Tires

Exciting stuff, this is the rubber that meets the road! But with so many options, how can you choose?

For many people, tires are an afterthought. When they need to be replaced they either get what the dealer recommends for them, or whatever has the highest mileage warranty, or whatever is cheaper. For a few of us, tires are an agonizing decision between performance, versatility and value. I clearly fall in the latter bucket.

So, what do I care about in a tire? In addition to being round and the right size, it should 1. have excellent dry grip for braking and acceleration, 2. have excellent stability for cornering, 3. have at least good wet grip for the same reasons (and since Seattle is wet a good portion of the year, this represents a relatively large percentage of driving days). Additional considerations include road noise (though that's more of a bonus) and some ability to drive in light snow (since we get the occasional dusting).

Great, now to pick one ... this is a perfect place where brand loyalty comes in. Aside from reading reviews, there's really no way to try a tire out other than forking over a bunch of money, putting it on, and driving around a bunch. I had been happily using Pirelli P Zero Nero summer tires on my Prelude in Arizona, but after the factory tires on my Acura wore down, I decided maybe I should get something more all-season-esque. The guy at Discount Tire recommended the Bridgestone RE960, which sits in the "ultra high performance all season" category (highest performance for an all season tire). I figured Bridgestone makes pretty good stuff (their S-03 max performance tires seem to rate on par with Michelin's well-known Pilot line, for example), and their Uni-T technology uses magical hand-holding elves to help the tire stay closer to round despite uneven wear or slightly bent rims (an issue I was particularly sensitive to after a bad encounter with a pothole in Tucson). The price was ok, so I took the plunge. I didn't really like them. They seemed somewhat noisy, and most importantly they never seemed all the grippy. I didn't have the same confidence in turns, and definitely didn't have the same confidence on wet surfaces. I limped along on them until now. As of today, I'm back on Pirelli P Zero Nero summer rubber and already loving them more. They might not last more than 30,000 miles, but I'll enjoy every last one of them.


An aside about choices:
The sheer number of choices is overwhelming. I really like tirerack.com for their selection, prices and reviews/tests of tires. However, when I plug in my car and look for 215/45/17, I get almost 80 results. I know I'm only interested in the higher performance options and don't need runflats (I have a spare). Filtering only "ultra high performance" or better still leaves about 50 results. Reducing my choices down to the best-known brands who are consistently used by performance carmakers as OEM providers (Bridgestone, Continental, Goodyear, Michelin, Pirelli) still leaves 19 results. I'll remove Bridgestone because I've now had a sub-par experience with them. This leaves me 11 options ... and now I've concluded that maybe I should have tried the Michelin Pilot Super Sport instead. But I know I'm happy with the P Zero Nero. And here we are. Choice made, questions unanswered.