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FWIW,
I put Avid H4S about 4 years ago on my '87 C900 (195/60/15 size I think). My understanding is H4S is same compound and tread as V4S but the V's are just lower profile sizes resulting in higher speed rating. These (H4S) followed some fairly hard (and noisy) cooper tires previously on the C900.
I wanted a quieter all-season tire. The H4S had excellent wet performance, dry traction, low noise but was a much softer compound and did have more of a "balloon" feel (somewhat wallowy compared to the stiff coopers) and more roll resistance. The interesting thing was that the wallowy sloppyness was fairly consistent and predictable and after my brain made the transition and got used to how the tires performed I no longer noticed the "ballon" feeling and grew to like the tires (which remained quiet as I logged on the miles). I had liked the low roll resistance and stiff feel of the coopers but that came with lots of noise that I found unacceptable so the Avids were a reasonable compromise.
Also, initially the Avids seemed like they didn't hold a good straight line on the highway (causing a lot of steering wheel "back and forthing" despite re-aligning the wheels). This perception faded with time until I no longer noticed it. I think that particular tire did not have an optimal center tread for hwy straight line tracking. Since then I belive they have firmed up the compound a bit (in the last few years) so the mushyness may have been corrected some.
I recently put some Yoko AS430's on my girlfriends Civic and found those (very similar to H4S, aparently same compound but slightly different tread) to be an improvement over my prior H4S...seemed to be fairly "solid" with enough softness to cusion the cracks in the road, also did better on hwy and perhaps the modified center tread had something to do with it.
These are "all season" tires though and thus have some limitations regarding performance. Buying tires is really annoying because they keep changing the designs and compounds. I agree w/ the original poster on the P6's...overall pretty good but somewhat noisy (and I would add not real forgiving on the rough roads...but then again a cushier tire would probably not handle as well). Arg!
Pat
'87 900T (RIP)
'07 2.0T SS
posted by 129.162....
, Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:50:06
, Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:45:13, Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:58:01, Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:25:18
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