Help me select some tires

[sze5003]

I currently have Kumho Ecsta 4x tires on my 2011 Lancer GTS. The back have good tread but the front have started wearing and looking almost bald. Last year we had a lot of snow in the Philly area and I had a tough time going to and from work with commutes of about 45min to 1hr or more.

I rotate them every 6k miles with my oil change. I looked on tire rack and the contintental dws look decent for heavy snow. My car is front wheel drive and stickshift. The contintental cost $160 each. I only need 2 now for the front. I'll get two for the back later as of now the back tires are fine.

I was looking at the kumho ecsta pa31 tires too I just can't decide. They are noticeably cheaper and have snow ratings on tire rack higher than the tires I have on now. Any suggestions?

 

[JCH13]

I currently have Kumho Ecsta 4x tires on my 2011 Lancer GTS. The back have good tread but the front have started wearing and looking almost bald. Last year we had a lot of snow in the Philly area and I had a tough time going to and from work with commutes of about 45min to 1hr or more.

I rotate them every 6k miles with my oil change. I looked on tire rack and the contintental dws look decent for heavy snow. My car is front wheel drive and stickshift. The contintental cost $160 each. I only need 2 now for the front. I'll get two for the back later as of now the back tires are fine.

I was looking at the kumho ecsta pa31 tires too I just can't decide. They are noticeably cheaper and have snow ratings on tire rack higher than the tires I have on now. Any suggestions?

First, this is a bad idea, especially if your old tires are almost bald. Putting new tires on the front will make your car want to oversteer and spin out when braking or turning.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=52

It didn't take long for this hands-on experience to confirm that the "proving grounds" name for the facility was correct. The ability to sense and control predictable understeer with the new tires on the rear and the helplessness in trying to control the surprising oversteer with the new tires on the front was emphatically proven.

And even though our drivers had the advantage of knowing we were going to be challenged to maintain car control, spinouts became common during our laps in the car with the new tires on the front and the worn tires on the rear. Michelin advises us that almost every driver spins out at least once when participating in this demonstration!

Suggestion 1: get a dedicated winter tire setup. Philly is supposed to get slammed with snow again this winter and you'll want real snow tires, especially for such a long commute.

Suggestion 2: Get 4 DWS tires and call it a day. It's a good all-season with decent snow performance.

Don't screw around, tires are one of the few things that you should compromise as little as possible on.

 

[sze5003]

Well the front aren't actually bald I misrepresented that. They show more wear than the back. They still have decent tread, just not as much as the rear.

The rear are still good and I would be throwing them away if I were to just get 4 of them.

I guess I can go with the dws ones since they have better reviews. I just found it more financially manageable to get 2 rather than all four.

As for snow tires, I don't have a place to store them when I swap them out as I need my trunk space. I guess tire rack is the best place to get them.

Sears told me they didn't have any in stock for my car so they would need to order them. In that case tire rack is cheaper.

 

[cbrsurfr]

Discount tire will give you some trade in value on the old tires if they are still good. Maybe 30 a tire.

For $50/year discount will also store them for you and swap them out for free when you need them (assuming they are already mounted on spare rims).

 

[sze5003]

I also found some Dunlop winter max tires on tire rack. $576 for all 4. I don't have an extra set of rims. Would it be fine to get these Dunlop winter tires and use them year round?

 

[Belegost]

I also found some Dunlop winter max tires on tire rack. $576 for all 4. I don't have an extra set of rims. Would it be fine to get these Dunlop winter tires and use them year round?

Don't suggest that. Winter tires use a very soft rubber, and running them on hot dry pavement will wear them down quite fast. Not to mention they won't handle nearly as well as all-seasons in dry performance, and usually not that great in rain either.

 

[sze5003]

Don't suggest that. Winter tires use a very soft rubber, and running them on hot dry pavement will wear them down quite fast. Not to mention they won't handle nearly as well as all-seasons in dry performance, and usually not that great in rain either.

Good to know..looks like I'll just have to go with the conti dws for $600 and get them put on at Sears. Also need a new phone and am planning to get the nexus 6..expensive year this will be.

