Tires are the only part of your car touching the road, and even then the surface area regularly connecting to the pavement could fit on a piece of printer paper. And, yet, many of us just look for the cheapest tire. For certain cars that’s maybe ok, but even our staff is split between people who don’t care that much about their tires and those who spend way too much time tire-shopping.
Matt Hardigree
The tires are the only part of my Subaru that do not let me down. I have Michelin CrossClimate 2s and I think they’re the best all-around tire for people who drive a non-performance vehicle/live in cold climates and might have to drive in snow irregularly.
Thomas Hundal
When I bought my Boxster, I knew it needed new tires, and there aren’t many choices in this particular fitment. Instead of the Porsche N-Spec Pirelli P Zeros, which I haven’t been impressed with, or the ancient and expensive Porsche N-Spec Michelin PS2s, I went with the Continental ExtremeContact Sport 02. It’s a 340-treadwear summer tire competing with the Michelin Pilot Sport 4S, except it’s exclusively an aftermarket fitment. While grip and resistance to flat-spotting has been excellent, the big surprise was road manners. These are incredibly quiet tires that are still sticky enough to throw pebbles, they’re hushed over expansion joints, have a great sense of dead-ahead, and I find the steering more linear than on most Michelin tires. So far, I’m extremely happy. After all, a good car requires good tires, right?
Peter Vieira
I am a discerning consumer, which means I wear out the counter guy at my Local Firestone Tire Center with a litany of questions including “What do you have for a 2015 RAV4” and “What is the cheapest tire for a 2015 RAV4,” followed by “can I keep this pen” and exactly no other questions. I’m an unashamed cheap-tire buyer, but I won’t get the cheapest of the cheap – it’s gotta be a legit name brand, it can’t be something like, “Mile King, a Division of Abakumov Rubber & Sausage.” At present, I’m happy with my [goes out to garage to check] Firestone All-Seasons. They’re the perfect combination of “was on sale” and “seems fine” that I require in a tire. And if anyone’s wondering why I get my tires from a Firestone shop, it’s because it’s close enough for me to ride my bicycle back home after I drop off the RAV4. I can’t be hanging out in no tire store all day, I’m busy.
Mercedes Streeter
My only tire loyalty is to Vredestein. Otherwise, cheapest tire from a recognizable brand.
Top image by Pete, via Twitter (sigh … “X.”)Â
Wildpeak AT3/W on both. Yes to the E rated, meh on the P rated.
Michelin Pilot Sport AS/3 (now the AS/4 generation). These tires have an incredible balance of feel, treadwear, dry grip, and all weather performance – perfect for my sport oriented SUV (X3 M40i). I’ve also had Michelin Pilot Sport 2s as the summer rubber on my last sports sedan which was also an amazing tire. You definitely pay a premium for the Michelin Pilot Sport rubber, but they truly are a class leader with very few compromises.
I also have Extreme Contact 2s on my 986, and am very pleased with their grip and noise levels. I haven’t had enough time with them to see how their wear, but I would consider using them on my daily, which now sits on PS4s and X-Ices in the winter.
I never go for cheap tires because now that I’ve experienced the good stuff it’s hard to go back. It’s also not usually that much more expensive when you have cars on 17 or 18 inch rims like I do.
Brand new Continental PureContact LS on my 2018 Golf Sportwagen. Great A/S tires for every day. Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar 3 tires on my 2000 C5 Corvette FRC. Lovely for grip, need some care in the wet however. Love them both.
When we moved to the wrong end of a wet curvy road a couple years ago, Dear Spouse’s Outback got a set of Nokian WR G4 all-weather tires. Incredible grip on snow and heavy rain, but they’re already worn out, which might explain why they’re discontinued. We’re looking at a set of Michelin CrossClimate 2s this fall, though I hear there’s even better options now.
The F250 got a set of Blacklion Voracio all-weathers; we don’t use it much so we figured we’d cheap out. The Nissan minitruck came with a set of Toyos which are great for sliding around in the rain with.
