As the environmentally-conscious sort of carbon-junkie, I'm reluctant to throw away a set of expensive tyres without first making sure they've been properly used up.
While a track day is sometimes mooted by pub-talkers as a fitting swansong for time-served rubber, does anyone ever really find that's a practical option? When the wear-indicators emerge through the treads it's usually my cue to swing into an empty shopping centre car park late at night, or start turning off the traction control at T-junctions. Perhaps some people will be surprised to hear that smoky rolling burnouts can be part of a 'sustainability' drive...
The above approach means I tend to get comments like 'ah yes, I remember you...' when I telephone the chaps at Tanvic in Newark to see if they've got any Pirokohaminental P-nutty ZR19s in stock because ours are down to the wires again. If they haven't, they always come up with something suitable within hours or overnight, so I've been back a few times now. Enough times, in fact, for the guys (at Tanvic in Newark) to reckon they deserve a plug on PistonHeads, but as we don't do that sort of thing
(Future reference - except for cash in a brown envelope, Ed.)
, I promised them some free stickers instead. I didn't have the heart to say we don't do free stickers either...
Anyway, the Merc's rear end has now been blessed with a new pair of Yokohama Advan asymmetrics, which is a move back to the rubber the car came with after a dabble with a set of Conti Sport Contacts. The most recently destroyed rears were slightly over-profiled (35s instead of 30s) because last time I rolled up at Tanvics with a puncture and had to take what was available off the shelf, but it didn't seem to make a difference to grip. Newly shod at £160 a side, it's nice to be able to take the car out again when it's raining without the traction control light glowing permanently orange. (Although it's been fun practising what I learned at the AMG Winter Academy a season or so back.)
Meanwhile in other C63 news, something has officially 'gone wrong'. Unless the dashboard display is fibbing, the right hand side parking light bulb has burned out so I'm going to be forced to keep ignoring the warning message or get a new one. I shall probably ignore it because a) I've never knowingly used a parking light in my life, and b) if the dashboard can't be bothered to explain whether 'right' actually means offside or nearside, well I can't be bothered to get out and look, either.
Which is all good, because there are only so many times you can write about the cheek-trembling delights of thrapping a humungously powerful and stupendously sonorous V8-powered AMG bolide around the countryside, before readers start commenting 'yes, yes, we know already...'
(But just for the record, 22,000 miles in, it remains delightful!)
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