OK, I can now comment on dry pavement handling. Yesterday I had to take a run down to Victoria and back. Between my home on the east central coast of Vancouver Island and the southern end where Victoria is located there is a serious mountain that you have to go over called The Malahat. The road over the top is heavily curved with major ups and downs tossed in, plus a few poorly cambered sections and one curve they even managed to reverse camber to a couple of hundred meter dropoff.
On my morning trip down I had to keep the speeds in reason due to traffic and law enforcement, so I averaged about 60mph, which is well over, but within the range that you can run without huge amounts of weaving in and out of traffic and attracting a lot of attention. The limit is in the 40-50 range, depending on location. Tires were fine, but that is not a serious test, and anyway the opposite direction is the one with the better test sections due to which areas are double laned and which single.
So on the way back in the evening, with the traffic almost gone and the police well tucked away in their beds, I ran it up and average about 80mph for the uphill really fun section, including those areas with the bad cambers. Overall, I am most pleased. Steering remained between neutral and mild over, which is where it has been set by the other suspension mods. Tracking was excellent, and even when pushed by the reverse camber there was no squirm or roll under from the sidewalls. But the temp was 16C (about 60F or so), the pavement dry, and conditions pretty optimal in that the road is well maintained and very smooth.
So, for this aspect, the Advan S.4 strikes me as at least as good as the Potenza 960 in mild, dry, smooth road handling, and may yet prove better after I get a chance to push hard in some location where if things go wrong you do not end up flying down a couple of hundred meters to the next flat spot (which then turns out, in this case, to be the Pacific Ocean). Oh, and they are quieter than the 960s both in just normal use and when pushed hard, which is nice.
First time we get some decent rain (which considering summers here might not be until October), I will take her out and try out the wet weather adhesion on back roads. Cold weather testing will have to wait until December or later, as it pretty much never gets below freezing here prior to that.
pax, smn
