This is The Differences between the New Michelin Primacy 4 Plus Wheel and The New Michelin Pilot Sport 5

Testing the differences between the new michelin primacy 4 plus the new michelin pilot sport 5 and the established king of the uhp segment the michelin pilot sport 4s before i start driving i'd like to spend a quick moment explaining the different design targets of the three different tyres the michelin primacy 4 plus is an update to the primacy 4 which is one of the most popular premium touring tires in the market premium touring tires are intended for driving applications that prioritize safety in the dry and wet low rolling resistance low noise and good levels of comfort rather than sporty handling which these two have more in mind the primacy 4 was already a multiple test winning tire in the segment and the primacy 4 adds in the areas that are caught in the michelin dna with an improvement of eight percent.

In wet breaking at one state while keeping the excellent wear of the primacy iv the primacy four plus is offered in 15 to 20 inch wheel fitments but is most often fitted in the smaller wheel sizes and is more often fitted to family type cars the new pilot sport 5 replaces the pilot sport 4 not the 4s the non-s version of the pilot sport range has always been the ultra high performance sports tire you fit if you want one of the best all-round road tires in the segment compared to the pilot sport 4 the 5 adds a huge amount of tread life without sacrificing any other area the pilot support 5 is offered in 17 to 21-inc.

Fitments and is fitted to all manner of vehicles finally we have the tire i'm sure you're all familiar with the michelin pilot sport 4s no uu hp to hire has one as many tyre tests as this and none are as popular online the 4s is designed to be even more sporty than the pilot sport 5. so it should feel a little bit quicker to steer a little bit more dynamic on track and it should be more at home on track with better heat management and better track endurance when pushing to and past the limit in europe the 4s is now available in a couple of 18 inch sizes but it's primarily sold in 19 to 23 inch. 

Wheel fitments and is intended for high performance vehicles now we understand the differences between these three tyres just how big are they in the real world well to find out i've got the trusty golf gti each of the tyres is exactly the same 225 40 18 fitted to identical wheels so there's no influence there and i'm going to test the wet dry noise and comfort of the tires and look at the rolling resistance should be a really fascinating test this is one i'm very excited to do so let's get on with that wet handling and before we get into the data and the subjectiveness of the tyres which i know you're very excited about because i found it fascinating.

Tere's a couple of points i need to clear up firstly i need to remind you that this is a test between different categories of tyre a premium touring tyre an ultra high performance tyre and an ultra ultra high performance tire uhp tire these tires have different design targets and as a result they have different performances in the various categories we're going to test please remember there is no bad tyre here each of the three tyres they are at the very peak of their category so they're all good tires but they do have different performances because of their different design targets secondly.

You can pretty much ignore all your wet objective data i'm about to give you because i'm in the center of france it is peak 2022 european heatwave and it's currently 40 degrees outside which is about 105 fahrenheit this for wet data is completely unrealistic because the average wet summer road temperature is 15 degrees and we're currently at 40. this does affect the performance of the tyres compound in particular the primacy 4 is going to struggle a little bit more because of these hot temperatures but i will talk about temperatures a little bit later in the article because i'm sure you're bored now and you want to know the data starting with the premises for the premium touring tire.

I am very pleasantly surprised by this tire it was so easy and lovely to drive i did three so we averaged three lap times i did three lap times exactly the same exactly the same time which i've never done three before i've done two and then one very close but three exactly the same i actually had to do a fourth lap just to check the v box was working because i didn't trust it for a second it had a little bit of understeer as you would imagine that's kind of what you expect from a touring tyre and it was a little bit it just took a second to obtain the slip angle.

But the way it built the slip angle which is from how you turn to how quickly the tire responds to that action how it responded to that was beautiful because it was really linear and predictable and in the way like i said it was just a joy to drive the average lap time was 102 seconds moving on to the pilot sport 5 you had more grip this tire is very very impressive in the wet you felt like you had buckets of grip especially when turning the steering response to the car so the on-center bit of steering that first little bit of steering movement didn't feel hugely different from the premise before but as the car started turning it turned more quickly and felt like it darted into the corner more which obviously is what you want from a sports tyre it was very very stable at the back.

