Best Performance All Season Tire?

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B

ballmode

Lifer
Aug 17, 2005
10,246
2
0
Right now I currently am wearing Michellin Pilot Sport A/S Plus.

I love them as I really gotta drive my car unsafe on public roads to get them to squeal... but even with my suspension setup, under body brace, and thicker sway bars... I still understeer :(


Yes yes, I know its AWD with a front engine with 60% or so over the front...

anyways, I'm at tirerack.com and my Michellins aren't the highest rated anymore... it's actually the Continental ExtremeContact DWS

wasn't sure if you guys here know anything about performance all season tires or not. Right now I currently only have one set of wheels on the subaru so I'm trying to get a tire for all year round.
 
punjabiplaya

punjabiplaya

Diamond Member
Nov 12, 2006
3,495
1
71
this has to be the 10th time I've seen this exact thread with the exact same tire mentioned.
 
M

MotF Bane

No Lifer
Dec 22, 2006
60,801
10
0
Dear everyone looking for A/S tires,

Buy Continental ExtremeContact DWS.

Sincerely,
AT Garage
 
J

JCH13

Diamond Member
Sep 14, 2010
4,981
66
91
Good way to reduce understeer: dial up your rear sway and/or dial down your front sway if they are adjustable. Put your stock front sway back on if your new one isn't adjustable. Magic will happen.

Putting on better tires that will improve grip on both axles won't change the balance of your car.

Edit: better tires may increase the threshold at which understeer becomes apparent, but your car will still understeer.
 
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R

Rifter

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
11,522
751
126
JCH13 said:
Good way to reduce understeer: dial up your rear sway and/or dial down your front sway if they are adjustable. Put your stock front sway back on if your new one isn't adjustable. Magic will happen.

Putting on better tires that will improve grip on both axles won't change the balance of your car.

Edit: better tires may increase the threshold at which understeer becomes apparent, but your car will still understeer.
Click to expand...

I agree with this. Also increasing the rear spring rates will help alot too.
 
B

ballmode

Lifer
Aug 17, 2005
10,246
2
0
I tend to understeer when I don't give my car enough throttle, but I need to drive it completely in the wet hard because I don't know how the car will act.

The limits are so high for this car that I really gotta go about 50mph before the tires just give up and I don't want to wreck into something that bad haha

Maybe I need to warm the tires up, maybe I just need sportier tires... I don't know.

As for spring rates and Sways, I am running Tokico D-Specs on the softest setting. The sway bars are 25mm front, 22 rear.
 
J

JCH13

Diamond Member
Sep 14, 2010
4,981
66
91
First off, OPs tires are about on par with the Conti DWS according to TireRack's test. The DWS having a slight edge in wet and braking, the Pilot Sport A/S having an advantage in dry and response. The fabled DWS got last place and the Pilot Sport's got 3rd, not by a wide margin though.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/spiderChart.jsp?ttid=147

ballmode said:
Right now I currently am wearing Michellin Pilot Sport A/S Plus.

The limits are so high for this car
Click to expand...

Try a Max-performance summer tire and prepare to shit bricks. You haz no idea :awe:

ballmode said:
Maybe I need to warm the tires up, maybe I just need sportier tires... I don't know.
Click to expand...

You've got all-seasons, not R-Comps, you don't need to warm them up.

Sportier tires? Hell yes you need sportier tires.

ballmode said:
As for spring rates and Sways, I am running Tokico D-Specs on the softest setting. The sway bars are 25mm front, 22 rear.
Click to expand...

Dial up the damping on your fronts, soft front shock settings = understeer. I'd go around 1/3-1/2 of the way up and see how it does. You didn't say you had adjustable shocks! Sheesh :rolleyes:
 
S

saratoga172

Golden Member
Nov 10, 2009
1,564
1
81
ThatsABigOne said:
Are they a quiet tire? And how is the thread life?

Might be buying for the next set...
Click to expand...

So far they are pretty quiet. I was coming from some Yoko Avid S34D's:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires...autoMake=Mazda&autoYear=2011&autoModel=Mazda3 5-Door&autoModClar=s Sport
that got pretty shitty reviews and were pretty loud.

I'm pretty happy. They're pretty quiet. As a comparisons sake. When I had the Avid's on the highway I was listening to my radio around 30-33 for a decent sound. Now I can do 20-22 or so for similar sound. So it's knocked it down considerably.
 
J

JCH13

Diamond Member
Sep 14, 2010
4,981
66
91
MotF Bane said:
Don't a lot of high performance tires not squeal before breaking loose?
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In my experience high-performance tires will squeal less before they let go, yes. When you get into real R-Comps they're damn near quiet before they let go. A high-perf road tire should make some noise before letting go, but not as much as an all-season. Your car will give you other clues besides sound when it wants to let go, the steering wheel will go numb and not respond to increased steering angle, the car will roll less (un-roll, if you will) in a turn when grip is starting to fade, and there are probably a few more hints that I haven't noticed or learned yet. The clues are there with quieter high-performance tires, if you read them.
 
mmntech

mmntech

Lifer
Sep 20, 2007
17,501
12
0
jlee said:
True story. Get these and these and be happy year-round. :awe:
Click to expand...

Damn, those Firestone snows are cheap. Guaranteed they're twice the price here. I want to get winters because my all-seasons are getting up there in age. Still plenty good for summer but not for snow.
 
jlee

jlee

Lifer
Sep 12, 2001
48,518
223
106
coxmaster said:
Star Spec's are noisy as hell on the highway, otherwise they're absolutely AMAZING tires.
Click to expand...

I can't hear shit over the noise of everything else...so I wouldn't have any idea. :awe:

mmntech said:
Damn, those Firestone snows are cheap. Guaranteed they're twice the price here. I want to get winters because my all-seasons are getting up there in age. Still plenty good for summer but not for snow.
Click to expand...

I ran them on my Forester last year and I really, really liked them.
 
M

MotF Bane

No Lifer
Dec 22, 2006
60,801
10
0
JCH13 said:
In my experience high-performance tires will squeal less before they let go, yes. When you get into real R-Comps they're damn near quiet before they let go. A high-perf road tire should make some noise before letting go, but not as much as an all-season. Your car will give you other clues besides sound when it wants to let go, the steering wheel will go numb and not respond to increased steering angle, the car will roll less (un-roll, if you will) in a turn when grip is starting to fade, and there are probably a few more hints that I haven't noticed or learned yet. The clues are there with quieter high-performance tires, if you read them.
Click to expand...

All I get from my car, with cheap all seasons on it, is a squalling noise from the tires, and then they start to break loose. I've never noticed any other hints coming back from the car - hell, the steering wheel is always pretty numb. So the sound is very valuable to me.
 
alexruiz

alexruiz

Platinum Member
Sep 21, 2001
2,836
556
126
I have Dunlops SP Sport 7000 in my car as OEMs. I must admit I like them a lot, specially after the mild reviews on tirerack. As comment, however, my car has the V rated version, and the reviews seem to focus on the H rated version. I remember a BFGoodrich tire (need to remember the exact model) that had mediocre reviews for the H rated and glowing for the V rated, so this might be similar... The SP7000 hold quite well in the snow, meaning they are true all season.

I posted a thread asking about the Cooper Zeon RS3-A, but it has no answers so far :(
 
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