Does such a thing exist? I'm trying to find something in 205/75-15 or 215/70-15 that's a decent performer. I have a 66 convertible that I actually drive on a fairly regular basis. Mostly a good weather car, but its seen a few rainstorms...I'd rather not careen off the road the instant a cloud opens up. So a strict summer tire isn't the best option (I doubt there's much out there anyway), so basically I'm looking at higher-end all-seasons. I also want a tire that looks pretty good. People love to look at the car, and I don't want the tires to look like hell.
I started off looking at the classic and gorgeous Radial T/A, but it ranks consistantly low on user reviews, everywhere. It seems BFG just hasnt put any work into it in a couple of decades. The others I'm looking at are the ContiProContact by Continental...affordable, available with a thin whitewall (RARE and AWESOME!), seems to be a decent tire. Evidently its OE on the G35, or at least it was a couple of years ago. GoodYear Assurance TripleTred gets good reviews...in fact its by far the best user-reviewed tire in the "performance touring" or "grand touring" categories in this size. But most of the reviews seem to be people driving Camrys and Auroras. The Yokohama Avid is mediocre at best, scoring the middle of the pack in every category except cornering, where it drops a spot. The Firehawk Indy500 scores well and is well-reviewed, but might be the ugliest tire on Earth. I wouldn't put that tire on my a-hole neighbor's car. And rounding out the group is the Pirelli P4000 in a solid last place. $40 more than the next-most-expensive tire (GY), it ranks dead last in every category Tirerack tracks except ice traction where it sits in 4th place out of 6. And yet this is the only tire anyone in the C2 forum has ever used. They rave about it, but usually its being compared to bias-ply.
Tirerack's survey results rank these tires thus:
1. GY TripleTred
2. Firehawk Indy 500
3. Avid T4
4. ContiProContact (very close to the T4)
5. Radial T/A
6. P4000
The Goodyear seems the best option of the group, even though its not exactly popular with the performance-minded crowd. Does anyone have any insight? Is there something else I should be looking at? Any help would be appreciated.
Take a look at the Yokohama Avid TRZ ... I own a set of them and just took an 1850+ mile road trip and they did fantastic ... good steering response, fair amount of grip, low road noise .... I really like them
Thanks for the heads-up. Is there a way to compare cross-category tires? There are so many categories of "touring" tires and each only has 1 or 2 options in the right size (except for standard)...it makes it hard to figure out how they stack up against each other.
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15" tires that don't suck
