personal preference which I have tested on many cars in the past...

- never buy or run your car on run-flats [period]

1. Michelin - most expensive and the best all rounder you'd get... definitely tops my list.

2. Pirelli + Continental - not much between them and they are great brands. they do instill a lot of confidence in daily driving but not as much as M'lins... I have a set of P Zero's on my A8 and they are tad noisy on 20" rims.

3. all other Premium-ish brands such as Goodyear, Dunlop, Bridgestone etc...

4. Value brands



hope that helps...

Quattro A8's should have all 4 tyres replaced at the same time, they should also wear fairly equally being a constant 4wd system, this lessens the strain on the Torsten system

On another note Pirelli p zero nero's IME aren't very good and are very vague on feel, the hankook v12 evo that where replaced with the pirellis where a much better overall tyre, uniroyal are also a very good tyre too esp for the price.