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What do you look for in an all season tire?

mcvickj

mcvickj

Diamond Member
When you are shopping for tires what do you look for in an all season tire? Brand? Warranty? Price?

I spent the money ($126 x 4) for some Goodyear Assurance TripleTred tires. Bought them back in April of 08 and the odometer had read 100,229 at time of install. Now I'm a little over 155k and they are starting to get close to the wear bar. I rotated the tires every other oil change but needless to say I haven't gotten the 80,000 miles that I had hope. I do probably 80% city driving and 20% highway if that matters. I have an 03 Impala with 225/60/16 size tires.

I've been looking on Tire Rack / Belle Tire / Discount Tire sites this morning to get an idea of what I want / read reviews. I'm expecting to pay around $110ish a tire again.
 
I determine what I need the tires for (snow/ice/rain/noise/etc.) and look at the reviews. I'm not too price sensitive when it comes to safety and if I got 55K miles I certainly would be even less worried about a few extra dollars.

That being said I don't like a/s tires. I prefer dedicated winter tires from about Thanksgiving to Easter and performance tires for the other months.
 
I look for a set of summer tires, then a set of winter tires. Then I have tires for all of the seasons.
 
mcvickj said:
When you are shopping for tires what do you look for in an all season tire? Brand? Warranty? Price?

I spent the money ($126 x 4) for some Goodyear Assurance TripleTred tires. Bought them back in April of 08 and the odometer had read 100,229 at time of install. Now I'm a little over 155k and they are starting to get close to the wear bar. I rotated the tires every other oil change but needless to say I haven't gotten the 80,000 miles that I had hope. I do probably 80% city driving and 20% highway if that matters. I have an 03 Impala with 225/60/16 size tires.

I've been looking on Tire Rack / Belle Tire / Discount Tire sites this morning to get an idea of what I want / read reviews. I'm expecting to pay around $110ish a tire again.
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I haven't been a big fan of goodyears... I have been running michelin/continental on my DD cars. I just purchased a set of michelin defenders for a very reasonable price. I newer tire, so not a ton of reviews, but for the money, and specs, they seemed like a good purchase.

for all-seasons, I look for longevity, not mileage, but more so how they hold up. are people getting bulges, out of round issues? I weigh noise level kind of high.... if you ever had noisy tires, you know they can be very annoying. then I look for wet/snow performance. they are all seasons, so they aren't going to be 'great' in the snow, but they should be OK to decent.
 
I'm not a fanboy of many things, but with tires I've gotten to where I only buy michelin.

I've found that other brands (conti, BFG) make good tires here and there but you have to really read subjective reviews and even then you run a risk of a crappy tire.

With michelin, I just buy the tire that matches my needs and it's perfect. This has applied to everything from motorcycles to trailers to sports cars.

Your life truly relies on the tires and brakes for your car. These are two aspects you should NEVER cheap out on. It's amazing to me that people will spend the money for full synthetic oil, all this other jazz, then go for high rated "discount" brand tires. The extra couple bucks spread out over ~50k miles is a no brainer.
 
brainhulk said:
Yokohamas are nice too, I use the geolander for my suv and the ad08 for my s2000
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the geolanders are a good tire for SUV and trucks.

I think that follows with what SpatiallyAware stated, that other brands do make good tires here and there. I had a set of kuhmo soulus that were great on a little beater car, but had a set of MX's on my Z that sucked.
 
Not really relevant to your needs but I look more for dry/wet traction and worry less about snow. Before a bad alignment caused a premature death, was running a set of Yokohama Advan S.4 on our WRX. Those were replaced by Bridgestone RE960s. Both tires are definitely focused on dry/wet traction/handling and would probably be useless in snow. But as far as the lovely CA CHP is concerned, good enough for winter driving!
 
JCH13 said:
I look for a set of summer tires, then a set of winter tires. Then I have tires for all of the seasons.
Click to expand...

this is what i do also. snow tires for winter, A/T for summer on my truck.
It really is amazing how much difference there is, and how much better driving in the winter is.
 
I go by price and reviews. I have a narrow selection because I need a high-performance W speed rated tire, and the standout there is Kumho.
You might want to check out the Kumho Ecsta 4X. They have them in 225/55R16 for $96 each at Tire Rack with a $50 AMEX gift card on purchase of 4. You wouldn't have seen them if you were just looking at 225/60's.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires...idewall=Blackwall&partnum=255WR6E4X&tab=Sizes

These are what I'll be replacing my Ecsta ASX's with. (retired model)
 
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If I got 80K miles out of my tires, I would be doing something wrong.

That said, for all seasons I weigh wet grip above all else. I'm not kidding myself into thinking that all seasons are going to be a great dry performance tire, but they have to have good wet performance for safety reasons. I really don't care about tire mileage on any of my cars. If they don't grip when I need them to, they're worthless, so who cares if its 30K vs 50K vs 80K? Then again, I don't treat my cars as appliances nor do I own a plain jane "appliance" car.
 
