C7s, why summer-only tires?
 

First ordered a C7 in 2014, only available with summer only tires. Ordered 2018, STILL only available with summer only tires! No great price difference between the Michelin ZPs for summer or All season.. so why???

All season tires are for average cars and average drivers. AS tires are a compromise at best. The summer tires performance is better except when you should have winter tires.

There were some discussions on GM offering AS tires as an option. Evidently that never materialized.

First & foremost, these are performance cars ('16/M7/Z06). They are designed for people to drive with great enthusiasm, not to coffee bar, WalMart, or putting 1500 miles per year on. They are designed for drivers who enjoy "driving like they stole it". No offense to folks who prefer to "cruise", but these are special purpose cars & the special purpose tires are put on them for that reason same as Michelin Cups are on the Z07s.:yesnod:

I hear you. GM should offer a choice between summer only and all season tires. It should be a no brainer.

Those who say "they have summer tires only because it’s a performance car." probably said who needs a computer years ago.

It's a sports car. I can't name ONE high performance sports car that offers all-season tires as an option.

If you want AS tires, go buy them.

There are many people on here who have the Michelin all season tires and rave about them and say that you don't lose very much performance in the hot summer under most normal driving conditions on the street (track would be different obviously) but you gain a lot better performance over the stock summer tires once the temperatures get cold out.

I think having an all season option on the C7 would be a good idea for GM to consider. If someone wants to drive their car on cold (but relatively snow free) roads quite often but doesn't want to have to swap back and forth between summer and all season tires, having just all season tires is their best option.

I think that when I wear out my OEM tires on my C7 I will strongly consider getting a set of all seasons as my only tire, because starting in 5 years time I will be using my C7 to travel back and forth from Ontario to Florida every winter and during those journeys I'm certain to encounter colder temps and possibly even some very light snow. And even before I start doing those journeys, I do enjoy taking my Corvette out for a spin quite often in the cold winter months as long as the roads are dry. I know there are a lot of others just like me that do that, and would appreciate the greater safety that all seasons can offer on cold pavement.

It’s a performance car.

If you want AS tires buy them. Pretty simple vs adding complexity to ordering/building

It's really not that complicated at all. Just look at how many options you have when you order a base C7, 3 different options for the base wheels (black, chrome, silver) and then for 2018 they now offer a bunch of new wheel choices that were previously from the GM accessories catalog. And when you order a GS or Z, you have the option of two different tires already. So it really wouldn't be that big of a deal for them to offer two different tire choices on the base model.

Tire technology has come a long way, I would be willing to bet that the all season performance tires you can buy today would outperform most of the summer only tires made 20 years ago.

Sounds like people are attempting to justify All Season tires, because they live in a cold climate, need them in the winter and don't want to switch out tires every winter.

There are probably more people on this forum that live in areas that regularily see temps below 50 degrees for at least half the year than those people that are lucky enough to never see temps below that. And it does get tiresome having to swap tires back and forth every fall and every spring.

I'm waiting for Foosh to find this thread, I know he's going to back up some of the things I'm saying :cheers:

For our C5 and C6's, we had a second set of wheels with All Season runflats. I would put them on when the temperatures were going below 40'F but not drive in salt or snow until mid-January, when we would head to Florida for a couple of months.

Although the All Seasons performed fine for our touring and (very) occasional spirited driving down south, I got tired of the perceived handicap of driving around sunny Florida and then home in nice weather, on winter tires. So I stopped switching and just drove down on the PS2's. Some years it was ok, other years despite forecasts of good weather, we got into real blizzards in central Illinois. We never got stuck or in the ditch, but there were some real white knuckle days.

Compared to our C5/C6, the C7 (Z51) stock tires are less suitable for cold temps, and the All Seasons are relatively better for warm temps, so I'll probably go back to switching even though we go to Arizona now.