Impressively stable if anything i'd say there was a bit more understeer in the package that i'd want but that's very safe for the road i'd say overall plus two sportiness if we're gonna do it that way and about four percent quicker lap time moving on to the pilot sport 4s the tire we already know is one of the best in the wet in its category it added some sportiness again over the ps5 but not plus two this time maybe just plus one although you could especially on the higher speed corners when you're developing more grip you can feel the extra stiffness in the carcass the tide just feels more dedicated to the turn that extra sharpness at the front axle did bring the rear into play a little bit more so there was a bit more oversteer in the package where the primacy 4 was very neutral and the pilot sport 5 was a little bit understeery the pilot support 4s as demonstrated here is wonderfully playful.

If you want it to be which i really enjoy in the tire however the ultimate lap time when you're over steering you're not really carrying enough speed through the corner especially in a front-wheel drive vehicle so the overall lap time was ever so slightly slower however it was more playful and it definitely felt more sporty three very impressive ties in the wet i'm not sure the designers of the primacy 4 plus ever thought it would be doing dry handling laps on 60 degrees surface temperature on a golf gti but here we are and it's doing it surprisingly well sure the steering isn't quite as quick as i'd ideally want it takes a little bit of time to obtain the slip angle but like in the wet it's lovely and linear and it even lets you attack the corners a little bit you can even get a little bit dirty and a little bit of rear movement.

But overall for a premium touring tyre i realize this is an 18 inch size so it's a bit of a performance size i am very impressed the biggest negativity of the tyre unsurprisingly is the heat as i've said it's very very hot and the compound really did struggle it dropped about a second and a half between the first and second lap but that's not unusual it's not super unusual to drop time here that's just a lot of time and you would never push the tire that hard on the road so never be a problem so overall try handling i thought this was where the primacy ball was going to really struggle and i really enjoyed it pleasantly surprised overall moving on to the pilot sport five liking the wet the tire is more sporty turns a little bit quicker you can feel it digging into the corner a little bit more but i'm only gonna give it a plus one for sporty at the limit on track.

So here's something i need to do a better job of talking about there's two types of like ultimate flat out driving one i call sub limit fast driving which represents like a fast road drive and then there's at limit track driving and i would give this pilot sport five a plus two for the below limit stuff so if you're on a fast country road or you're really enjoying the tire it is significantly more sporty than the primacy iv but as you get up to this very hot very high grip you just stress the construction of the tire a little bit more and it just it takes the edge off it gives you a little bit more understeer but michelin have said although they know this tyre will get used on track that wasn't their intention they could have made it better on track but that would have reduced some of the on-road performance and as they have the 4s they didn't want to do that you know what i also agree with that the ps4s in terms of plus sportiness i'm gonna give it a plus three this is where you can really feel the motorsport influence on the tyre the ps4s is built in a different way to the other two tyres and you can tell again the on center the first very part of the movement is only slightly quicker but boy does it then sit down on that bigger shoulder that bigger construction.

The bigger blocks on the outer shoulder it's got a different compound on the outer shoulder than you can really tell and that allows you to ask much more of the tyre it allows you to break and turn in a way you couldn't with the other two tyres it just feels fantastic in this test of these three tyres it feels significantly improved on track the ps4s also handled the p the best of the three tires only dropped about half a second over the three laps which is totally respectable in these kind of temperatures on this kind of track and although the ps4s probably can't quite match the stellar mileage of the other two on the road this lends itself to the ps4s having better track endurance better heat management because that's what it's designed to do a very enjoyable test across these three ties in handling.

