Automotive Tires

dorokusai

I'm sure it's not the most exciting subject but I really like the whole tire buying event. Is that weird? I love the process and after getting them installed, the break-in and SCCA style neighborhood runs around the block.

What rubber have you have run with success and/or otherwise?

You don't have to get in depth but after 20+ years of tire buying, I've found some favorites and some that I'll never buy again. In no particular order or reason, just personal.

Dislike:

Pirelli
BF Goodrich
Goodyear
Bridgestone
Michelin

Like:

Continental ContiSportContact
Dunlop D40 M2
Dunlop SP Sport Signature (TBD. New A4 tire, installed yesterday)
Dunlop SP4000/SP5000
Kuhmo Ecsta
Yokohama AVS
Sumitomo HTR

I know that it's vehicle dependent, use and personal preference but what are your likes and dislikes when it come to brands? I'm sure that the dislike list make high quality tires but at the eventual price point, I'll buy another brand.

Knucklehead

I guess my Favorites would be Michelin, My wife's Mountaineer came with them and after normal maintenance (rotations etc..) they still pass inspection with nearly 50000 miles on them, they are quiet and have a nice ride as well. I have Good Year's on my work van they provide a good ride but are noisy as hell.

Ricardo

Nice thread for 5:54 AM.

I usually buy Michelin. I wonder why it is not in your lists.

I was 19, my mom's car needed new tires and I got the task of buying them. I got a nice pair of Dunlops for what she thought was too much.
Next day I was going probably 70 MPH and one of them just blew. I missed a semi for maybe an inch. Of course my mom though that I had done something wrong.
Needless to say, I will never buy Dunlop again

dorokusai

Ricardo wrote: »

Nice thread for 5:54 AM.

I usually buy Michelin. I wonder why it is not in your lists.

I was 19, my mom's car needed new tires and I got the task of buying them. I got a nice pair of Dunlops for what she thought was too much.
Next day I was going probably 70 MPH and one of them just blew. I missed a semi for maybe an inch. Of course my mom though that I had done something wrong.
Needless to say, I will never buy Dunlop again

Knucklehead reminded me of my dislike of Michelin....so it's on there now Ricardo.

I'm sure we all have horror stories of some sort....and my dislikes are probably childish but I buy things based on how I feel you know?

shawn474

I buy whatever is on sale and is recommended by the guys at tirerack.com and discounttire.com. I had stock Goodyear Wranglers on my Titan and they were horrible. I put Firestone Destination A/T's on a few months back and it greatly improved the ride.

Knucklehead

dorokusai wrote: »

Knucklehead reminded me of my dislike of Michelin....so it's on there now Ricardo.

I'm sure we all have horror stories of some sort....and my dislikes are probably childish but I buy things based on how I feel you know?

Thats funny you say that, I will never buy Bridgestone because My foot was run over by a car in a bank drive-thru while I was working on an ATM that was sporting Bridgestone tires...really pissed me off.:p

Ricardo

dorokusai wrote: »

Knucklehead reminded me of my dislike of Michelin....so it's on there now Ricardo.

I'm sure we all have horror stories of some sort....and my dislikes are probably childish but I buy things based on how I feel you know?

Agree. I know Dunlop makes great tires. But that one event placed them in the black list.

Oh, and all your actions are childish.

dorokusai

Knucklehead wrote: »

Thats funny you say that, I will never buy Bridgestone because My foot was run over by a car in a bank drive-thru while I was working on an ATM that was sporting Bridgestone tires...really pissed me off.:p

LOL....but glad your alive to tell the tale. : - )

dorokusai

shawn474 wrote: »

I buy whatever is on sale and is recommended by the guys at tirerack.com and discounttire.com. I had stock Goodyear Wranglers on my Titan and they were horrible. I put Firestone Destination A/T's on a few months back and it greatly improved the ride.

I've been a tirerack.com fan for a couple decades. I'm shopping rims/tires for the warthog now. Wranglers are awful.

Outfitter03

So do you do snow and or ice tires? What brands have you had success with? It is about changeover time here in Utah, but it would be hard to tell with the weather we have had this week. 80 degrees yesterday, not complaining though.

