195/55 slowed my car down

[Loren]

Scape, nothing against you here, but this is a perfect example of how things like the tire survey data on the Tire Rack website should be weighed carefully. You're calling the GT Exclaim "awesome" and "confidence" inspiring where a person who has experienced a much BETTER tire would merely call them "adequate" and "not horrible".

How good a tire is depends greatly on what you're comparing it to, and there are far better tires out there than anything made by General and/or any all-season tire. You've acquired another data point... now next time spring for a really good set of "summer" tires with good rain characteristics. (you live in SFL, you don't need all season tires) They'll cost a little more, but they will blow you away with their grip and responsiveness wet or dry.

Tire temperature gets up to it's operating level pretty quickly. A mile or two will do it, especially at speeds over 45ish. Want to see how sensitive tire pressures are to temp? Set all four tires to even pressure in the shade early in the morning (cold). Then park the car where one side of the car is in the sun. See if you don't see at least 2 degrees higher temps on the sunny side in a couple hours.