A year ago, deterred by the apparently finicky alignment issues of the Conti competitor, I slapped a set of the highly touted Bridgestone Serenity Plus tires on my car.
At first they were OK (once I straightened out their rather sloppy Costco installation). When last year's brutal Midwestern winter arrived, however, it was quite another story. In the near-zero and subzero temps we had so often, the ride quality was just brutal.
I studied the 2012 thread on this topic at length, and a lot of Tire Rack reviews, and I haven't seen anybody comment on this here or elsewhere. But in my car, impacts over even the smallest bumps and frost heaves were transmitted with such force that I felt they ruined the entire luxury experience of the car (full disclosure: I have the toxic combination of a sensitive tushy and A-Spec suspension to begin with).
My brother, a performance car fanatic with a far less sensitive backside than mine, remarked that Low Rolling Resistance high-mileage tires like these are noted generally for their Stone Age ride quality, to the point where he and his friends have collectively nicknamed them "Flintstone tires." My strong suspicion is that when they said "Low Rolling Resistance rubber technology" doesn't mean they made the rubber OEM-stiff, they lied.
This bothers me so much that it destroys my enjoyment of not only the tires, but the entire car. I rode last winter on about 30 or 31 PSI all around, which I gather is at or just below recommended pressure. This winter is tentatively forecast to be nearly as cold as last year, and I cringe at the thought of getting pounded for yet another 4 months on these tires. Would lower inflation pressures help? Would Primacy tires help more?
At first they were OK (once I straightened out their rather sloppy Costco installation). When last year's brutal Midwestern winter arrived, however, it was quite another story. In the near-zero and subzero temps we had so often, the ride quality was just brutal.
I studied the 2012 thread on this topic at length, and a lot of Tire Rack reviews, and I haven't seen anybody comment on this here or elsewhere. But in my car, impacts over even the smallest bumps and frost heaves were transmitted with such force that I felt they ruined the entire luxury experience of the car (full disclosure: I have the toxic combination of a sensitive tushy and A-Spec suspension to begin with).
My brother, a performance car fanatic with a far less sensitive backside than mine, remarked that Low Rolling Resistance high-mileage tires like these are noted generally for their Stone Age ride quality, to the point where he and his friends have collectively nicknamed them "Flintstone tires." My strong suspicion is that when they said "Low Rolling Resistance rubber technology" doesn't mean they made the rubber OEM-stiff, they lied.
This bothers me so much that it destroys my enjoyment of not only the tires, but the entire car. I rode last winter on about 30 or 31 PSI all around, which I gather is at or just below recommended pressure. This winter is tentatively forecast to be nearly as cold as last year, and I cringe at the thought of getting pounded for yet another 4 months on these tires. Would lower inflation pressures help? Would Primacy tires help more?