Automotive website Edmunds.com on Monday excoriated Lincoln for lending it a car that had high performance tires, which Lincoln acknowledged almost none of its buyers will select.
The tires in question are Michelin Pilot Super Sports. They’re found on much more exotic cars like BMW’s M5 and Ferrari’s F12 Berlinetta. The tires are available as part of a $1,565 package on Lincoln MKZ sedans with optional all-wheel-drive.
But a Lincoln spokesman confirmed that the company only expects less than 1 percent of MKZ buyers to take home a car with these tires. Lincoln says AWD models will account for a quarter of all MKZ sales. Of those AWD sales, 1% to 2% will go home with these Michelins.
The impact tires have on a car’s performance cannot be overstated. Because they’re the only point of contact between a vehicle and the road, a good tire can yield significant gains in traction, acceleration, braking, and cornering. Quiz: The year in business
In its review of the MKZ, Santa Monica-based Edmunds.com takes Lincoln to task for including on a car for media tires that don’t accurately reflect what buyers will take home. After noting that the MKZ completed Edmunds’ slalom course faster than a BMW M5, author Erin Riches says this information is misleading and masks the car’s many shortcomings.
“That’s exactly the kind of data point those tricky tire-switching Lincoln engineers were hoping for. Foolish. Instead of trying to game the media, Lincoln should have designed and engineered a better car,” Riches’ review states.
Edmunds also faulted the MKZ for having less interior space than the Ford Fusion on which it’s based, a low-rent interior construction and a forgettable V-6 engine. Riches concluded by saying: “Lincoln’s future is on the line, and this redesigned 2013 Lincoln MKZ won’t be enough to reverse its downward spiral.”
I read somewhere that is was just as fast in the slalom as a 911…
Just goes to show, you can have the best suspension,brakes etc, but if you don’t have sticky tires…it doesn’t matter
I think its kinda BS. If you can buy the car that way then fine, if they put on tires that you could not even order with the car then I would understand the argument. Lots of cars get tested with the “track package” or the optional wheels (many of times includes better tires also). I think this guy is being a retard.
Reasoning behind this statement? Everyone I know that uses them loves them and everything I read about them is positive. Only downside seems to be the cost.
I think they are pretty good performance tires if you play around on the street with them. They always got greasy on the track after a few laps for me though, no matter what tire pressure I set them to.
I would buy the cheaper long wear tires from the dealer and have a second set of wheel and tires for aggressive driving. Mostly because of the low wear life on sport tires and the over charging at the dealership.
I meant big picture, if you wanted a really sticky tire use a R-Comp. It is a stock tire that performs fine on the street. Its not like they tossed some track tires on the car, they are stock street tires.
I drove a friends car at an autocross with PSS’s, it was a mostly stock mazda 3 sedan. I don’t think they’re as good as a Stat Spec or RE11, but they are pretty good. No street tire compares to an R comp like A6’s or v710’s. Same course, same drivers, same car, we saw over 1s(on a 30sec course) between ANCIENT v710’s(poorly stored, ~7 years old, ~1.5mm rubber left) and Toyo R1R’s. I would expect new v710’s to be 1-2sec quicker than those.
What is the purpose or argument of this article? The MKZ outperformed a M5 with same tires(although just one test). But Lincoln needs to design a better car?
Probably bringing to light for the gen public that cars provided to magazines/press are in trims that 99% of consumers would not purchase.
If you are asking what the point of this thread, better tires = better traction.
Was the Viper ACR-X on R-Comp tires faster than a Viper with stock tires, yep. Was that expected, sure.