See how things switch up in comfort while the premise e4 plus couldn't quite match the sportiness of the other two ties in the handling test the comfort testing has definitely brought the advantage back to the primacy 4 plus the premium touring tire because it glides smoothly over the surfaces and just as a driving experience it's more serene especially over the big imperfections like i'm on now that's not to say the pilot sport 5 or 4s are uncomfortable tires in their segments they're often the best riding tires of the group it just goes to show the advantages a premium touring type brings over the competition internal noise is incredibly complicated i've actually run over loads of different surfaces and on the smooth asphalt the noise in the cabin between the three sets of tires is almost indistinguishable but as you get to the rougher surface you definitely hear more tread pattern noise and probably more cavity noise especially on the 4s with the pilot spot 5 sitting logically and actually somewhere between the two you know what when i started this test i really didn't think there'd be a real world application for the primacy four plus on a car.

Like the golf gti in 18 inches because that's just not what the tyres intended for but now i've done all this testing i really think there is sure the average gti buyer is going to be more focused on handling and they'll be happier with the pilot sport 5 or especially the 4s but someone like my dad who happens to drive a skoda octavia vrs which is a golf gti and address i think would really appreciate the refinement and the comfort of the primacy iv and wouldn't miss the steering response because on road at road speeds the steering response is great it's nice and linear and while it wouldn't be my first choice for a car like the golf gti i can now certainly understand why people might want to look at this car option this is the beauty of tires there is a tire for every person i'll put the rolling resistance data on screen in this size the pilot sport 5 is hugely impressive getting close to the rolling resistance of the primacy 4 plus but across the range it's clear the primacy 4 plus is the leader with the pilot sport 5 sitting between the two tyres the braking performance of the tires in the dryer was exactly as you would expect with the pilot sport 4s breaking the best in the wet the 4s also had an advantage but i think the extreme temperatures today you can see my sweat has spread out the group a little bit and michelin say it more representative.

Real world temperatures the pilot sport 5 and 4s would be very similar overall now we know the dynamic differences between the three sets of tyres i'd like to data flex a little bit on michelin's behalf as part of the development of the primacy 4 plus and the pilot sport 5 michelin had a number of independent test bodies across europe tested products against key competitors to see where they benchmark firstly the primacy 4 plus was tested against the bridgestone trends of t205 continental premium contact 6 and goodyear efficient grip performance 2 which are three of the best competitors in the segment the german organization decree wear tested the four sets of tires with a real world convoy test which is the gold standard of wear test way better than using a machine it's just more applicable to the real world the new primacy 4 had a 16 000 kilometer predicted better tread life than the bridgestone 5500 better than the continental and just 2 000 shy of the very impressive goodyear to find out the grip levels of the four sets of tires tough tested the braking performance.

At new and warren state when new the group was very close with the low-wearing goodyear being the worst in test but it was only 0.8 meters behind the michelin which was very close however when worn the hard work michelin put into the primacy 4 plus really showed the michelin was nearly 4 meters better than the next best tire which is incredible the tire was also the best in aquaplaning think this is a fluke decorate also real well tested the new pilot sport 5 against the bridgestone potenza sport the continental premium contact 6 the gucci eagle f1 asymmetric 5 and the preli p0 pz4 the ps5 had 20 better tread life than the next best tire which was the goodyear and 40 better than the average of the group braking for the ps5 was equally as impressive as the premises four plus the michelin was the best in the wet when you the best in the dryer when you and while the bridgestone and preli did have a small advantage four percent at one state in wet breaking the 45 tread life disadvantage they had indicates.

They're using quite a soft compound and is a bit rough on your wallet the wet braking test was also conducted like today at non-representative high temperatures michelin had tough re-tested wet braking only at new at more representative lower real world temperatures and the ps5 sean i think it's time i did some more work on temperature testing there we have it three very impressive but very different tyres i hope this article has cleared some things up for you but if you have any further questions please do ask below as warn state testing is so important much like real world temperature testing.