I read/watch extensive reviews when buying tires, with no particular brand loyalty. My 986 sits on Dunlop Direzza Z3’s right now and wears Vredestein Wintrac Pros in the Winter. Both perform their jobs admirably and offer fantastic performance (The Dunlops aren’t great in the rain, but they’re safe, and that’s enough from a 200TW track tire). Both are loud, but between the soft top and mid-mounted engine, the car is louder, so they don’t bother me.
My wife’s CR-V wears Vredestein Quatrac 5’s, and they’re the full package. Quiet, comfortable, grippy in all weather conditions.
I would never get economy tires for anything or OEM tires for almost anything. Economy tires offer a small bump in economy for a large loss of performance, comfort, road manners, durability and quality, while OEM tires are almost universally lowest-bidder regulatory concessions formulated to squeeze out cents from the bottom line. They’re “designed specifically for the model” in the sense that they’re defeatured to what’s absolutely necessary to make the model function so the manufacturer can buy them cheaper, and then marked up for the customer over the superior aftermarket version. The few exceptions to terrible OEM tires are usually sports cars whose tires are tuned for specific handling behavior.
I’ve driven two different vehicles with CC2 and I have to disagree with the assertion that they are quite tires. I definitely get tread noise. Michelin are generally a great brand, but I’m disappointed in CC2. Maybe if I were set on an all season with a focus on snow/ice, they might still be worth it. Michelin Defender LTX M+S are great tires, but quintessential truck in nature. Great snow/ice (for non snow tire), tough and gravel/dirt road grip. Huge treadwear. Not great highway responsiveness, but most truck tires are not razor sharp anyway. I think they are being replaced with a newer model, which is a loss.
As far as tire that I like, Pirelli AS Plus 3 on SUVs. They are quite with good handling in dry and wet. No experience with snow, but that is a rare event where I live. They aren’t an off road or ‘unimproved’ road tire. Continental CrossContact LX (non-Sport) for a sedan. Again, good dry and wet with only okay ice performance (3 year old tires at the time). Both tires have great highway stability.
I’m glad to find someone else other than a semi-anonymous reviewer who finds the CCs noisy. They make a growl and whine that are nearly infuriating. Same with the Agilis CC.
IME Michelin’s top-spec tires can be very good, but they’re rarely truly worth the price premium over a comparable Bridgestone, Pirelli, Continental, or Goodyear. Some are so stratospherically priced that you could buy a 5th tire or even 6th from the other brands for the same price as 4 of the Michelins. And that’s from me, and tires – and brakes – are car parts I will not skimp on.
That said, I’ve also had more sudden inexplicable slips and spins with Michelin tires than any other brand. With good tread, not old, and even among their top all-seasons. I can’t trust them
I’ve had a lot of success with Goodyear truck tires, and the Wrangler Duratracs (31×10.5 R15) on my Ranger have been good so far. But on the family truckster, I want a good set of 3PMSF tires, and am leaning toward the Michelin CrossClimates
I have my thrid set of duratracs on my wrangler and put a set of crossclimates on my wife’s minivan.
All Michelin except the MG, which has cheapies because they’ll just age out in a few years anyway. My dad put Pilot Sport 4Ss on the Chrysler, which I’ll keep until they wear out. The Yukon came with oversize aftermarket wheels and Michelin something or others; when those are done I’ll find some factory-size wheels that take cheaper tires. And when I took the truck to Discount Tire for Generals or something, they only had 3 in stock, so they sold me Michelin LTXs for the same price. They’re perfect for it, much better than the oversize all-terrains that it wore when I bought it.
I’ll double down on what Matt said. I endure classic Canadian winters, I mounted a set of Michelin CrossClimate 2s on my Sorento last fall. (my summers were toast and I hadn’t bought winters). I decided to try this “all weather” tire.
My friends, these tires are better in the snow than the dedicated Toyo winters I had on my F150. They still have 100,000km tread warranty and I can run them year round. These tires are a scientific mystery but I 1000% recommend them to anyone and everyone.
