I've had 245/45/16 on stock wheels, I think it looks nice. No clearance problems on stock suspension.

 

The Continental Extremecontact Sport 02 and the Michelin PS4S are the 2 best all-around performance tires in that category. There are more focused and 'faster' 200TW 'street' tires, but they compromise noise, ride quality, longevity, or wet weather performance. If you're not tracking your car or even if you do once and a while and you're not the most advanced driver out there, it's hard to pick a better tire than the Sport 02.

If you're more of a track rat and are capable of driving the car at the limit continously, then you will want a more track-focused tire.

I have Sport 02s on my sports cars and love them.

 

Sport 02’s don’t come in 245/45/16, and that size offers a better patch, virtually no change in speedometer accuracy and much better looks. IMO there are any number of choices in equal quality and performance that are offered in that size. As has been suggested, sticking with the stock size and Continentals is a compromise for the showroom look I wouldn’t make. Especially since almost no one else would know.

 

The treadwidth varies greatly from one tire to another. I still stand by my previous comments that selecting a tire that's not a Sport 02 or PS4S would result in pretty significant compromises for 99.5% of people. If you are an avid weekend track warrior, I would for sure go with the 245/45-16, but most people are not. Therefore, I would pick the 0.3" narrower Sport 02 over the Potenza Sport as the better Sport 02 tire will more than offset the wider Potenza, although it won't 'look' as wide...

225/50-16 Continental Extremecontact Sport 02 - 7.5"
245/45-16 Bridgestone Potenza Sport - 7.8"
245/45-16 Yokohama A052 - 8.4"

I personally wouldn't select a tire for 'looks', and wrote an article on how to properly size and select tires for performance:

https://motoiq.com/how-to-properly-s...r-performance/


0.02

 

I went through that dilemma with my 18" street wheels. I've got dedicated track wheels on Hoosiers, so it's street only use, and I'll never go through the tread before they turn to plastic (my old Super Sports were 13 years old with half tread left), so I wanted to go super sticky 200tw, but with that comes stiff sidewalls and more noise, which I don't really want in a street tire. Also, I initially tried a set of Sport Cups, and they honestly don't have any more grip at street temps, as with many of those tires they need heat to get the promised performance. I've heard, though, that A052s are reasonably livable and grippy in street applications.

An under-recognized tire spec is weight. I've found Michelins tend to be the lightest, often by 3-5lbs PER TIRE over comparable other tires at size. If you've spent bucks on light wheels, that tire weight is a real differentiator to me.

 

I've daily driven A052s and they are perfectly streetable (in most cases). They are not as good in the wet, cold, or have as good of a ride quality or as quiet as a Conti Sport 02 or PS4S; but if you have a loud and harsh 'racecar for the street', you'll probably not notice a difference in the NVH.

The Sport 02 is my go-to tire. If you look up the specs of it vs the Michelin PS4S, the Conti is almost identical in terms of weight, dimensions, wet/dry grip, quietness, etc... and typically less expensive. I had the opportunity to back to back both the PS4S and Sport 02 (brand new on the same car and same day) and they were within tenths of each other in the dry.