So much wrong with the steps you've taken, most consumers make the same mistakes, so don't feel bad.

First, mixing an ultra high performance summer front, with an ultra high performance all season is going to yield undesirable results. The front tires will most likely have more grip, so the rears will tend to break loose before the fronts.

2nd - always go with the tire pressures noted in the door jamb for OEM sized tires. The pressure on the sidewall shouldn't be used under normal conditions.

Your VSA is sensing the rears slipping before the fronts (because all seasons don't have as much grip). There's probably nothing wrong with the tires, but the staggered tire compounds and pressure issues will make it handle really weird.

 

Makes total sense! All the vehicles I've owned before - this would never be an issue. But first newbie lesson for high performance cars - pay attention to what I'm doing!

So if I want to get back to the performance level I had before - it sounds like my choices are to change the front tires to match the new ones on the back - or change the back to match the front.

Since I have found out in my looking at this stuff that the "S" in DWS is Snow, and I live in South GA - I'm thinking I might want to go with something less all weather and more high performance in the rear that matchs the ones I have on the front.

That said, what brands should I look at to give me a similar ride profile to what I have on the front?

 

I run DWSs to DD on. You definitely aren't going to get RE050 performance out of them. Acab is spot on (unfortunately). The difference in compounds and the way the different tires respond to different pressures is causing your problem (they don't necessarily need to match pressures, since they're such different tires). DWSs are great, in my opinion, for DDing down the interstate to work and back (especially in the wet), but not for pushing the car. They seem to provide a great amount of braking grip but they do feel mushy in the corners due to the soft sidewalls, while being VERY forgiving. They also wear VERY slowly. AKA the perfect DD tire.

It took me a while to grasp the concept of how important front/rear matching sets are, but matching the fronts to rear will help out big-time. If you're okay with ditching the rears, you want to replace all 4 with a Summer Hi-Perf tire. Everyone has their own opinion on which ones provide the best value.

 

If you want to stay within continental - the DW would be a much better choice over the DWS

 

I am in the market for new tires so I have been doing some research. I have read many reviews and it seems for around here in GA, the Continental DW are the way to go and not the DWS since those are for snow. Also the DW is a Max Performance Summer Tire where as the DWS are all season. I personally am going to go with the Hankook Ventus V12 since they are Max Performance Summer tires for way cheaper and the reviews have been pretty good. The S is my DD and I don't auto X so I think the Hankooks will be fine.

 

How is the grip of the DW vs the DWS tires? Folks on the tirerack rave about the DW.

 

to the op you have new tires that are still soft with full tread vs your old hard tires with effectively shaved tread the old tires should feel more stable as they simply have a larger effective surface area and lower compliance.

It's easy cough cough dunlop to make a tire that performs very well for a little while it's much harder to makes one perform consistently over a longer tread life once you've ground the tread down and heat cycled the tires over and over. Conti's are far and away a better DD tire than chingsung tires or nankang or wing chung kung fu zr2712 super higher performance over your rivals spec road race masta tires. Trust AMG Mercedes to know all about high speed and load.

Also an OEM supplied tire often is far different than an off the shelf version as the oems want to cut costs and offer a generally cheaper version of these tires.

 

I just bought some Michelin Pilot Super Sport from TireRack.
Noticably gripper than Z1 SS. I have not tried them in the rain yet, but they are supposed to be great in the rain.

 

conti DW's here with re05's on front, I have an 05 and I can't tell a difference in performance at all, feels like oem replacement.

Check and recheck tire pressure, I've had one tire at 35 and the other at 31, felt like I was driving a drift monster.

 

Did you get the right sizes?