tire question. porsche specific tires.

[vash]

talking to a good buddy of mine.

he was mentioning "N" rated tires specified for porsches. i looked up on tire rack and there it is! bridgestone SO-2's come in two types. the one with a "N3" rating is specified for porsches. comes with a $30 premium per tire. what does this buy us? and do most companies provide porsche tires? i assume only the big guys. kumhos..no.

[chrisp]

i believe the "N" tires are OEM spec so naturally a Kumho, Falken, etc would not have anything "N" labeled in their lines.

Michelin has "N series tires all over the place. Porsche has a list of "N" ratings for their cars.

I don't think it matters much....it's not like it's a totally different tire in the most extreme cases I think there is an extra layer in the sidewall or slab area. Otherwise the "N" tires might have a little different tread design to handle noise issues and specifics as to how the mfg wanted the car to handle out of the box.

[rusnak]

I thought Bridgestone discontinued the VR rated SO-2s? I could be mistaken, but that is what actually made me switch to SO-3s.

Anyway, my $.02 is that the HR rated SO-2s are total junk, and are misleading since they share the same tread pattern as the high dollar SO-2s. If the SO-2 "pole position" tires are indeed NLA, then that would be one reason to buy the N designation rubber. On the other hand, the SO-3s are so awesome it would be hard to switch back now.