I ditched the run flats that came on my 2015 Mini Cooper S convertible. Went with with Discount Tire Continental Contact Sport. They ride better, but make more noise than the run flats! I want a QUITE tire. Recommendations?
My last 3 sets of tires on my R53 have been Bridgestone Potenza RE760 Spor. They had great grip in the dry and wet but were very quiet tires. I loved them. Only one problem they have been discontinued. I am not sure what replaced them.
I've had a set of Michelin PSS's, they had great wet and dry performance but didn't last 2 years. They were quiet but got very noisy towards end of life.
Question, how often do you rotate your tires? All tires will get loud if they don't get rotated at the proper intervals.
Tire Rack still has BS RE760 Sports in 215/45/17. Firestone Firehawk Indy 500 would be a better performing quiet tire in that category, or consider Michelin Pilot Sport 4S or Pilot Super Sport or Conti ExtremeContact Sport for a further step up in performance and staying comfortable and quiet.
If you want quiet, be prepared to sacrifice a bit of dry grip and get all-season tires. High performance summer tires have big blocks in the tread pattern that make as much contact with the road surface as possible. It's the friction of rubber against asphalt that causes all the noise. All season tires have smaller blocks to allow water to escape from under your wheels so less hydroplaning, but also less surface contact to the road surface. But if you are not tracking your car and just doing some relatively safe spirited motoring, the grip from a good all season high performance tire should be fine. I really liked the Yokohama Avid Envigors. Continental DWS have been pretty popular all season amongst MINI circles. When I was in university, I had a fairly wealthy friend who had a different set of tires for each type of driving he did. I think he had 6 sets of tires and chose which one depending on weather and how he was going to use his car that day. I briefly dated his sister but couldn't keep up with her spending habits.
The BS RE760 sport were Ultra High Performance Summer tires and were very quiet. I just got another set about a month ago but it took Discount tire a couple of weeks to find 4 of them. I have Bridgestone Potenza RE-71R on my R58. They are very sticky tires but man are they loud. Driving to the Dragon last year I had to wear ear buds to cut down on the noise and be able to hear music. Because of my hearing loss I can't hear sound on sound. When I go out with my wife in it we cant talk because I cant understand her over the noise. I love sticky tires but I have to have quiet ones also.