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Just got a set of Kumho Ecsta 4X's. First impressions: Great wet traction, and just a little noisier and firmer than the Ecsta ASX's (which were black holes for sound).
Town Fair Tire pricematched Tire Rack's shipped price on them for $121 each (225/55R17) with a check for the $50 rebate on purchase of 4. $550 mounted and balanced.
 
I like the Yoko EnVigor and I like them. That said, I don't run them in the winter. I have Blizzaks for winter.
 
For the all-seasons I buy for my Accord (has to do road trip duty, so needs to be able to deal with huge variations in weather in a single trip), I look for longevity, puncture resistance, speed rating, ride/noise quality, grip, and turn-in responsiveness. The Michelin Primacy is the best bang for the buck. Yes it costs more up front. But 80,000 real-world miles of aggressive driving, off-road excursions, 110 degree top-speed salt-flat runs, snowy mountain passes, and daily commuting are well worth the price. No, it doesn't grip like a summer tire. But it does every else superbly, and I have another set of tires (on another car) for when I want max lateral g.
 
JCH13 said:
I look for a set of summer tires, then a set of winter tires. Then I have tires for all of the seasons.
Click to expand...

Really? There are 4 seasons not 2. What about when the temperature is 40F which is too cold for summer tires (and can damage some), but not cold enough for snow and ice?
 
JCH13 said:
I look for a set of summer tires, then a set of winter tires. Then I have tires for all of the seasons.
Click to expand...

this. it's a bit pricier, but your tires last longer (since you don't use them all the time) and you have the proper compound/tread style for the weather conditions.
 
Throckmorton said:
Really? There are 4 seasons not 2. What about when the temperature is 40F which is too cold for summer tires (and can damage some), but not cold enough for snow and ice?
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The softer tire compound of snow tires works well in cold weather, even if it's not actually snowing.
 
In Cali all you get is summer(hot) and summer (not as hot). So when looking for tires you get summer tires. 😎
 
Throckmorton said:
Really? There are 4 seasons not 2. What about when the temperature is 40F which is too cold for summer tires (and can damage some), but not cold enough for snow and ice?
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I run summer performance tires year round, even took them in a bit of snow(bad idea of course), and never had a problem. Sure grip is a bit less than optimal and they take longer to warm up, but once that happens its not all that bad. Even cold you have more grip than might expect.

That would be a crappy tire or something specialized for cold weather to hurt it, can tell you from experience dunlops and michelins don't care.
 
jlee said:
The softer tire compound of snow tires works well in cold weather, even if it's not actually snowing.
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I seem to recall someone on this forum driving some blizzaks or winter tires on a track and enjoying it.



I have a guy I know that runs blizzaks all year on his MB. its his second car and he just doesnt care that they wear CRAZY fast in the summer. I think I put 2 sets on it this year.
 
Throckmorton said:
Really? There are 4 seasons not 2. What about when the temperature is 40F which is too cold for summer tires (and can damage some), but not cold enough for snow and ice?
Click to expand...

jlee said:
The softer tire compound of snow tires works well in cold weather, even if it's not actually snowing.
Click to expand...

Exactly this.

My Max-Performance summer tires (Bridgestone Potenza RE050A) are rated good down to 36F, at that point it's fine to switch over to winter tires.

Besides, if the air temperature is as low as 40, or 36 for that matter, there's a good chance that some road elements, like bridges, have frozen overnight with black ice, and there will be a need for winter tires.
 
October thru May - Winter tread tires go on.
May - Sept - all season

2 Jeep Grand Cherokees

Tires are from local chain 60K full warranty nation wide.
At 35K, a bubble developed on a tire this past month while 2000m from home.
Flat tire - Fri afternoon.
They shipped out a replacement tire on Monday; had it installed at no charge on Wed.
 
mcvickj said:
When you are shopping for tires what do you look for in an all season tire? Brand? Warranty? Price?

I spent the money ($126 x 4) for some Goodyear Assurance TripleTred tires. Bought them back in April of 08 and the odometer had read 100,229 at time of install. Now I'm a little over 155k and they are starting to get close to the wear bar. I rotated the tires every other oil change but needless to say I haven't gotten the 80,000 miles that I had hope. I do probably 80% city driving and 20% highway if that matters. I have an 03 Impala with 225/60/16 size tires.

I've been looking on Tire Rack / Belle Tire / Discount Tire sites this morning to get an idea of what I want / read reviews. I'm expecting to pay around $110ish a tire again.
Click to expand...

With 80% city driving, I'd suspect you're not likely to get close to the rated mileage of the tire. That's a lot of stopping and going, which would be harder on the tire than highway driving.

As for tires, not a bad discussion. I did get some tires not that long ago on the Impala that I believe were similar to what you've mentioned. It seems they are getting rather noisy to me, so I suppose I am not fond of them. I may be looking for Michelins next time.
 
OP is in MI. Another vote for winter/summer sets. Get a cheap wheel set with the winters and it will be a snap to swap tires whenever you want. Also will keep your nice rims in much better shape (less wear, MUCH less winter salt, etc). The confidence difference between driving even great all-seasons and good winter tires in ice/snow is considerable.

I swap my winters in at the end of October and summers back in early-mid april. MN driver here.
 
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