• Stressful day at work. But there is always the amusement of the Labour leadership fallout to enjoy. Happy families. #

• And the season two finale of Warehouse 13 begins. At least on my TV. #
• Warehouse 13 two part finale was both awesome and yet disappointing. Very apt for season two. #

• Had a very pleasant day at Conisborough Castle. Definately had the best of the weather in the morning. #

• Spent more time posting work stuff in the last two days than time on holiday. #

• Yesterday was a truly horrible day from the stress perspective. Now waiting for my car to be serviced. #
• Race review will be up later. First impressions via Five Live in the car whilst driving. McLaren cost Button the race. #
• Hmm. OMD is being interviewed on BBC News, and Humphries is back with McClusky. My interest is piqued. #

• Bloody awful drive to a National Trust place. Very annoyed and stressed. #

• This all new Strictly reveal show is all a bit false. Looking forward more enthusiastically to new Merlin. #

• Listening to the football amazingly enough, whilst waiting to watch Warehouse 13. #

• And it's the first day of the school year. Nothing too bad on the roads, other than an overturned truck. Sore after a weekend of painting. #
• Just sat down to watch Jonathan Creek. Monday solitude after a day of stress and headaches. #

Around three months ago, I replaced all four corners on my beloved GTi Edition 30 – moving away from the Bridgestone rubber which came with the car, to my classically favoured choice: Michelin.

Initial impressions are quite often the best, as you’ve just gone from one tyre to the new. You can detect the nuances quite starkly. Problem is, you can’t possibly give a rounded picture as you haven’t taken in a variety of conditions, and a variety of circumstances. 2500 miles on however, and I think I can give a reasonable perspective.

Why? Well, when I was looking for tyre reviews, and in particular the Michelin Pilot Sport 3, I could find, very, very little apart from some posts on various performance forums. But there were very few solid paragraphs, and even fewer paragraphs with solid data – or even a good description of the rim protector.

The Bridgestone’s were still quite legal with a minimum of 4mm all round, although some questionable tracking had taken a bite out of the right front. As an aside, don’t trust the dealer to sort out suspension geometry – take it to your local National tyre centre and get chatting to the mechanics. I can heartily recommend the Sale branch. However, moving back to the point, the tyres just didn’t give me any confidence in the wet. Possibly not surprising, you may say, given the power available on the right foot and the road surface no longer being the most appropriate to use it. Unfortunately, they didn’t give me a lot in the dry either. It was ridiculously easy to spin the wheels in second gear, as soon as the K04 turbo kicked in past 3,000 revs. Bone dry road, straight line, already doing 50+ mph. And third gear wasn’t immune either. The rubber was competent, but as soon as you let the car off the leash, it wasn’t good enough.

Cue a trip to Costco, to take advantage of one of the regular 20% off promotions. These happen at least twice a year, and occasionally there’s a better deal late on in the year. But I was in the market now, so I waited until the expected promotion appeared and then did the deal for four new Michelin Pilot Sport 3. All in the four corners were £450 give or take. At just over £112 a tyre, I’d consider that to be reasonable value for a solid, premium option.

Initial impressions were positive. More grip into tight corners, and a nice positive feel. Crank on the steering in the middle of a corner, there was a nice, linear increase in attack. However, being in the middle of summer, dry grip isn’t all that impressive. Lots of tyre brands can do that to a reasonable standard – what about when it turns nastier?

As luck (or otherwise) would have it, I had a cross-country trip for work three days later. A nice, sunny trip down – all with no drama – but some twelve hours later the skies opened and the conditions turned into an effective monsoon whilst coming back over the M62. There is something rather ironic when you see the sign pronouncing you are ripping past the highest point on a UK motorway, when the sign itself is covered in mist of cloud and screaming rain. Other than the usual paranoia about other people doing silly things, there were no issues from the rubber. Monsoon conditions and quite vicious crosswinds didn’t phase the car. They certainly were a better proposition than the Bridgestone tyres which they replaced.

In terms of rim protection, it’s adequate. There’s around 4mm of rubber between the tyre wall and my 18 inch BBS rims. The Bridgestones probably had slightly more at 5-6mm, but the design of the Michelin puts more of the tyre wall in the way, whilst the Bridgestone was more of a slope to the edge of the tyre, thereby putting less overall rubber in the way of a kerb bashing. Some people don’t value rim protection – a 1.5 tonne car being stopped by 5mm of rubber – but the rim protection on the Bridgestones definitely saved me all but cosmetic damage in a snowy Portmerion car park in Feburary, so this aspect of a tyre is certainly not to be sneered at. Equally, crass parking isn’t going to be negated by a thin sidewall in general.

A couple of months on, the tyres are performing very well. The only concern is the rate of wear on the fronts. I’ll be keeping a eye on this, but 3mm has disappeared in short order which is beyond the wear rate I was expecting. Other than that, the Michelin Pilot Sport 3 is highly recommended.