Which Michelin is better? Michelin primacy 4 vs Pilot Sport 4

Michelin Primacy 4 vs Pilot Sport 4:As a certified test winner, Michelin’s Primacy 4 is a hugely popular premium touring tire which covers tire sizes from 15″ till 20″. While on the other hand, the Pilot Sport 4 (PS4) which is also a test winner on its own , is a max performance summer tire which is the best street legal alternative to a race track tire. While you would imagine the Pilot Sport 4 to be focused on the higher inch sizes, based on our price table data Pilot Sport 4 actually crossed paths with Primacy 4 13 times. Hence if you are one of the lucky owners of these sizes you might want to ask what is the difference between Pilot Sport 4 and Primacy 4? Let’s take a closer look.

Press test

Results below were taken from the Autohome press test results in conjunction with Autobild. 10 tires were tested in the Contidrom proving ground. The graph below shows the comparison between Primacy 4 vs Pilot Sport 4 based on the relevant performance category. The Primacy 4 was set as a reference hence at the 100% mark. Note that for subjective comfort evaluation, we equate 1 point as 5%. Hence for example if tire A is graded 8 while tire B is graded 7, A is better than B by 5%. The natural scaling does not really make sense in evaluation whereby the max number is 10.

The tire size of interest is 225/45 R17 which is a common tire size for Audi A3 and Hyundai Elantra. You can check out our latest tire size table for more information. The testing vehicle of choice is the highly sporty Volkswagen Golf GTI.

Wet

The friction of coefficient of the tire/road dramatically decreases in wet roads compared to dry roads. Hence it is more likely to get into a road accident during wet conditions rather than on a sunny day. It was so important that the EU label has wet braking as one of its three criteria.

Primacy 4 has a clear advantage when it comes to wet braking as it managed to stop 2.6m (8.5 feet) earlier than Pilot Sport 4. Instead of braking distance, the clear difference in wet braking can also be illustrated with vehicle speed. At the time when Primacy 4 has completely stopped, Pilot Sport 4 is still running at a speed of 22.7 km/h (14 mph). The speed might look relatively low but every speed/distance counts when you are facing an emergency braking situation.

Similar trend continued in wet handling but at a smaller margin as Primacy 4 was only 0.4 seconds faster than Pilot Sport 4 throughout the wet handling track. However when it came to aquaplaning, Pilot Sport 4 took the lead with the highest slip speed among the competition at 73.4 km/h compared to the lower 70.7 km/h of Primacy 4.

Overall, it is clear that Primacy 4 is more dominant when it comes to wet braking & handling while Pilot Sport 4 excels in aquaplaning.

Pilot Sport 4:

• – 5.1% in wet braking
• – 0.5% in wet handling
• + 3.8% in aquaplaning

Dry

Even though dry performances are not as critical as wet due to the shorter braking distance, it still plays a major role as it is the default driving condition. The results in dry were tightly contested with Primacy 4 out braking Pilot Sport 4 by only 0.4m (1.3 feet).

While in dry handling, Pilot Sport 4 managed a higher average lap speed of 112.5km/h (70 mph) compared to 112.1 km/h (69.6 mph). Overall both tires were extremely competitive in dry and they were almost indistinguishable.

Pilot sport 4:

• -1.1% in dry braking
• +0.4% in dry handling

Rolling Resistance

When it comes to extreme sporty tires, rolling resistance is definitely not something the user has in mind when purchasing the tire. However with the sustainability topic being more prevalent, it is good to know where they stand.

For a maximum performance tire, you would expect rolling resistance to be a low priority for Pilot Sport 4. This was reflected from the test results as Pilot Sport 4 has a lower rolling resistance coefficient value of 0.971 compared to 0.792 of Primacy 4..

Pilot sport 4:

• -18% in rolling resistance

Noise

Both tires were equally matched when it comes to interior noise with Pilot Sport 4 having a slight edge of -0.4 dB compared to Primacy 4 at a rolling speed of 50km/h. While in the comfort region Primacy 4 being in the touring segment, yields a higher comfort rating of 7/10 compared to the 6.5/10 of Pilot Sport 4.

Pilot Sport 4:

• +0.3% in interior noise
• -2.5% in comfort

Price

Due to its product positioning of Pilot Sport 4 in the max performance summer segment, it is priced at a much higher premium compared to Primacy 4. From our database, it ranges from 10-20% depending on the tire size. For example:

Tire size: 205/55R16

Primacy 4: RM 340

Pilot Sport 4: RM 388

Difference: +14% more expensive for Pilot Sport 4.

Summary

Apart from aquaplaning, Primacy 4 is able to either match or beat Pilot Sport 4 in the other performances. With a 10-20% more price tag for Pilot Sport 4, Primacy 4 is the clear winner in this head to head battle !

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