My ’86 Mercedes sees a few thousand kms a year in ideal weather, and is powered by 140hp of diesel fury. Thus, it runs on the finest Ovation brand tires I bought for $100/each with a treadwear of 280.
They’re not perfect, but they’re plenty grippy for a fair weather land barge.
I was able to snag for cheap a set of OEM wheels for as a winter set with gently used CrossClimates. I was also unsure about running “all-weather” tires in the winter, but am pleasantly surprised. As good as any other non-studded winter tire I’ve had
I ran a tire shop for 10 years, and developed an undying loyalty to Cooper tires, because they were the most ethical and fair of all the tire companies to the independent “mom and pop” stores. Michelin, Goodyear, Bridgestone were all very cutthroat and didn’t care at all if Wal-mart and Costco were eating you alive.
It didn’t hurt that Cooper started building Mickey Thompson tires and really evolved and put care into that brand. I tried a set, they blew me away, and that’s all I’ve run since. Currently running a set of 35″ Baja Legends on my 4xe, and aside from losing a bit of electric range, I’m extremely happy with them.
Does Cooper now being owned by Goodyear change your opinion?
Ive been out of the tire game a while now, but the news really made me sad.
about 10 years ago Cooper almost got sold off to Apollo tire (India) and they terminated the deal when it became apparent that this would lead to Cooper losing most of its American workers. Having toured the factory (2 hours away from my shop) and met the people who worked there, the thought of them shuttering really bothered me.
But now with this, I would just really need to dig into what Goodyear’s plans are. Will they keep the American plants going and keep Cooper mainly intact? or will they just strip them for parts and start making junk tires with a name brand (like MANY others do)
Time will tell I guess.
Goodyear will do to Cooper and Mastercraft what it did to Dunlop and Kelly and it won’t be pretty. They are trying to cut $1billion in spending, so they are divesting from Dunlop. Goodyear is bleeding money right now. They lost $57 million in Q1 of 24 which is an improvement over the $100 million they lost in Q1 of 23.
Cooper still has some good product, but I’d stay away from them for a while until Goodyear can figure out what the plan is.
I’ll never understand why companies do this. Kelly, and Dunlop were good brands that they just ran into the dirt, Like Bridgestone did to Dayton.
Very happy with my Continental ExtremeContact 02. They stick to the road (I just drive a GTI, so not the most powerful, but I do take curves like they’re meant to be taken)
Conti VikingContact 07 for winter, also very satisfied
I have a lot of connections within the Bridgestone organization, so I tend to favor Bridgestone and Firestone products. I will make an exception for context, though. I’m looking to put Nokians on my Saab at the next opportunity to keep it Scandinavian.
I think Bridgestone did amazing things for Firestone. It’s tire quality was iffy at best before they took over, but now, the bang-for-the-buck proposition is really high. I’m super happy with my Firehawk all seasons.
I’ve got some Destination LE3s on my Odyssey and they’re great. Though the OE Bridgestone Turanzas were terrible; they wore out after 35-40k. Typical OE tire I guess.
I bought some General Altimax RT45’s after 5 or so years of my BFG Advantage T/A Sport’s a few months ago. They seem to perform pretty much the same, but the Generals seem to ride a bit better. If the BFG’s hadn’t started rotting, I’d probably still have them.
Both were/are great tires to have in the snow. They barely let me slide.
My daily drivers for a long while have all been Continental. They never seem to be the highest rated tire out there, but they’re usually in the top 3 or 5 per category, and they’re usually priced well below the “best” tire.
I actually started using Continental as a winter tire – The ContiWinterContact was a great balance of on road performance and winter traction. From there, I tried the ExtremeContact DWS06 as a summer tire, and they’re been just as great, so I’ve stuck with them.
On my current DD, I changed slightly… the car came with Continental’s Eco tires…which are ok. I’ll change them out for DWS06+ when they wear enough.