I am currently running Michelin LTX on my Durango. Wearing the best after original Wranglers, Bridgestone Revos, and then another try with a different Wrangler. I like tire shopping and Tire Rack reveiws also +1.

george daniel

Michelin,,great wear on the Accord,, free rotation,,good tire. Now,, Firestone,, yeeetch. YMMV

Willow

We use Pirelli Scorpions for our winter tires on the SUV. The Bridgestone Duelers (OEM) are crap we have our all seasons Yokohama Avid on the SUV right now. (we will do the change over next week). On our car we have Falken ZIEX ZE-912, very quiet tires and smooth. We are currently looking for winter tires for it.

exalted512

I like Michelin. Usually more expensive but they last forever. I also love discount tire. Great customer service before, during, and after the sale. They also put on all the lug nuts by hand, then use the impact, then tighten them down with a torque wrench. Unlike Goodyear who just torques it down with the impact and I could barely get the damn things off. They're now on my **** list...including their tires.
-Cody

nooshinjohn

Michellin and Jaguar is a match made in heaven...

disneyjoe7

Michellin here, but I too wonder why this is on Doro's dislike list? Or is it that he just likes the smaller brands?


Dislike:

Pirelli
BF Goodrich
Goodyear
Bridgestone
Michelin

Like:

Continental ContiSportContact
Dunlop D40 M2
Dunlop SP Sport Signature (TBD. New A4 tire, installed yesterday)
Dunlop SP4000/SP5000
Kuhmo Ecsta
Yokohama AVS
Sumitomo HTR

nadams

I'm running Hercules tires on my Ranger right now. Pretty nice tires for the price, and I haven't had any issues with them. Here's a link to the product specs - http://herculestire.com/catalogHercules/pdfCatalogPages/terraTracAT.pdf

On my old Ranger I ran the Sumitomo HTR Sport tires, and liked those, too.

I've never kept any one vehicle around long enough to completely wear through a set of tires start to finish, but it looks like i'll be keeping my current ride around long enough to do so.

cristo

Really liked the Bridgestone RE-71 way back when.
Really liked the Bridgestone Pole Position S-03 when it was still in production,
although it is a little heavy and stiff.
Not quite as impressed with the Dunlop SP Sport-Maxx I have on now, but they're ok summer tires.
Would look at Dunlop Direzza Sport Z1 Star Spec if I was buying now.
(2003 MINI Cooper)

bruss

i bought my last yoko's from vulcan tire.com and they were cheaper than tirerack and they were shipped to my door in 3 - 4 days

strider

IME most tires installed as an OEM don't wear as well as the same tire if you bought it as a replacement tire from a source other then a wholesale club. Both give the specs to the tire manufacturer they want, give them their price point, and build a tire to meet these criteria. Most of the time the quality of the tire is the trade off, which led to my utter disdain for Contis.
After seeing them as replacement tires and hearing from those happy with them, I've changed my opinion of them a bit. Still not my first choice, however.

Can't wait for the Goodyear Eagle RS tires to wear out on my wife's car so I can replace them with clear conscience. I'll either go with a Hankook or Yokohama then. Kumho is also a possibility, depending upon what they have out when we are ready.

My truck has Michelin LTX A/T 2 on it now, I've been pretty happy with them after a year or so. Wearing very evenly with rotation every oil change, no need for balancing. Quiet and comfortable on the highway, no problems getting through the snow in the past blizzards. When I installed them I was really hard pressed to get away from the BF Goodrich AT/KO, which I had on my old Tacoma. 70k miles on a truck with a lift was pretty exceptional, IMO. Tough to balance when installed, they took up to an ounce on each IIRC. They didn't do well in the mud, though.

Joe08867

Nice thread,

I Have been using Kuhmo's on my Golf for the last year and really like these little guys. For the price I think they are awesome

Dislike:
Goodyear Don't like any I have tried. Eagle, run flat, aqua crap whatever.
Cooper there Cooper! Nuf Said,
Nitto Crappy, Crap, Crap.
Falken Haven't liked any of these Falken tires.
Yokohama Wear out insanly fast A008's were decent but also quick to wear.

