Originally Posted By: PandaBear
how much worse is the noise and wear? I'm currently looking for 2-4 tires for my car (195 60 14, H rated or more) and I'm concern of not able to rotate the direction of the tire and having them feathered and develop noise issue in the long run.
I rotate my tires as soon as I feel the trend and found one direction has sharper "edge" on the trend blocks than the other, that means I rotate about every 4k miles. My tires usually last me 60k miles so as long as the cost is reasonable I don't mind paying a little more.
Top Candidates:
Bridgestone Potenza RE960AS (excellent review, but cost $26 more than the cheapest ea, that's 50% more)
Kumho Solus KH16 (trend pattern looks quiet, AA traction)
Sumitomo HTR 200 (have them, like them, but summer instead of all season)
Fuzion HRi (cheap)
General Altimax HP (directional)
Will not consider:
BFGoodrich (the noise level in tirerack survey)
Michelin Pilot Sport ($$)
Firestone (traction in tirerack survey)
Sumitomo HTR A/S P01 (too new)
Kumho LX Platinum (too high of a trendwear -> low traction)
I did extensive research on many of these tires but in a different size (245 40 18 Z) and went with the RE960AS. I've done 4k on them and just rotated. There is slight feathering on the outside edge of the front two, which are now on the back. One person said not to worry, the other person was a little more concerned. Since I had brought up the fact that the car was drifting despite balancing and alignment, I think the more worried guy felt there may still be an alignment or other issue. The alignment person said the tire may be the issue. So right now I don't know what the issue is. You can return the tires within 30 days, which perhaps I should have done. But I have heard that this problem happens with other tires as well as with my particular car.
I chose the RE960AS above the Pilot Sport A/S because the road noise was supposed to be better. I would have probably prefered the Michelin's as their quality is overall rated as better. The RE960AS do have a warranty however so that made me less worried.
Their performance is good. Definitely quiet and gives me good comfort in my hard suspension car. When you corner harder than normal, you will hear a noise from the tread. When you are in wet, you feel more traction and a better road feel. In the dry the performance is there but you don't feel it the same way as with summer tires.
If you buy warrantied tires and align them and rotate them (follow the rules of the warranty), then you have less to worry about in terms of treadwear. You can also have the tires remounted if you want to fully rotate them.
As I said, I did some extensive analysis, comparing tire rack reviews, user reviews and price to make my choice (the overall cost was $1000 so I wanted to make the right choice). Here are my findings
1) You can get the price down in many ways. I found (after I purchased the tires) that discount tire direct is cheapest as they don't have sales tax.
2) Find all the online places, print out the lowest before tax but + shipping price and america's tire / discount tire will match them (but charge a slightly higher install price)
3) I decided to use america's tire for several reasons 1) They price matched 2) I didn't want to split my tire provider from the tire installer as then you don't have a one stop shop in case of issues eg if you do a return in the first 30 days, imagine the hassle if you have to return the tires 3) they do lifetime rotations and balancing 4) my local one is very competent 5) they work hard to put things right eg I have heard them swap out tires that drift like mine are doing 6) if you have a puncture then there are many of them to go to wherever you are 7) you get quite a lot of coverage without buying their certificates
4) The tires for my size that were in contention (note that your size will have others that would work for you. Tirerack has the best info on these other options)
a) Conti Extreme DWS. These are for most people the top choice. Their wet and snow performance is way ahead of other AS tires. In fact, they perform better in the wet than the dry. Their ride and noise is slightly ahead of other AS tires. Their only downfall is being quite worse on cornering and steering response compared to the best AS (RE960 and Michelin PS AS) and a little below on dry traction.
They cost half the price per mile than the best AS tires. So if you are willing to give up some of the sporty performance and instead get ultimate wet and snow performance as well as half the cost, then these are the best tires. I came off summer ultimate performance tires so even my RE960AS are a step down but not too much. Had I gone to the DWS it would have been too much of a drop.
b) RE960 - covered above
c) Pilot Sport AS. Very close to RE960. Biggest difference is apparently the noise level. They may have a better connected feel to the road. Price wise they work out the same as RE960 due to 10k more on the warranty so don't discount them on their out of the door cost if you are considering RE960 also.
d) Kumho LX Platinum - these are touring tires. They will cost you slightly less per mile than DWS. They will give you better dry performance than DWS but quite poor wet performance.
Lastly, I balked at the cost of summer tires when I did my change. They were generally more expensive with half the expected life. But, and I found this afterwards, their typical rolling resistance is significantly less. I sense I am losing 1mpg on my RE960 vs my older summer tires. I also heard that Bridgestones are worse for fuel economy although I actually found rolling resistance figures and the Pilot Sport AS had the same rating.
You may find that the mpg difference with summer tires would pay for itself. I would also suggest looking up consumer reports where they evaluate real world treadwear and rolling resistance. It may give you more choices to consider. I saw an awful lot of recommended tires there that weren't available for me, but could be for you.
