Nokian R5 winter tires, what is your experience?
- Thread starter TacoFergie
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That's some good history there, thank you!
I've never been a fan of Pirelli, but maybe because it's not a popular tire around my area? I likely should have just gone with the Michelin's. Maybe I'll stick with the Nokians for now since winter is almost over, but Iowa sometimes throws some curve balls. haha
I suppose I expected more. Maybe the tires are fantastic and it's the vehicle dynamics that are mediocre? I don't know? If I had another vehicle to swap them on to try out, I would love to.
Sure, why not? People like pictures and sometimes a picture can produce logical responses based off something someone notices that I could have looked over.
New Nokian Tyres Snowproof – First class safety and reliability for all conditions: Nokian Tyres Snowproof is born for winter / Nokian Tyres
Finnish premium tire company Nokian Tyres is introducing a new flagship range of winter tires by ren...www.nokiantyres.com
Is there any context? I know the tire, the company and have visited their site. Plus many other sites prior and post purchase.
Michelin in Europe was always good perfomer, but not as good as Continental and Good Year. Good Year was absolute king in 1990’s and up until 2005/6. But Continental pushed it out.
Do you have visible rear toe in and rear negative camber? My Focus did the weird back end shimmy on grooved road with whatever tires I had on and the same thing on patchy ice in the winter with new blizzaks. My regular mechanic said it was in spec(barely) so I took it to an alignment shop and told him to do the very minimum rear toe in and keep a little rear camber.
Car tracks straight now in grooves, broken pavement on one side only, and patchy ice. Maybe slightly more neutral handling on dry pavement, but that's a fine compromise for me anyways.
It sounds to me like your rear toe in has the rears fighting each other for grip in the snow and so break away easier than the fronts.
I've seen good things about the Conti's too, but they aren't available in my size. We had the Goodyear WRT Ice on our 12 Fusion and those were horrible, barley better than the General RT43's we had for summer use. Not saying Goodyear can't make a good tire, but the only one I have liked is their Duratracs.
I haven't noticed any excessive toe or camber visually. My dealer has a camera/laser system (Hunter Quick Check) that measures alignment and tire condition when pulling into the service lanes and showed no issues. Apparently that system is more accurate than I would have imagined after talking with one of technician friends who works closely with a Hunter rep. Pretty cool system.
Anyways, I haven't had the alignment checked since new (now 32k) and it probably wouldn't be a bad idea. Can't say the factory is perfect every time too. Though when I had the Nitto's, the car had less than 1k miles when I put them on and had issues with them tracking weird. I have seen rear toe affect handling in weird ways back in my technician days too. It might be worth having an alignment done anyways just to make sure everything is up to snuff.
IMHO, the factory alignment ranges can allow too much toe in and rear camber which when near the maximum together makes a nervous rear end on snow and ice. Get the read out anyways, then you know what you've got instead of "in spec".
GY doesn’t bring stuff from Europe here. Occasionally some models. WRT was not available there.
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Because a photo of two ordinary looking wheels and two ordinary looking Subaru's does not constitute pleasurable viewing in most people's book.
R2’s were probably made in Russia. Nokian loaded all their molds and inventory onto five container ships and shut down the Russian factory a few months after Russia invaded Ukraine again. They had huge market share there.
Nokians are now made in USA.
My experience is very much opposite. We bought many, many Nokian winter tires (more than 20 sets of four) for our fleet cars since 2005 (Hakka R), but usually Michelin for rest of year. We had three Honda Accord V6’s and three Chevy Cruze, so we could test tires head-to-head-to-head. We also had a couple vans, couple minivans, and couple Outback H6’s.
We tried the Nokian Ones and found them equal or better for dry and wet road handling, braking and noise. We buy them if available.
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The problem with them is that they are doing 1-2 things good. Rest is mediocre or horrible.
Simce they are made in US, price is resembling quality better. Before they were definitely overpriced and their marketing tried to push it as top tier tire. They are far from it. The high price was probably consequence of import from Russia.
When was the last time you bought a Nokian tire of any sort?
4yrs ago. Kumho category.
What vehicle?
What did you replace the R2’s with? Why did you buy them in the first place?
My daughter had an Outback in CS last four years with (most recently) Hakka R3’s. She skied over 100,000 vertical feet last season and they worked great.
As I said, they work fine in 1-2 disciplines.
They were excellent in snow and ice. They were horrible in dry and dangerous in wet. Only junk that I had that was worst in wet were Kunho Ecsta tires.
I could balance tires on Atlas and BMW for lead one tire needed on Tiguan, and noise after two seasons was more appropriate for BFG KO2.
But hey, marketing.
So you bought them because of their marketing? For a VW Atlas?
No for Tiguan. No, people fall on marketing.
I had them on Tiguan. The amount of lead needed on one Nokian on Tiguan could balance all winter tires on Atlas and BMW. But then, those are Bridgestone, Continental.
We’ve owned 20+ sets of winter tires since 2005: Bridgestone, General, Michelin, and Nokian. On our Outbacks we’ve used Nokian R, X-Ice Xi-2, Nokian R2, Nordman 7, Nokian Hakka 8, and Nokian Hakka R3. On our Cruzes we’ve used General Altimax Arctic, Blizzak WS80, and Nokian R2. Used Contis on my old rally car.
None of them had the poor balance of your single data point. Probably should have brought them back to Discount Tire.
Haven’t seen the Norwegian test for this season but:
www.tire-reviews.com
www.tire-reviews.com
The German Auto Club ADAC tests winter tires: search on “Winterreifen“ or use Google Translate. Not all available in North America. Their tests often demonstrate different performance for different sizes and profiles, which is puzzling. 215/60x16:
None of them had the poor balance of your single data point. Probably should have brought them back to Discount Tire.
Haven’t seen the Norwegian test for this season but:
2022/23 Tire Reviews Studless Winter Tire Test - Tire reviews and ratings
Snow tires, studless friction tires, extreme winter tires, nordic winter tires. This category of tire goes by many names, and they have one design goal, to be the very best on snow and ice for harsh ...
www.tire-reviews.com
2023 Tire Reviews Winter Tire Test - Tire reviews and ratings
The 2023/24 Tire Reviews winter tire test has tested eleven of the most popular winter tires on the market in the dry, wet and snow, and also analysed the rolling resistance, noise and comfort levels ...
www.tire-reviews.com
The German Auto Club ADAC tests winter tires: search on “Winterreifen“ or use Google Translate. Not all available in North America. Their tests often demonstrate different performance for different sizes and profiles, which is puzzling. 215/60x16:
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Here is the 2023/2024 Scandinavian test of studded and studless tires, from NAF/MOTOR magazine/ViBilagare:
Motors test av vinterdekk 2023
(Google Translate does a good job with Norwegian)
Ranking of top 4 studless tires in the test:
1. Continental VC7
2. Goodyear UltraGrip Ice 3
3. Nokian R5
4. Michelin Snow
Also included in the test are two sets of used, 8 year old Nokian tires: R2 and Hakka8. Their performance was judged to be equal to that of new Chinese winter tires.
Their summary of the Nokian R5:
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