Across the reviews, the Pirelli Dragon Sport is most often described as a strong-value, well-rounded tire with confident wet and dry grip, predictable handling, and a ride that many find quieter and more comfortable than expected for the category. High-scoring owners frequently report impressive tread life and consistent performance even as the tire wears. A recurring minority view is that it isn't a true “enthusiast”/max-performance option, with some drivers noting softer, understeer-biased responses and occasional higher noise on coarse surfaces.
What owners mention most counted across 15 reviews
I had these DragonSport tires mounted on a turbocharged Corolla Altis and I've now had them for about 9,000 miles (15,000 km). Dry grip is phenomenal for the price, wet grip is also very good, much more so than some of my previous tires. Overall, grip and handling are on par with the more expensive Michelin PS4 and Bridgestone RE003. After 15,000 km, they still pretty much look new btw, I expect they will last at least another 30,000 km.
I have put these tires onto a 2010 Jaguar XF with 19†oem wheels. My main priorities were noise and comfort, followed by price, wear, and grip.
I'm located in NSW, Australia so my experience here has been a mix of new and old roads, smooth and coarse chip, mostly dry, and mostly at 60-100kph speeds.
My tire search started due to the fact that I was previously using kumho ku39, and had discovered that one of the near new front tires was out of round, and I wasn't willing to take the risk again with a mid tier brand. My ku39 had 95% tread on the front and 15% on the rear.
The DragonSport grip has been good however I am not a spirited driver, with the exception of taking roundabouts a bit faster at times. I haven't had any issue with these tires on various roads. They feel quite stable and not floaty.
The tires have fairly good noise levels over coarse chip roads, and are very quiet over smooth asphalt. I suspect it would be hard to do much better without going to a Michelin primacy, which has a significant price increase.
Comfort/harshness is good. They are definitely more comfortable than the ku39 and less “crashy†over joins in the road. A minus for me is there's still a decent amount of road feedback, as I wouldn't have liked for it to absorb the bumps a bit better. I am running them at 36 psi, instead of the jaguar recommended 32.
Fuel economy has been good, with around 5% better fuel economy than the ku39.
Ultimately I chose this tire due to the number of reviews noting its noise level over coarse chip, a good treadlife rating above most of the competition, brand name, and the fact I found it on sale ($239 each). However I would still buy it at it's more normal pricing of ($285 each).
Overall I would definitely buy this tire again. Its a good touring tire, that is well priced, which is surprisingly hard to find in the 245/40/19 size.
I did find that the tires took a few hundred kms to break in. I had some steering wheel shake at 80ks despite having had a balance and alignment when fitted. Since then, it has gone except at 110kph where there is a pronounced shake but it is very specific to the speed so I suspect it just needs another balance after wearing in.
In my research prior to purchase I considered the Pilot sport 4 (too expensive, never on sale, noisy), RE003 (pricier, noisier, this would have been my #2 choice), Cooper CS5 (hit and miss reviews, USA based reviews particularly poor), Goodyear eagle f1 asymmetric (pricier), Primacy 3 (expensive, poor tread life), Falken FK150 (limited reviews online, mid tier brand), contisportconact5 (very poor treadlife), Hankook Evo2 (harsher,noisy, fuel inefficient)
Check out how the BEST all seasons tires perform against premium summer and winter tires!
Had on my Nissan Primera p11 for a year fronts wore ok for how hard I drive never rotated them ended up having wheel spin after a few months on one wheel but were good tires
Which tires do you drive?
Researching the Pirelli Dragon Sport? Rate the tires you actually drive - and help the next buyer choose.
Pirelli have released a performance tire in the Asia Pacific market called the Dragon Sport (same name as the Euro motorbike tire). Feedback on chat forums is very positive. They are extremely cheap for a Pirelli tire. As this UK website is read across the world, I thought I should give an initial review on them here.
First impressions are very good. They are quiet and give excellent feedback, much better than the original fitment Bridgestone Turanza ER300s. There is some slight 'slap' from road joins, but not like a hardcore track-ready tire (eg: PS4).
Wide grooves give excellent wet grip and wet braking. USTQ rating of 400 indicates a relatively hard compound, so they aren't for track use and may not be so great in emergency dry braking. But they should last a long time.
It is too soon to give a considered opinion, but at this point they seem to be an excellent choice for anyone upgrading from standard rubber to something better. I will be recommending them to friends who say "I need some tires but don't know what to buy."
For enthusiasts, I would say "Buy the Adrenalin RE003s, Michellin PS4s or PZeros instead". (All Continental tires are overpriced out of contention here in Australia, as our coarse chip roads can eat them in less than a year.)
