time for some new tires, first set I've bought for an AWD car. they will be 225/45R17's just looking to see what people have had success with. I would like something fairly inexpensive, decent in the wet and good handling. My S2000 had bf goodridge kdws, good tire but the sidewall rolled a bit too much for me. I would consider myself a spirited driver take my car up to the mountains and occasionally auto-x.
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires...R7RE11XL&vehicleSearch=false&fromCompare1=yes http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires...5WR7Z1SS&vehicleSearch=false&fromCompare1=yes http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires...R7K110XL&vehicleSearch=false&fromCompare1=yes
Thanks Matt, all good suggestions. I must say I'm impressed with the survey results on the hankooks considering the price. The reviews on the dunlops are hard to argue with. Brandon @ all pro also suggested these. The final point I should make is the car is my daily driver and I don't wanna be screwed for the one or two ice storms we will prob get this year. Has anyone driven the dunlops last winter? As long as they can cope with responsible driving they sound like a winner to me. Hard to justify all seasons for the drop in performance vs amount of time I'll really need them but I gotta get to work too.
The Ventus V12 are the best bang for your bucks. If you want stiff sidewalls stay away from these tires lol. The V12 are nice in all other areas tho. Really quiet tires for DD as well. The startspecs are REALLY nice tires with stiff sidewalls. If you don't mind road noise and the 200 tread rating then I would pick these HAHA.
yeah, my car is loud enough to drown out the noise and I'm used to only getting about a year out of my tires (rwd sports cars with staggered wheel sizes dont make for long tread life). If I can make it through the minor winter weather I can def live with the other downsides of the Dunlops
Under $600, the dunlops are at the top of the price range but they seem to be worth the cost. Just looking for a little more input on them as daily winter driving (I know its asking a lot of a extreme summer tire). Or another viable option of course.
Cool, Honestly I'm not the guy to help you with that. Everything that goes on my car sees double duty as a track\daily tire and I never worry about rain performance. Good Luck
I've got the star specs, and bought them last fall and love them. For a extreme summer the rain performance is pretty good. However, as for winter driving, I found the tires get really hard and almost plastic like at around 45 degrees and below. The also dropped dramatically in grip, and I could get all four corners to break loose if i took off mildly aggressively. Driving normal, I guess you could maybe get away with them, but I ended up getting some continental DWS's to go play in last years snow (2nd set of wheels).
I drove on a nearly dead set of star specs (in a slight snow storm) and I didn't have any issues. Then I had the RE-11's on for a solid 4"+ of snow and they handled MUCH better than expected...granted they were about a week old, but they were still a non issue out there. These are a little more in your price range and should get you some decent performance still: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires...7DZ101XL&vehicleSearch=false&fromCompare1=yes And these are not a half bad A/S that I currently have on the TL: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires...7SPSIGXL&vehicleSearch=false&fromCompare1=yes
Thinking I'm gonna end up getting all seasons since I will be putting them on the stock '04 STi wheels for the winter. When I get some wider wheels I'll get the Dunlop Star Specs. I'll get the most out of the car that way. Look like continental's extreme contact DWS got extremely good reviews, anyone had any experience with those?
I run the DWS as my everyday tire. Its a nice tire, great rain traction, and was very good in the snow. The sidewalls are very soft, and you get a really comfy and quiet ride out of them. I've taken the car up into the mountains on the tires a few times, and they do ok. Just can't push the car anywhere close to as hard as when I have my starspecs on. But they feel controllable at limit and the fall off is pretty nice so it wont just spin out suddenly from you. But for a daily, all season tire, I am very happy with them. I'll be at tonights dinner meet for the 'meet' part tonight if you want to have a look at them or whatnot.