s for top grip and ride comfort - Bridgestones for max driver's pleasure, especially if he loves “off balance†driving.
Put these on the F-Type after removing the standard fit P-Zeros - the difference is night and day. Better grip in all conditions - trying to put the power down in a straight line in damp conditions was impossible with the Pirellis but these really dig in. It's a 550hp RWD car so of course you can light them up but it's genuinely impressive how the 4Ss handle the power. At the limit they are much more progressive than the Pirellis ever were - you feel them start to give way and can react - to have a scary moment in the wet with these tires requires massive commitment / stupidity. Again with the P-zeros it just required you to want to accelerate before the car was arrow straight. Honestly I've not got close to the limit in the dry, but the feel is more communicative and they are quieter and more comfortable than the P-zeros they replaced. Just a massive upgrade in every department. Not sure about wear yet but they are sold with a much better wear rating off the shelf.
Definite improvement over the OEM Dunlops for grip, wet grip in particular. Haven't had the TC come on at all since getting this installed. I don't really push the car but you can tell that they do grip very well.
I don't feel that they suit the car. The road noise is no better (actually a bit worse over concrete sections of the motorway), comfort is improved a touch and MPG is a little worse. With a cruiser like the XFS noise, comfort and MPG would be better.
Wish I'd of gone for Goodyear Asym 3's, they'd be more comfortable, better economy and quieter while still retaining 95% of the grip (although not the handling from what I've read), however if I had an XFR (or XFR-S) the Michelin's would be the way to go. The V8 noise would help drown out the tire noise, and would really benefit from the improved grip.
My XFS will be getting Goodyear's next time, my XK Dynamic R will be getting Michelin's (against the OEM Pirelli).
