I have BFGoodrich's Touring T/A 205/60H15 installed in my 1995 E320T Station Wagon. Extremely happy with the tires, especially thread life, road noise, and comfort.

At this moment the tires are not available in my local market. Dealer suggested Pirelli's P6000s instead. Although I read in this forum frighting commments about thread life and noise.

In your opinion, being a regular Joe, will I notice the noise difference factor? And would the P6000s would really wear much faster than the BFGoodrich's? Thankx!

A. Rosich
S320, 1998
E320T, 1995

You are trying to compare a touring tire with a performance tire. The Pirelli will wear significantly quicker than the TA's.

I'm, currently on a 2nd set of P6000 Summer 195/65/VR15 on the '94 E320 Coupe. The first set lasted about 22k miles/ about 3 years (no cracking or separation) and I'm 100% satisfied with performance: wet/ dry handling, noise, wear, road feel, response, etc. The tire is compatible with the engineering and purpose of the E320 coupe. I'm in SF, California (no extreme weather) and my driving style often tends to be "enthusiastic".

I'm on my first set of P6000 Sport Veloce 225/55/VR16 on the '94 E500- inherited from the previous owner. Compared to the P6000 Summer, the SV's are purely a touring tire: quieter, softer, less responsive, less dry handling adhesion. Based upon the 300+ tread wear rating, I expect to get about 30k miles out of them (although I hope they wear out sooner so I can replace them with S03's). My driving style on the E500 is "enthusiastic"- always vigilant to savor open stretches and any curves. My opinion of the SV's is that they are a good touring tire- performs to par with the application within which they were designed. The SV's are not compatible to the engineering and purpose of the E500 however.

I have had the opportunity to own European manufactured and American manufactured Pirelli P700, P7000Z, P600 on my Mercedes and BMWs in the past and did observe side-wall cracking when the tire approached it's 4th-5th year of use. My recent 5-7 year experience with Pirelli's has not confirmed this issue to be ongoing.

Hope this helps.

Thankx to everyone for the input! Especially -fad for your accurate description of the tires.

Finally, I bought a set of P6000's (price was excellent).

My experience with Pirelli goes back to 20 years ago with a 3 series B.M.W. I owned for a while. Hopefully, as stated on the replies above, my experience now would be better.

A. Rosich
S320, 1998
E320T, 1995

P6000s feel wonderful. They tend to go out of round after 8k miles or so. They also get noisy. I really like them though as long as they are cheap enough.

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1988 Mercedes-Benz 260E