new tires review

[gnilier]

Re: new tires review

Southern, I had continentals on my 2004 when i bought it, after the first time in the rain I immediatly got rid of those things, I was all over the road. They still had tread left on them just no grip. I would never put those on one of my cars again.
I researched and went by the owners comments and bought the Firehawk Wide Oval Indy 500 by firestone. I am coming up on 10000 miles and I like them very much. I went with 235/55/17 as the speed matches up right on with my gps and the radar signs.

[Southern]

Re: new tires review

My Apology. Just tried to help. They worked good on my Mercedes.

[Lonestar]

Re: new tires review

I was quoted in post #14. When I made that post the Conti Extreme Contact DWS was just coming out or had been out only a short period of time. I stand by my comments Contis but will exclude from them the Extreme Contact DWS since it is a new concept and too new to know if it will only fair as well as its predisessors or it will be a home run for Conti.

[blue731]

Re: new tires review

I bought my 2004 used with 28,000 miles on it. The ride seemed okay, but the tires were cracked and hard. Still had plenty of tread left, but the checking had me worried, so I took it to my tire store. They had a deal on Toyo Proxis 4 tires, so I did some research for a few days and realized something about tires. No matter how expensive or high end the tire is, the reviews can run 50/50 for love/hate.

I then began noticing a trend. The people that had the worse experience with expensive, high end tires, generally owned low end cars like the Honda Civic, Mazda 3's and Ford Focus. I'm not saying these are poor cars, or bad cars - quite the contrary. But they are small, light, and not noted for stellar performance. The point, these expensive tires had given people "permission" to push their cars beyond their designed limits, and the tires were not designed for the construction of the vehicles. So, the tires underperformed. People blamed the tires and hated them.

The Tbird is a heavy car.. wide, and slung low. The suspension is more than adequate. The Proxis-4 tires performs better than the Michelin's that were on it, but maybe that was because they had lost some of their grip due to age? By any rate, I rolled the dice and the Proxis work well. This car corners like it is on rails, is quiet, and is very sticky in the rain.

Again, many tires will work well with this car, and others will not.

[prbre]

Re: new tires review

I do believe that this post will help alot of us figure out what type of tire to buy!

[Lonestar]

Re: new tires review

The age old problem with tires is that you rally do not get to one brand VS another. I mean it would be wonderful if you could place take five identical cars and equip each with a different brand and then drive each car on an established path under the exact same conditions (temperature, humidity, barometric pressure). Now introduce a second driver and the rating of 1 to 5 would probably change.

[bwlewis]

Re: new tires review

Lonestar...I have to agree with everything you said in #21. We have over 300 vehicles in our fleet. Most of them are equipped with Goodyear RSAs. Mileage varies with the drivers; anywhere from 35K to 45K on average and in my assignment we do well to get 5K.

[Lonestar]

Re: new tires review

My experience with RSAs is that they make excellent new car tires on semi-performance vehicles for they are coushie, sticky, and handle well when they are new and they are not too expensive. However, after about 5K miles they go to crap in regards to handling, tire life, and noise.

My humble opinion... if I had a fleet of 300 vehicles I would try to work a deal with Michelin for their 80K mile tires. More expensive than the RSAs but you would probably more than get it back in fuel savings and tread life.

[MerlotBlue]

Re: new tires review

Goodyear Z rated GTs on the 2002 and a new set of Michelin OEM on the 2004.

Like 'em both.

I'll keep it REALLY simple.

Go for the Michelin's if:

an Original look.

Really competent, if not the ultimate traction is your goal.

They're Quiet. (But you already know that!)

and finally......50,000 miles....... maybe more...... are your goals.

On the other hand......


Go for the Goodyears if you want a tire that sticks like eggs in a cheap skillet.

Our 2002 has the softer suspension but wearing Goodyears it corners better than the 2004 simply because of the better abilities available in the Goodyear GT.

That said......be aware. I have a lot of experience with these tires on other cars. I know I won't get anywhere near as many miles out of 'em and as they age I KNOW they will get....... LOUD!!

Tires....... seems there is no perfect tire.........just compromises your willing to make to get what you want.

Maybe someone makes the high mileage, quiet, corner carver.......but sadly I haven't found it yet.

For what it's worth.......the Goodyears cost a little less but I won't lie.......you won't get the savings. They will NOT last long enough to beat the the higher priced Michelins for value per mile.

You'll want to define the goal before pulling the trigger.

[bwlewis]

Re: new tires review

Lonestar I agree, but the people with the purse strings go with state contracts. They have started putting Bridgestones on the front wheel drive vehicles. Have to wait and see what happens there. The garage guys want max recommended psi in the Goodyears, they seem to handle a little better. We run more to keep from rolling them off the wheels in turns. I know some people will disagree with this, etc. but so far so good. Better too much air than not enough.

[GHerndon]

Re: new tires review

I replaced the original Michelin tires with Michelin pilot sports. My third set of tires are Toyo Versadas. The Toyo tires are the best yet. They have the right balance of traction, handling and ride. The Pilot Sports were too harsh.

The Toyo Versada tires are also less expensive.

[Katxoxo]

Re: new tires review

The Pilot Sports were too harsh.

The Toyo Versada tires are also less expensive.

Can you explain what you mean by harsh?


How much did your Toyos run?