Like:
Michelin MXV's For my Impala. It likes these more than any others I've tried.
Pirelli Zero's SCCA Stuff on one of my old cars
BF Goodrich Offroad tires and highway tires for trucks
Bridgestone See above
Kuhmo Ecsta My little Golf likes them alot. $ Rocks,

heiney9

I always have my tires drop shipped to my mechanic from Tire Rack. Excellent service, quick shipping, great prices.

I run 2 sets of tires for my GTi VR6 here in the snow ridden Midwest. My stock rims have Blizzak snow tires for the Winter season. My summer rims have strictly Summer tires. It's that time of year to think about swapping them before the first snowfall.

Dislike:

Pirelli
Dunlop
Michelin (over priced is the main reason)
Conti's (never had a decent Conti's)

Like:

Bridgestone
Sumitomo (currently have HTR Z's for Summer tires, they do wear a little quickly, but they are pretty soft)
Kuhmo (my next tire)
Yoko's (not the one who broke up the Beatles)
Fulda (no longer available in the US, the Y2000 was a good tire for not a lot of $$)

The Bridgestone Blizzak LM-22's have been excellent high performance snow tires and I'm on my 5th or 6th season. Probably time to replace next year.

H9

heiney9

Outfitter03 wrote: »

So do you do snow and or ice tires? What brands have you had success with? It is about changeover time here in Utah, but it would be hard to tell with the weather we have had this week. 80 degrees yesterday, not complaining though.

I am currently running Michelin LTX on my Durango. Wearing the best after original Wranglers, Bridgestone Revos, and then another try with a different Wrangler. I like tire shopping and Tire Rack reveiws also +1.

I have had great success with Bridgestone Blizzak's. I can go faster than most SUV's and get around quicker too. . Great bite, great wear characteristics and if you get the upper end high performance tires they ride nice and are fairly quiet (for snow tires) on bare pavement. If you go to Tirerack.com they have all sorts of user ratings and official tests on most of their tires. It's a great resource and they are superb to buy from.

H9

strider

+1 for Blizzaks, another one I've had success with was Gislaaved. Don't see them around much anymore, they are a Swedish company and were real popular with people with the RWD Volvos.

shawn474

I put Pirelli Scorpions on an automobile that I owned and spent an assload to do so. It was by far the worst investment I have ever made on an automobile "upgrade". If I could have taken them back, I would have, but had to suffer through many miles until they wore out and had to get replaced. Never again.

A bunch of my friends swear by Kumho and Nitto. I might give them a go in the future on the truck.

Shawn

billbillw

Unfortunately, this is extremely dependent on both the desired use and size of the tire. What I would recommend in a max performance summer tire wouldn't be the same as what I'd recommend for an all season touring tire.

Yokohamas have always seemed to have a good price/performance ratio to me and every pair I've owned has given me the expected (or better) amount of mileage before needing replacement. Years ago, I realized that Michelins (although great performers) were over priced and I will probably never buy another pair.

In recent years, Korean newcomers like Kuhmo and Hankook have made great strides in producing a competitive product for the price.

I was pretty much convinced to never buy Goodyear again, but last year, I gave them one last chance with the newly designed Eagle GT. It was one of the more affordable UHP-AS/W rated tires that fit my Mazdaspeed. After a year, I can say they are really good tires (excellent in the wet and excellent dry grip too), but I'm not sure they will last as long as you'd expect a 400 wear tire would.

Not sure what I'll try next. Conti DWS? Yoko Envigor? Pirelli Pzero Nero A/S? Might also move to a summer tire since it rarely snows or gets icy here.

drselect

Replaced a set of Goodyears with Nittos NT850 and feel the Niitto sound and handle better then the Goodyears and so far seem to being having a better wear life.

AsSiMiLaTeD

It varies greatly by tire, so much that it's very difficult to lump whole tire brands together based on experience with a given tire. For example, the last couple new vehicles I've bought have had Dunflops and Bridgestone OEM tires on, and they were just awful tires.

However, I've had aftermarket experience with both of those companies that's really good, so I can't really say that one company is bad.

