Do my tires matter

[ultimatebob]

I'm not sure how much of a difference they really make... My old Audi A4 came with Michelin Pilots that cost $200 per tire, and I ended up replacing them with Hankook's that cost $80 each. They handled about the same, and I got about 50,000 miles of tread life out of both sets of tires.

Maybe I got lucky, I don't know.

 

[Imported]

Get some Cont DWS tires.

They are long life all season tires and work great.
I have put them on my CTS, BiLs STS, and my SiLs Audi A4. Thats how much I like them.

Wish they came in a 15" size. Would love to use them as the street tire for my Miata.

 

[bigpimpatl]

(good) tires make all the difference in the world. That's one aspect of a car I would not go cheap on. Avoid cheap chinese rubber.

 

[ShawnD1]

And you're very wrong about tires not taking up a lot of room. I live in a 200sqft studio with maybe 8ft high ceilings.

The trick is to use the tires as furniture. 2 tires stacked together with a wood plank on top = coffee table.

I'm not sure how much of a difference they really make... My old Audi A4 came with Michelin Pilots that cost $200 per tire, and I ended up replacing them with Hankook's that cost $80 each. They handled about the same, and I got about 50,000 miles of tread life out of both sets of tires.

Maybe I got lucky, I don't know.

If you think that's bad, you should see the stock tires on a Honda Civic. I got 50,000km out of them. That's just a little over 30,000 miles. With all that vtec torque, I'm sure they wore out because of all the burnouts I was doing :sneaky:

OEM parts being cheap pieces of shit from China? I'm shocked.

 

[TridenT]

Haha. So now storing tires has to do with your ceiling height? lol

High ceilings mean you can stack stuff easily. So, yes... it does matter.

 

[speedy2]

Yeah, but a set of tires and rims? 8ft?

 

[TridenT]

Yeah, but a set of tires and rims? 8ft?

Holy shit you're dense. So, I don't know if you know this, but you can stack other things on top of other things besides things of the same type. Hell, you can even put things in containers and such and stack and stack and stack. Then get whatever you want whenever. It's a very frequently used method in smaller apartments with high ceilings.

Regardless, keeping a set of tires, jacks, and a large torque wrench is not really within my means.

Nor is paying $500 for some summer tires with low tread life that will perform like shit when it gets wet out.

Just buy some regular all season tires. You can look at consumer reports if you really give a fuck. It doesn't make a significant difference.

 

[speedy2]

An all season in snow compared to a dedicated snow tire makes no difference? Alright then sir.

I live in Florida. An all season does fine. As one would expect. A good summer tire even does decent if you don't drive like an idiot in the rain. But, I would not compared snow to rain at all.

 

[dainthomas]

Yes it matters. Get some decent all season tires and you will be spending only a little more but get a lot better ride, handling, wear, etc.

Agreed. The stock Bridgestones on my truck were terrible. They wore down to nothing after 20k, were extremely noisy and horrible in the rain. In comparison, the Toyo's I replaced them with are fantastic.

 

[slag]

Get some Cont DWS tires.

They are long life all season tires and work great.
I have put them on my CTS, BiLs STS, and my SiLs Audi A4. Thats how much I like them.

I'll never buy another continental tire. I had 4 on my GTP and two on the back developed tread separation, one on the front had a bulge on the sidewall, and one was fine. The tires must have come from a bad batch, but they left a sour taste in my mouth. My wife had continental contitracks on her Escape and they were ok, but nothing to write home about. I have heard nothing but good things about continental tires though, and my personal experience has just soured me on them.

 

[TridenT]

An all season in snow compared to a dedicated snow tire makes no difference? Alright then sir.

I live in Florida. An all season does fine. As one would expect. A good summer tire even does decent if you don't drive like an idiot in the rain. But, I would not compared snow to rain at all.

I never said that. I rather just have chains for whenever it does happen to snow. We were talking about rain vs dry weather. Not snow. It's not like I will be driving a lot in snow anyway. If it snows where I live everyone dies. (Seattle) I've driven with the tires I have right now without chains anyway. They did fine. I drove on the freeway at 70mph in pourin' down snow. I just couldn't stop in the area between Capitol Hill and downtown very easily. (Crazy steep hills) Also was fun trying to get up those. :awe: BUT, I did manage it. I find it fun. Although I don't find it fun when others are on the road because I don't trust them. I can drive, they can't.

 

[Throckmorton]

BTW, summer tires usually wear much faster than all seasons. Not sure why-- they should be harder rubber since they don't have to handle winter.

 

[TridenT]

BTW, summer tires usually wear much faster than all seasons. Not sure why-- they should be harder rubber since they don't have to handle winter.

 

[Throckmorton]

What? You know winter tires use a softer compound than all seasons right? Because they're for winter use only. All season tires need to be soft enough for winter, while also working decently in the summer. And yet summer tires are softer still-- why aren't they soft enough for winter use then? They aren't even appropriate for 30-40F temperatures because they stiffen and lose traction.

