After 25 yrs of "whatever you have that fits in that size" for my aircooled cars, I finally decided to try original mounts, namely the reissued Pirelli CN36 in 185/70/15 on fuchs... For looks and to see what if anything felt different... Normally I'm a michelin guy.

I could not be more disappointed... Granted it's pretty windy today so I reserve the right to upgrade my opinion 10% tomorrow, but so far, ugh... I was on falken 195/65s before, timed out, not worn out.
- The new-old CN36 pirellis are LOUD as hell, rolling noise I've never heard before (tread?). Maybe it'll get better over time, but I doubt it.
- The tread/rubber is the world champ at picking up gravel and little rocks where you have no idea they existed before. The car sounds like tinkerbell on cocaine, all-the-time...spitting out gravel on the underbody...
- The stability is way less than before on the squarer modern tires (if worn). Those have a rounder shoulder and despite 185 vs 195 they feel subjectively like 155 tires on my old Peugeot - I was all over the road in sidewinds like never before. Even without the wind the car feels more skittish, and not in a good way...
- Nothing changed, I put my car on the lift this morning, took the wheels off so they would not get a chance to wreck the car, remounted them. (Finally the balancing was crap over 70 but that's not the tires' fault, so I'll take it back...)

I thought those were "old look - modern tech".... Did I read that wrong ? They feel 10x worse than the 10y old hard-as-wood Falkens I had on it before in most measures, except grip - they do seem to grip pretty well in a take off situation or under braking... Can't be right... Anyone got positive experiences ? (stoddard supplied, brand new, just made this year per date code)