- G'day. Today, in our warehouse,
we've got the Michelin Pilot Sport 4.
(upbeat electronic music)
So today in the warehouse,
we've got the Michelin Pilot Sport 4,
which actually replaces the Pilot Sport 3,
and probably replaced it about a year and so ago now.
So, this tyre is their road oriented tyre,
from their more sportier range.
So there's the Pilot Sport 4, which this one is,
and there's the Pilot Sport 4S,
which is sort of the next level up,
then there's the PS Cup or Pilot Sport Cup.
So, basically this one is your more road oriented tourer
which maybe you can get high-spirited with.
And then the 4S is going to be a little bit more aggressive
again and then the Cup is more your track tyre
that you can drive to track and drive home again
but you probably wouldn't want
to be driving on a day-to-day.
So it's that fast road tyre that's a comfortable tourer,
but have let's a closer look at
what actually makes this an interesting tyre.
So, any tyre in this category
is going to have to fight that balance between
being a comfortable and safe road tyre with
being a fun and spirited, not quite track tyre,
but something you can give it some whirling on the road.
So they have to balance this with
the compound that they use,
the siping that the tyre has,
and the stiffness of the carcass.
So this tyre is supposed to be for performance driving,
so one of the first that I noticed about it did seem,
in comparison with your regular passenger tyres is that
the compound is really quite a sticky sort of compound.
So I don't know if you can hear that,
(squeaking)
but it's so sticky.
And then also, you see these big,
deep sipes here that run through the whole tyre,
which are going to be good for evacuating all of that water
that you might come across in the wet.
And then also, you see these three strong stinter ribs?
They go all the way around the tyre,
so there's no breaks in those.
So that's going to really give you that durability for when,
or the strength for when you're
putting the pedal to the ground.
One thing you'll notice, though,
that's a little bit different between this
and perhaps a more sport oriented tyre,
it's that the shoulders are not as solid
as perhaps a more performance oriented tyre.
Because again, that's trying to get that water out there,
so it's balancing off between evacuating the water
and having the strength here to allow you to corner faster.
So this perhaps won't let you corner
as fast as a more track oriented tyre,
but it's going to be a heck of a lot safer
in the wet for your regular passenger cars.
So Michelin says that this tyre
offers excellent steering control
and a high level of reactivity,
which means it's going to be able to
be a bit more fun for when you're trying to make your
passengers take in the twisties.
And they also reckon it offers
a high level of safety on the wet roads,
so that means that hopefully they found that balance
between it being a fun touring tyre
and the wet weather performance as well.
So one thing to know is this is an asymmetric tyre.
So this is actually the inside of the tyre,
and this is the outside of the tyre,
and you can see, as we cross the tyre,
the siping, the channelling, gets deeper also,
it's deeper on the inside
and shallower or narrower on the outside,
which means that this shoulder,
outside shoulder is going to be stiffer
for that cornering capacity.
But you've still got the channels
on the inside here to get rid of the majority
of the water out the back.
So the PS 4 from Michelin covers
quite a wide range of sizes.
It goes from say, your hatchback sort of size
through to your full-size sedan sort of size,
so that's 205/50-16 all the way through to 325/30-21,
so that's quite a narrow profile tyre.
This particular set of tyres is actually
going on our long-term test vehicle,
it's a Renault Megane Cup, so sporty hatch.
We'll be putting it on the track,
as well as seeing how it goes over the next
10,000 ks just for day-to-day life.
So tune back in in 10,000 ks
and make sure you hit that subscribe button
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for whenever we post a video next.
So thank you, and see you next time.