"but I buy things based on how I feel you know?" I saw this line above and with tires I couldn't disagree more. Tires are one of those things where you have first narrow your search down to a type of tire, then do your research and buy the best tire you can afford.

We've had 3 different 4Runners (98, 2004, and now a 2010) and an FX-45, so everything I know in tires is limited to the SUV world.

For on road performance it's basically impossible to beat the Michelin LTX M/S 2. They're quiet, handle great in all conditions, and last a long time. They're not cheap though. Coming in a close second are the Bridgestone Alenzas, I'd say they're very close with regards to comfort, noise and handling, but they wear out quicker. I get about 55k out of the Michelin and maybe 40k out of the Michelin.

The Michelin usually run me about $1100 installed, and the Bridgestone about $900. Right now I have Michelin on the Infiniti and Bridgestone on the 4Runner. The Bridgestone end up being cheaper because of the warranty I get from Firestone and they've always been great about changing out tires for a new set when needed.

I choose to keep the Michelin on the FX45 because it responds well to the maybe 2 or 3 % extra that the Michelins give you in terms of performance. The 4Runner is more of a dual purpose vehicle and is not refined enough on the road to notice the small advantage the Michelins have, so I go with the Bridgestone because they're a bit cheaper and I have a good relationship with my local Firestone manager and they've always treated me well.

I also have a set of offroad tires for the 4Runner. I have not done quite the amount of research there, but I've had great success with both the Bridgestone Revos and the General Grabber. I stick with the Revos even though they're a tad more expensive again because of the treatment by my local Firestone guy. He installed those on a second set of wheels for me and he lets me keep those up at his shop so that when I want to change out the tires I just drive up there and he swaps them out real quick for me for free, which means I don't have to haul them up there or get out and do it myself.

Bottom line though is that you can't really say brand x is bad based on your experience with even a few tires, everything is tire specific.

AsSiMiLaTeD

Also, I'm sure the car experts will disagree with me but IMO tires and brakes are two things you should not take shortcuts on or ignore when going bad.

Although incidents are very rare, tires are the only thing between you and the road travelling at 75 mph, if one blows out it can get real nasty real quick. I'm not saying less expensive tires are more likely to blow out because I have no idea, but I know ifnoring old tires is bad, and when it comes to the purpose of the tires I'm not comfortable leaving that responsibility up to a $50 tire from Pep Boys.

If my engine blows or my battery dies or my car overheats then yeah it's gonna suck and probably cost me some cash, but none of those things really have the potential to kill me. If my brakes fail or my tire blows though, that can mean a painful death for whoever is in the vehicle, so I don't screw around with those things.

Just my $.02

kawizx9r

Kuhmo's are on my GT Cruiser, and when I used to have my Kawi and Honda I would use Pirelli Diablo's.

heiney9

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

Tires are one of those things where you have first narrow your search down to a type of tire, then do your research and buy the best tire you can afford.

Couldn't disagree more!!! Price is not a reflection of how good a tire is. Michelin's cost the most and many of the lower cost tires I buy are just as good.

It's like audio the most expensive pieces aren't always the best for every application.

You do realize that many of the lower cost, lesser known brands don't manufacture their own tires, but just rebrand those same expensive tire brands. Now, they may not be the most up to date tire the major manufacturer offers, but they are still very close.

An example is the Firehawk brand is manufactured by Bridgestone and the Firehawks are the same as "last years" Bridgestones for about a 30-35% cost savings. "This years" Bridgestones aren't a radical departure from "last years", but some consumers have to have the absolute newest model from their favorite brand, and they pay a premium for that.

Nothing wrong with either senario, but just because a tire costs more doesn;t mean it's a better tire.

H9

heiney9

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

Also, I'm sure the car experts will disagree with me but IMO tires and brakes are two things you should not take shortcuts on or ignore when going bad.

This is more a maintainance issue rather than spending the most money on these things = not taking a short cut. As long as the tires and brakes meet manufacturer's specs you will be fine. Now if you choose to upgrade the performance of both, nothing wrong with that. I usually do in both area's but if you choose not to, that's not taking a short cut in any way shape or form.

H9