 

[JulesMaximus]

First, this is a bad idea, especially if your old tires are almost bald. Putting new tires on the front will make your car want to oversteer and spin out when braking or turning.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=52



Suggestion 1: get a dedicated winter tire setup. Philly is supposed to get slammed with snow again this winter and you'll want real snow tires, especially for such a long commute.

Suggestion 2: Get 4 DWS tires and call it a day. It's a good all-season with decent snow performance.

Don't screw around, tires are one of the few things that you should compromise as little as possible on.

I agree with most of what you said except the last sentence. I had a $1000 set of Michelin tires on my last car and when they wore out I replaced them with Riken Raptors that were half the price and they were every bit as good as the Michelin tires. They wore evenly, provided excellent traction wet and dry and were very predictable in all situations I used them in.

Tires are generally pretty good even for the cheaper brands. Just do your homework and read reviews on which tires work best on your car in the conditions you will be driving it in.

 

[Midwayman]

I agree with most of what you said except the last sentence. I had a $1000 set of Michelin tires on my last car and when they wore out I replaced them with Riken Raptors that were half the price and they were every bit as good as the Michelin tires. They wore evenly, provided excellent traction wet and dry and were very predictable in all situations I used them in.

Tires are generally pretty good even for the cheaper brands. Just do your homework and read reviews on which tires work best on your car in the conditions you will be driving it in.

FWIW cheaper tires tend to sacrifice wear for traction, then tend to be worse towards the end of the tire. More expensive tires will have a dual tread compound to make sure they maintain traction as they age.

 

[sze5003]

FWIW cheaper tires tend to sacrifice wear for traction, then tend to be worse towards the end of the tire. More expensive tires will have a dual tread compound to make sure they maintain traction as they age.

Yea hence why my ecsta 4x didn't last so long. I would say they lasted a bit over 20k miles.

 

[Wuzup101]

I just wore out a set of dws tires on my evo X. I was very happy with the purchase as I got them when I was driving almost 100 miles a day (and the evo goes through tires fast). I got about 32k miles on them (the stock advans had about 13k when they started showing cords). I now have pilot super sports on as I have dedicated winter tires. I would definitely recommend the dws as a great all season; however, the snow performance is not equal to a dedicated snow tire like the blizzak or conti winter sport (I've used the latter on the evo also). If you absolutely have to drive in the snow a lot (ie your job requires that you show up even in really bad weather) get a dedicated set of winter tires with rims. If you have the ability to call out when needed... Dws will work well. Keep in mind that the dws will loose winter performance ability as the tire wears but will still have decent dry and wet performance long after that.

 

[sze5003]

I just wore out a set of dws tires on my evo X. I was very happy with the purchase as I got them when I was driving almost 100 miles a day (and the evo goes through tires fast). I got about 32k miles on them (the stock advans had about 13k when they started showing cords). I now have pilot super sports on as I have dedicated winter tires. I would definitely recommend the dws as a great all season; however, the snow performance is not equal to a dedicated snow tire like the blizzak or conti winter sport (I've used the latter on the evo also). If you absolutely have to drive in the snow a lot (ie your job requires that you show up even in really bad weather) get a dedicated set of winter tires with rims. If you have the ability to call out when needed... Dws will work well. Keep in mind that the dws will loose winter performance ability as the tire wears but will still have decent dry and wet performance long after that.

Cool thanks for that. If the weather is bad I can work from home when the roads are bad or if I know it will get bad before I start driving.

I think I'm going to go with the kumho ecsta pa31 tires after reading more reviews. They did well in wet, light snow, and heavy snow. They also scored better than the Goodyear eagle sport models. The conti dws went up in price for some reason.

 

[Jumpem]

Snow tires November through April. All seasons the rest of the time.

 

[JulesMaximus]

FWIW cheaper tires tend to sacrifice wear for traction, then tend to be worse towards the end of the tire. More expensive tires will have a dual tread compound to make sure they maintain traction as they age.