I bought the VikingContact7 this time for winter however – it’s softer, but quite a lot better with snow and ice traction. I’ve put 4 winters on them now, and they’re still holding up really well. A pandemic where I didn’t commute much has a lot to do with that though.
The big exception is on the Miata. I considered the ExtremeContact Sport… but actually went with Firestone Firehawk Indy 500’s. They came in at a much better price with reviews that promised excellent handling… which they have delivered on nicely. They kinda suit the car and my driving pretty perfectly actually.
Our fleet is rolling around on:
VW GTI- Bridgestone Potenza Sports for warm season and Autocross (so far they’ve been a fantastic budget competitor to the Pilot Sport 4’s she wore last summer) and Pirelli Sottozero 3’s for winter duty (they did well through several whiteouts and ski trips)
Honda Fit- Hankook RS4’s in the back and Kumho V730’s up front (get silly with it)
NA Miata- whatever all season was available in a 14 inch wheel size still (a thrilling and exhilarating experience in heavy rain)
My firebird- Nitto NT555 G2 275/40/r17 seems to be nice grippy tires car hooks really well with them.
FJ- Yokohama Geolander M/T 305/70/r16- haven’t really done much with these tires besides drive through some mud and they perform pretty well. They rub a bit on the passenger side when the wheel is cut to the right so might need an alignment. I used to have Falken M/T before I got these on a few weeks ago.
92 Cummins- Falken Wildpeak A/T (cannot recall size) seem to be decent tires the truck used to get stuck in wet grass and doesn’t any more with these tires (yay 2wd with no weight in back)
Tourx- Also has Falken Wildpeak A/T 235/50/r18- No complaints gets through our muddy driveway fine and gets through the snow well.
As can see I really like Falken tires they seem to perform really well for the price or well used to but the prices on them have gone up to much. I trie to change tires every 5-7 years or 40-70k miles (depends on tread and such) FJ’s old tires I got 70k from them since I did a 5 tire rotation.
On my daily driver I’ve got BFG g-Force Comp2 A/S plus. They are OK but they do flat spot when sitting for a week at least in the 40 series, my son’s don’t seem to do that but they are 60 series. The other thing that is unusual about mine is that when driving on concrete at low speeds they make a weird noise that is hard to describe. It is really noticeable when going through a drive thru and having the building for the sound to bounce off. On the road however they don’t seem particularly noisy. I’d like a little more wet grip as they aren’t quite as good as my old go to Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3+.
So when it came time for new tires for the T-bird I went to the replacement for my old go to’s the Pilot Sport All Season 4. Haven’t racked up many miles on those yet but so far so good. I don’t expect to find out about their wet grip or snow capabilities but in the dry they are a massive improvement over the cheapo tires that were on it when I bought it and they are quiet which was high on the priority list for that car.
I put the Vredestein Pinza AT on our SUV and I’m happy with their overall performance including wet and snow. At Tire Rack had just started carrying Vredestein and they were a good value but that price difference between similar tires has seemed to have gone away. That said I’d definitely consider them again if in need of that type of tire.
Michelin Primacy Tour A/S on my current daily.
I hate them.
They are oem tires and are good for around town driving in most weather. But on the open highway they are far noisier than expected. They also ride harsh, but that’s more likely due to them being 40 ratio on 20″ wheels.
My other vehicle is on BFG AT KO2’s. Quiet and squishy and all around really good. They’re 32’s on 15″ wheels. Old-school setup on an old-school chunk of iron.
Previously I had been on some Barum Bravuris 3HM’s that were surprisingly good summer tires for not wearing a big brand name.
They don’t make the tire I really liked for the Camaro, so I am running my second choice. Bridgestone something or other.
The Crosstrek gets the brand On Sale. Right now found an amazing deal on Hankook’s
On my Silverado I have Falken Wildpeak AT3W’s. They have been great. Solid performance on and off pavement, great in snow, and minimal road noise. I have my eye on the new AT4W’s next, but I only drive about 7,000 miles per year in the truck, so it will be awhile.