 

[jlee]

BTW, summer tires usually wear much faster than all seasons. Not sure why-- they should be harder rubber since they don't have to handle winter.

Dedicated summer tires are typically biased towards performance. Most performance tires will sacrifice tread life for traction.

 

[Throckmorton]

Dedicated summer tires are typically biased towards performance. Most performance tires will sacrifice tread life for traction.

So why not have a soft compound summer tire that also works in winter? Since summer tires are softer than all seasons, why wouldn't they work even better in the winter? The thing is, they don't work as well in the winter. The rubber becomes harder than all seasons do at low temperatures.

 

[jlee]

So why not have a soft compound summer tire that also works in winter? Since summer tires are softer than all seasons, why wouldn't they work even better in the winter? The thing is, they don't work as well in the winter. The rubber becomes harder than all seasons do at low temperatures.

Have you ever looked at a winter tire? Each of the tread blocks has siping in it to grip snow:

Now look at a summer tire:

By your logic, why don't we just run slicks in winter? They're really soft!

 

[JCH13]

So why not have a soft compound summer tire that also works in winter? Since summer tires are softer than all seasons, why wouldn't they work even better in the winter? The thing is, they don't work as well in the winter. The rubber becomes harder than all seasons do at low temperatures.

Winter tires also have grit in the tread compound, like sandpaper, which is great for digging into snow and ice, but not so great at gripping pavement.

 

[Throckmorton]

Have you ever looked at a winter tire? Each of the tread blocks has siping in it to grip snow:

Now look at a summer tire:

By your logic, why don't we just run slicks in winter? They're really soft!

So? Put siping on the summer tires too.

But back to my original question... How can a summer tire, which when warm is softer and faster wearing than an allseason, be harder than the allseason in cold weather? It doesn't add up.

 

[ShawnD1]

BTW, summer tires usually wear much faster than all seasons. Not sure why-- they should be harder rubber since they don't have to handle winter.

Are they actually sold as "summer" tires are do stores call them "performance" tires?
Different language, different regions, different definitions. A high performance tire is a sticky tire. Soft rubber, shallow treads, lots of contact area, wears down very quickly.

If you want rock hard tires that can only be used in summer, you'll be looking at all season tires. It's because companies are ironic like that.

 

[jlee]

Are they actually sold as "summer" tires are do stores call them "performance" tires?
Different language, different regions, different definitions. A high performance tire is a sticky tire. Soft rubber, shallow treads, lots of contact area, wears down very quickly.

If you want rock hard tires that can only be used in summer, you'll be looking at all season tires. It's because companies are ironic like that.

Um...do you not have five seconds to look it up?
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/bfg/bfgoodrich-tires.jsp

So? Put siping on the summer tires too.

That'll make the tread all squirmy. I also think that a snow tire in the summer is going to be softer than a summer tire at the same temperature, but I don't have numbers to back that up.

Read this:
http://www.insideline.com/features/tire-test-all-season-vs-snow-vs-summer.html

 

[JCH13]

So? Put siping on the summer tires too.

But back to my original question... How can a summer tire, which when warm is softer and faster wearing than an allseason, be harder than the allseason in cold weather? It doesn't add up.

They're not made of the same tread compound. Different polymers will have different characteristics, including temperature sensitivity.

 

[ShawnD1]

So? Put siping on the summer tires too.

But back to my original question... How can a summer tire, which when warm is softer and faster wearing than an allseason, be harder than the allseason in cold weather? It doesn't add up.

Different polymers have different rates of change. An all season tire might be made from a set of polymers that stay fairly consistent hardness from -30C to +30C and never really gets soft at any temperature, even after spinning them on dry pavement. A summer tire could be made from a material that is strongly affected by temperature.


Some polymers have strange behaviors. At one job I had, we were selling a certain polymer dissolved in water. In a fridge, it's a thick syrup. When it gets to room temperature, it thickens to the consistency of jello. Polymers like that are also in motor oil. As oil temperature rises, polymers thicken the oil so it doesn't get too thin.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

I also don't even have the room for that shit where I am. I don't have the jacks or anything. I live in a fucking city.

I'm renting a tiny a*s apartment in Dallas (contract work) and still found room for a set of 7.5x17"s. Also, since I purchased both my all seasons (RE960AS) and snows (Xi2s) at Sam's, I get 'em changed, rebalanced, rotated, etc. for free.

By your logic, why don't we just run slicks in winter? They're really soft!

I'd pay good money to see someone do that in a decently powerful RWD car
I have enough trouble with my LS even with snows, though its nothing that ~150lbs of sand / kitty litter in the trunk wouldn't fix

 

[zerocool84]

These are the tires I use. They are the tires that came stock on my car and they have very good grip, especially in rain which is good since when it does rain over here, it rains bad. They're loud though but I put up with it for the grip. It sucks, I just wish I had more tire options though. It sucks having a weird tire size.