'High performance' tyres.
Especially when targeted/marketed at users of normal 'commute' vehicles.
A controversial choice perhaps. And while I'm prepared to nail my balls to the wall for everyone to take aim at on this particular choice, just stop and think for a minute about how many occasions the 'performance' component in these usally expensive tyres are actually going to be utilised when taking your kids to school, nipping down to the supermarket, picking the folks up for dinner, etc.
Don't get me wrong, performance tyres definitely have a place, but I think that place should be confined to the track (and maybe the Autobahn) for 'performance' vehicles driven by 'performance-oriented' drivers with 'performance-oriented mind-sets'.
I was one such character for many years and enjoyed taking the Atom down to the Nurburgring where the co-owners and myself would enjoy collectively destroying multiple sets of Avon semi-slicks and laughing about who came back into the car park with just the canvas showing through rubber. But never at any stage did any of us have the idea or desire to replicate this style of driving out on the public roads. We all value keeping hold of our driving licenses and avoiding speeding fines.
When I see the likes of Pirelli, Michelin, Goodyear et al recommending their 'high performance' products at SUV's, family four-doors etc. you have to stop and think 'why? what for?'
Obviously it's to satiate and facilitate the ever-bourgeoning trend in car-manufacturers producing road vehicles with ever increasing power capacties but still, in the real world, where we live in a world full of speed cameras, speed limits, other road users, would you want/need to drive like Nelson Piquet?
I experience it regularly. I drive an 'idiot-magnet' car. I won't say what it is but it's the type of vehicle that some wannabe F1 stars look at and think 'target. I'll get him at the lights. I'll show that fkr who's fastest out of the both of us!'
I have fun with that; usually I give a little rev to indicate to said boy-racer that 'yeah, i'm up for a drag'. To which the response is usually more revving from boy-racer type. Lights go green, they blast away at warp-speed, I saunter away gently, preserving my tyres as well as my sense of integrity, sanity, rationailty. They, on the other hand manage to attain a temporary, very temporay enlargement of the testicles as well as removing about 2mm from their soft-compound 'performance tyres. I'd say that was a 'WIN WIN'. lol
And pre-empting the backlash from the boy-racers of the forum before they all start banging on about stopping power, cornering power, wet weather performance blaa de blaa, consider how much life you get from a set of soft-compound performance tyres by blasting away from traffic lights, screeching to a halt at red lights, pulling 3G in a bend, notwithstanding the hightened risk of such manouvres to other road users.
Maybe not exactly snake-oil then, as performance tyres can and do work. Just not when applied to most road vehicles.