2005 Mercedes-Benz CL65 AMG Long-Term Road Test

Edmunds.com

2005 Mercedes-Benz CL65 AMG Long-Term Road Test

The 2005 Mercedes CL65 AMG may have a monster engine, but its brakes are equally prodigious.

Read the full story here

vvk

You really have to. Bridgestone Potenza S-04 are on really good sale at Tire Rack. I think they would suit this car really well. The Michelin Pilot Sport AS3 that you have on the CL65 now are supposed to be the next level in all season performance, though. So you may not see a huge improvement.

iloveyogapants

Well, the brakes should be good considering the rotors are $900 each!!!! OWWWIIEEE!!!

dmos

What you've established is not that the tires are "ho hum" all seasons, but instead very respectable in their performance compared to summer only ones. Good brakes make repeatable performances like this possible by absorbing and venting heat, good tires allow you to clamp down and minimize ABS cycling to get a good stop number. I'd be interested to see if you could do any better with summers before the end of this test.

sharpend

Well, it shouldn't be a huge surprise that a $180,000 (when new) AMG has good brakes. In fact, if it didn't THAT would be the surprise.

quadricycle

"unremarkable all-season tires". Someone might want to read the comments on the February 27th article, or read Tirerack.com reviews.
Honestly, switching to a good summer tire might eek out a little more performance from this car, but I don't think we'll see a significant difference. I also agree with dmos.

duck87

Summer tires might help you gain a few feet. But as I commented in the performance article, those are some mahoosive rotors, the same size as wheels on mid 2000s compact cars....

fordson1

If you're talking about brake jump-in, or ability to modulate, ability to rotate under trail-braking, etc. those are measures of brake performance as well as tire performance. But if you are talking about just flat braking distance, on a car this heavy that does not have a remarkably large tire footprint for its weight, that is a measure of about 80% tire adhesion and 20% ABS performance. "No matter the vehicle segment, the all-season average is usually between 120 and 125 feet. Although I can't be certain (our digital database of track numbers only goes back so far), there's a very good chance this is the best all-season stopping distance we've ever recorded." But...they're totally unremarkable tires. And rock-hard. Edmunds almost never fails to buy unremarkable replacement tires for its cars, but now for once you DO have some really good replacement tires tires on one of your cars...and you can't wait to get rid of them.