If I get 40,000 miles out of a set of tires I figure I'm doing okay. I put about that on the Michelins I had and about the same on the Riken Raptors I replaced them with. There is absolutely no reason to spend twice as much for Michelin tires IMO. You get nothing for your money.

 

[iwajabitw]

FYI about the Dunlop Tires. My dad worked there for 30yrs and retired when the plant shut down. Goodyear owns and manufactures all Dunlop Tires. If you like Goodyear that's fine, I do not. The tires are not made to the high specs that they originally were. Now Sumitomo owned Dunlop and retained the plant in Japan when the US Market was sold. So if you see a set of Sumitomo tires they will have the same font lettering as the Dunlops. I do not know of there quality, having never bought any, but when theyowned the 2 plants in the US, Dunlop had a zero blemish policy and there rubber did not burn up in the hoppers used to cook it when making the tire. Goodyears did and there market strategy was to just flood the market with tires, even flawed.

 

[Wuzup101]

Cool thanks for that. If the weather is bad I can work from home when the roads are bad or if I know it will get bad before I start driving.

I think I'm going to go with the kumho ecsta pa31 tires after reading more reviews. They did well in wet, light snow, and heavy snow. They also scored better than the Goodyear eagle sport models. The conti dws went up in price for some reason.

They seem to be a good deal. Tread depot has them in your size for 93 per tire after a 50 dollar mail in rebate. I would suggest that you consider getting them mounted somewhere that will give you free rotations and then rotate them more frequently as you had issues at 6k (or do it more frequently than every oil change if you rotate them yourself).

 

[sze5003]

They seem to be a good deal. Tread depot has them in your size for 93 per tire after a 50 dollar mail in rebate. I would suggest that you consider getting them mounted somewhere that will give you free rotations and then rotate them more frequently as you had issues at 6k (or do it more frequently than every oil change if you rotate them yourself).

Yea they are about the same price on tire rack. Sears offers free rotations if I get them put on there. National tire and battery charges 12 bucks I believe. Weird thing is Sears is a tire rack service center but when I specify on the site to ship there they don't show Sears.

 

[Jumpem]

I always use the OEM all seasons that come with the vehicle and, as noted above, switch to snow tires for the winter. The OEM tires are still in good condition when the vehicle is traded in.

The last four sets of tires I have bought have all been Blizzak's or Michelin X-Ice's.

 

[iwajabitw]

I usually use Bridgestone. Have Deuler HL Alenza on my F150. What I like about the the Firestone stores are the great deals you get. Buy 3 get one free. They have a lifetime alignment you can buy. Paid $79 for my wifes Sentra in 97. They still align it for free today. The price now is $179. I have all of my vehicles aligned 4 times a year, pays for itself really quick. If you open an account with them, tires are usually 6 months no interest. I bought some Destination LE2 May 2013 in a 275/55/20 for my truck, just mentioned to the clerk I didn't like the ride as well as the Alenza I had before. While I was waiting on the rotation she looked up and brought out a sheet saying she would credit me the tread wear on the Destinations and I could get 4 Alenza's out the door for $300, and I had been driving the Destinations for 18 months. I said "hell yeah". Might be worth checking into.

 

[sze5003]

Does anyone know if NTB matches prices for tire rack? I'm not sure if I should mount them at Sears or NTB. I looked and I don't have a discount tire in my area.

 

[JCH13]

I agree with most of what you said except the last sentence. I had a $1000 set of Michelin tires on my last car and when they wore out I replaced them with Riken Raptors that were half the price and they were every bit as good as the Michelin tires. They wore evenly, provided excellent traction wet and dry and were very predictable in all situations I used them in.

Tires are generally pretty good even for the cheaper brands. Just do your homework and read reviews on which tires work best on your car in the conditions you will be driving it in.

I didn't say "spend as much money as possible" I said "don't screw around," mainly in reference to OP wanting to get just two new tires, putting them on the front, and then planning on driving a 45-60 minute one-way commute when his city is expecting record levels of snow fall this winter. It's just not a good plan!