Given
51%
while driving a
Renault Clio IV TCe 90
(205/45 R17) on
mostly country roads
for 5,000
spirited miles
Figured I would add my say on these pretty poor tires after 12 months and roughly 5k miles.
Background, car they were fitted to is a mk4 Clio. The car is my runabout and spends 95% of its time on county lanes. I would say I push on when the conditions are safe and clear to do so.
The tires I was coming from (this time last year) were Mitc PS4’s, with 5mm even wear. The sizes is 205/45/17.
I had run the PS4 in snow and found them be somewhat difficult to get on with. Upon hearing of the tires snow credentials and supposed wet/dry grip I was sold on the CC2’s for a daily. I had them fitted and full alignment done.
I drive the same roads every day, and have done for over 20yrs, I am very familiar with clios and have had this one 3 years. Therefore feel I am able to give a balanced review on this tire fitted on a small car.
Dry grip - no areas I can complain about. When the tire does break away it’s quite slow and not snappy in the dry.
Full wet roads - not a bad show on properly wet roads. But they do not clear standing water at all well. If you hit a moderate puddle at 50-60mph on light bend, the car will aquaplane severely.
Lightly frosted surface. They were pretty good here (even from cold), and offered good confidence. That said, if you could get heat in to the PS4s they wouldn’t be far behind.
Sheet ICE - again pretty good. But ultimately on ICE without spikes any tire is going to slip.
Light muddy covering on road (the kind you find near passing point on country lanes in the winter). Truly scary! Genuinely feels like your driving on oil. This affects braking and the car can easily be made to go sideways fairly significantly at less than 40 mph with a quick flick of the wheel. Notably the PS4 seemed very strong in exactly the same conditions.
Greasy morning due - again truly scary! I have nothing positive at all I can say, other than the stone chip surfaces (10mm stone dumped on hot tar) tend not to get that wet in the morning. The black tarmac was a different story. They will break traction mid corner with no warning, or just under steer heavily, feeling like they never really get grip. Again the PS4 excelled in this area.
The final point I will make is how I’ve come to write this review. The tire is obviously snow marked. The side effect of that seems to be an incredibly soft tire compound. This evening I was on a road am very familiar with and managed to blow the sidewall right out. I had run into a very small break away at edge of the road. Not even enough to jolt the car, but enough to do the tire. Upon getting it off and inspecting it closely I noticed a number of fairly large slices in various parts of the tire was (not man made), both inner sideway and in the main contact area. This is damage I’ve found across all 4 tires now.
Overall I would not buy these again, and really fail to see how Mitch have the audacity to price these lower performance tires over the clearly better Pilot Sport range. The tires all have well over 6mm left, they’re all now coming off and I’m going to try the PS5.