Uh...no. If one has to have all season tires, they are available for purchase from Tire Rack and numerous other outlets. Sports cars, be they Corvette/Porsche/Ferrari/etc come with tires that are appropriate for the vehicle. High performance sports cars get high performance summer tires. Hybrids get high mileage, low rolling resistance tires. Tire choice is DIRECTLY related to vehicle intended use/performance. The ZP Michelin all season is a nice tire. It's quiet, rides nicely, and lasts a long time. Sounds like a great tire...for my Impala.

:iagree: and that's the point.
There's a big difference between A/S tires from years ago and the Michelin A/S tires Today.
And big difference between A/S tires and Ultra High Performance A/S tires specifically for High Performance Sport cars.

I like my Z51 Summer Only tires, but I notice a decrease in Performance starting at 60 degrees.
Even in ideal Summer weather, Performance between Summer Only and today's Michelin A/S+ is very close now until pushed near the limit.
Summer Only tires come with a Warning for a reason.
They do not perform well in cooler weather .. :auto:

:iagree: Prior to moving South 35 years ago, I bought snow tires or winter tires and often had them mounted on separate wheels! Prior to moving to SC from CT had a Dodge Colt Turbo and bought special winter tires for all 4 wheels mounted on the OEM 13 inch steel wheels and installed Pirelli P7s on 14 inch aluminum wheels.

It's a performance car and like Porsche, Ferrari etc it comes with performance summer only tires. If you need winter tires, buy them!

If you live in NE Ohio along Lake Eire, as I did for 7 years, by a rag top Jeep, put on large all-terrain tires as I did, park your sports car and have fun driving in the winter! :lol:

The above is no longer true. It may have been true 10-20 years ago, but tire technology has come a long way.

First, today's UHP all-seasons rival the performance of max performance summer tires, and many tire tests have confirmed that. Second, there are different grades of all-season tires, with UHPs being the top dogs. Third, max performance summer tires are only better when it is REALLY hot and on the track. Below, 70º, max performance summer tire grip starts falling off, goes completely off the cliff below 50º, and UHP all-seasons outperform them for most of the year in many climates.

I have two sets of wheels and tires, OEM PSS ZPs (summer max performance), and AS3+ (UHP all seasons). The only time the OEM summer tires are better is when pavement temps are 80º and above.

It has become customary for manufacturers of very high performance cars to only offer max performance summer tires, because that's what most customers think they should have. Most customers are completely unaware that their summer max performance tires really aren't all that good in the conditions they often drive in, and that there are far better alternatives for street use most of the year.

Agreed. A simple option to the buyer to select AS tires as an option. Especially since there is a caution about operating the car w/ the performance tire below a certain temperature.

Arguing that its a performance car doesn't account for guys taking museum delivery in a northern state during the winter months.

Plenty (I'd wager the majority) do not drive their cars like they stole it. Many use them for cruisers or daily drivers and not driven on the "ragged edge".

I fairly confident that the car will still be reasonably fast and handle reasonably well w/ AS tires.

We all crow about "choice", and there still seems to be a constituency that doesn't think a AS choice should be available to those that one it.

I live in Florida, so the AS tires isn't a issue for me. I have a buddy in Illinois that had to forgo a museum delivery due to the time of year his car would be delivered. He also had buy an additional set of AS tires so he could safely drive the car in the crappy Mid-West winter months. He too wished GM offered an AS tire option if only to eliminate the hassle of swapping the Summer set to AS.

Given the many negatives of summer-only tires in all but track conditions, I think that it would make sense to make A/S UHP tires standard on base C7 with the summer-only tires standard on cars intended for the track, Z51, GS and the like.

They're not going to do this of course, because Corvette supposedly is biased in favor of performance, as witness no sound deadening behind the seats (though this would cost only a few pounds and make the car much more livable on the highway), no hatch pull down on C7 until there was an outcry, etc., etc. This is sort of a crock given that we've got weight-adding items like a power tilt/telescope steering wheel, power passenger seat, etc., etc.

:cheers:

Waiting for one person to just fess up and admit they chose the AS tires out of need and understand the car with not handle nearly as well, as a trade-off.

If you don't drive the Vette like you stole it, you bought the wrong car :hide:

I think it would be wise for GM to have an A/S option given to dealers in locations with colder climates.