What are your priorities (in order) for tires?

[d00df00d]

If you were to write out your priorities in an ordered list -- no ties, no if-thens, nothing but a strictly ordered list -- what would it be?


For non-winter tires, mine would be:

1. Quality
2. Wet performance
3. Performance retention at low tread
4. Limit behavior
5. Steering feel
6. Low weight
7. NVH
8. Longevity

I don't worry much about dry grip because anything that meets those criteria will be fine in that respect, and because I'm generally careful to buy/recommend cars that inherently don't suffer for grip in the first place.


And for winter tires, up here in the land of rare and intermittent snow:

1. Quality
2. Just enough non-snow grip that it's not miserable to drive on
3. Snow grip


Price would technically be the last item on each list, but I've never had a situation where trying to save money on tires was a good idea in the end. The only exception is when the more expensive one is expensive for some reason unrelated to performance (e.g. it's an OE fitment for a rare and expensive car or something), and is actually a worse pick overall.


What's your list??

 

[surfstar]

1. PRICE (name brand, but after rebates and discounts from DTD)

 

[supton]

Your list is pretty good; I've never thought about it but that seems reasonable to me. I'd have NVH and longevity bumped up the list higher; not an aggressive driver so what the tires do at the limit usually doesn't compute. I get that it should, in case of emergency maneuvers; but TBH I just don't think about that. Cost, NVH, longevity are the three things I'm looking at, but your list spells it out better.

 

[edwardh1]

need to define quality
long life?
ability to balance w/o excessive weights

 

[Chris Meutsch]

I buy exclusively from Tire Rack. I purchase based on the lowest price with the highest rating/survey results. Usually I end up with the 2nd or 3rd "best" in the survey but always significantly lower in cost vs. the #1.

 

[Linctex]

On my F-150, I just use whatever.
So, +1 on "price"

On my motorcycle, "wet performance" is easily #1, and everything else doesn't matter.

Of every emergency situation I've been in on my motorcycles,
wet performance has clearly been most important.

 

[fenixguy]

All Season/Summer (depending on vehicle):
1. Price
2. Longevity
3. Performance
4. Aesthetics

Winter:
1. Price
2. Snow/Ice performance
3. Longevity

I list price first because if they cost are more than I'm willing to spend, I'm not going to get them no matter their performance. I look for a tire that meets my needs in a price range that I'm comfortable with for the vehicle I'm buying them for. I'll be willing to spend more for my wife's car that she commutes in 2.5 hours twice a week than I will for my Civic that I drive 10 miles a day.

 

[JeepWJ19]

• tread pattern
• winter rating
• reviews
• longevity
• price
• aesthetics

 

[JHZR2]

Originally Posted By: d00df00d
If you were to write out your priorities in an ordered list -- no ties, no if-thens, nothing but a strictly ordered list -- what would it be?


For non-winter tires, mine would be:

1. Quality
2. Wet performance
3. Performance retention at low tread
4. Limit behavior
5. Steering feel
6. Low weight
7. NVH
8. Longevity

I don't worry much about dry grip because anything that meets those criteria will be fine in that respect, and because I'm generally careful to buy/recommend cars that inherently don't suffer for grip in the first place.


And for winter tires, up here in the land of rare and intermittent snow:

1. Quality
2. Just enough non-snow grip that it's not miserable to drive on
3. Snow grip


Price would technically be the last item on each list, but I've never had a situation where trying to save money on tires was a good idea in the end. The only exception is when the more expensive one is expensive for some reason unrelated to performance (e.g. it's an OE fitment for a rare and expensive car or something), and is actually a worse pick overall.


What's your list??


Given that its an extreme rarity to operate at the limits, I'd probably argue quality, wet performance and nvh.

Overall handling, steering feel and grip are critical too.

COO is also important.

Snow tires I agree with you. They need to be good enough in non-snow to be decent to drive. Since I don't live in a place where the roads are kept snow covered, I desire superior performance to all seasons in snow/slush/ice, but need to ensure that cold and dry or cold and wet is covered.

 

[d00df00d]

Originally Posted By: edwardh1
need to define quality
long life?
ability to balance w/o excessive weights

To me, quality means uniformity and a low defect rate. Longevity is different.

 

[Virtus_Probi]

Most important first...
"Summer" Tires
dry cornering
resistance to hydroplaning
wet cornering
braking
tread life
noise
comfort

Winter Tires
tolerable highway manners
ice traction
snow traction
slush traction
dry braking

Winter tires that are miserable at highway speeds in merely dry or wet conditions are useless to me...at least 2/3 of my ski weekend drives are going to be on "normal" roads and I want to be able to at least hang with 93 traffic on those. I had some Blizzaks on my RAV4 years ago that were very shaky above 55mph, and I happened to have a very long commute for one winter with those tires. There were several times when those tires scared me out of my mind when I was trying to make a family event on time or just get home early enough to get some sleep before I got up at 5am the next day for another long drive to work before the traffic got horrendous.

 

[Nissan101]

Honestly my main priorities are the performance in wet and price.

 

[Ducked]

1. Lack of holes
2. Presence of tread

 

[Leo99]

Price
longevity
wet traction
quiet
comfort

I hope someone picks up the Sears Guardsman tires after Sears goes away. Those are good tires.

 

[DerbyDave]

I run all seasons year round, We get all 4 seasons in KS from 105 degree summers to ice and snow in the winter. The snow doesn't lest long enough though for dedicated winter tires.

1. Must Be A Major Name Brand
2. Price
3. Winter Traction
4. Off road traction if they are for a truck
5. Wear Rating
6. Wet Traction
7. Comfort
8. Noise

 

[NJ_Car_Owner]

All season tires with 1) good wet traction, 2)good snow traction and 3) thread life assuming tires are around the same price... I don't think unless a tire was that much better you should pay a lot more for similar tires.

 

[69GTX]

All season tires in a decent name brand with a min. 400 tread life and A ratings on traction/temp. 400 AA.

Price has to be good too.

 

[440Magnum]

I won't play by the stated rules, because that makes the whole exercise nonsense, IMO. Picking a tire is 100% about the combination of properties, not any one property or even 10 properties in a rigid, hierarchical ranking.

Heck, if I had to distill it down to the ONE most important thing I wanted a tire to do, it would be "stay inflated and in one piece." But then I'd run hard-as-rock LT tires with 4-ply sidewalls on my SRT-8 and suffer with all the negatives.

In reality (for the SRT, its a bit different for the Ram 1500), its the best balance of tread-life, dry traction, wet traction, road noise, and temperature rating (which itself is tied to tread-life, speed rating, and traction.) Cost then becomes a tie-breaker.

 

[Brybo86]

Quality? How do u measure quality?

 

[d00df00d]

Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
I won't play by the stated rules, because that makes the whole exercise nonsense, IMO. Picking a tire is 100% about the combination of properties, not any one property or even 10 properties in a rigid, hierarchical ranking.

Heck, if I had to distill it down to the ONE most important thing I wanted a tire to do, it would be "stay inflated and in one piece." But then I'd run hard-as-rock LT tires with 4-ply sidewalls on my SRT-8 and suffer with all the negatives.

You're 100% right, of course. The way I formulated it is insanely reductive; your description is better by far. I just didn't think a more sophisticated formulation would make for an intelligible thread on BITOG.