Michelin Pilot Sport 3 vs Bridgestone Potenza RE050A — Compared

“I have RE050A runflat's on my 2012 Grandsport and agree completely that they are a great tire overall but you are fooling yourself if you think they provide comparable grip to a DOT track tire. I had Michelen run-flat's on my ZR1 wheels on my 2011 Grandsport and they were great until the tires hit 4/32 on the rears and then they became rocks at any temperature that I could spin up effortlessly at any speed. Used to give my wife fits snapping the rear-end around for no reason. Those were replaced with Continental Extreme Contact DW tires (non run-flat) because the rear Michelins were not available last year in ZR1 sizes.”

“My invoice says I travelled 71500km (just under 45K miles) on the RE050A .. but I do a lot of highway. I dialled out the toe front/rear to be toe neutral instead of toe in and rotated every 15K. Switch them out when the tread is near the wear indicators.”

“So here's whats on my car, and how I got here (2011 335d m-sport): Rear: RE 050 A, no designation of I or II, so I'm thinking they were first gen. The BMW dealership put them on the car at about 18k. Front: Original OEM from the factory RE 050 A I. I'm about to have these two replaced tomorrow after a major alignment issue has worn both outside front edges, although the car tracks straight... we'll see what i end up with tomorrow!”