OEM tires on the Wife’s CX-5. They are nothing to write home about, I couldn’t even tell you what they are. Very meh performance. Will be replacing them this Fall.
OEM CX-5 tires should be the Toyo A23 or A36 AFAIK. They’re so “meh” they don’t even get a real name.
They’re not so bad so as to be noticeable like Michelin Primacy, or the garbage Hankook and Kumho that Hyundai/Kia put on their new cars, but they’re not great, or the underwhelming Pirelli and Continentals a lot of Euro brands put as OE.
I’ve had to replace a couple on Mrs. BoxRocket’s various CX-5s due to picking up FOD in non-repairable areas. I’d have upgraded them to something better but it was just one at a time and not so different in tread depth that replacing more than 1 was warranted.
She hasn’t kept any of the cars long enough to replace the whole set with a better set of tires (first CX-5 was a purchase, subsequent ones have been leases). So in that regard they’re good, I guess.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who has found the tires to be complete Meh. I think ours are actually Yokohama.
What year and trim? I can look it up and tell you. There was a Yokohama option that are also very “meh”, I think they were the S33B or something? Though that might have been the ones they used on some Mopar minivans. Definitely not theit best effort.
It’s a 2018 Touring FWD.
Hmm I’m only seeing Toyo for that spec, but the Yokohama option may have been discontinued.
I’ve had to change out a number of tires over the last three to four years. Such is part of the fun of trying to keep a whole fleet in drivable condition.
Pirelli something-or-others are on my Volt. I had to wait in line for over an hour at the local Sam’s Club to take advantage of a mail-out one-day-only deal. Out-the-door-price of $380 was nice.
Goodyear something-or-others (I think they’re Assurance) on my ’82 Jaguar XJ6. Another Sam’s Club deal. They’re fine.
Nexen’s on the Spark. Sam’s Club again. Fine.
Nexen’s with whitewalls on the ’66 Biscayne. These were stupid-cheap ebay specials. I pulled the wheels at home and had a local shop mount and balance them. I think the total on that was only around $350 by the time everything was said and done. They ride surprisingly nice.
More Ebay specials for the ’95 Escort – Waterfalls? Something along those lines. Same process as the Biscayne. Only $280 at the finish line for that set. They’re fine.
Yet another Ebay special for my F-250. Two 10-ply tires for the rear. They’re kind of stiff and the truck rides a little odd after I installed them, but they’re far better than the junkyard specials I had on there previously.
Last, but not least… the mustard and mayo Vogue specials for my ’94 Fleetwood. Again, went through Ebay and had them installed at the local tire independent tire shop. I really like these tires – they look just right on the car and manage to complete the feeling of being completely disassociated with the road. Land-yacht perfection.
I have Vredestein Quatracs on both Subarus and I have been pleased with them. Better dry performance than expected and I’ve never had a problem in wet or snow. These are daily drivers that aren’t pushed very hard – I’d probably find the limits of these pretty easily if pushing it.
Dunlop Direza Star Specs on the Miata. They’re very good, very grippy and have a much wider contact patch than their section width would indicate. The give a little bit of warning before losing traction and are relatively easy to get back into shape when you do push them too hard. When I need tires for the Miata, I just check the forums to see what the autox guys are running. I don’t get to drive it that much so treadwear isn’t a concern.
I’m not running any right now, but I am generally a big fan of Yokohama tires. Every Yokohama I have ever used surpassed my expectations.
Currently running Discount Tire brand due to extreme commute. They hold up pretty well.
On any other car, I have my “tire continent” rule-
If they’re from North America, BF Goodrich.
If they’re from Yurp, Pirelli.
If they’re from Asia, Yokohama.
Not the car’s continent of origin, just the tires. Because in my 40+ years of driving experience, these three are the best.
I am on my 3rd?? set of Goodyear Wrangler Duratrac They are less expensive and lighter than many hybrid tires, incredibly durable, fantastic in the snow, and very good off-road and in mud. They wear strangely, it feels that some center lugs wear faster than adjacent ones so they get noisy as they age.