Anybody have recommendations for a good set of tires for a 2004 Toyota Celica GTS (Automatic). No sports package. I am eyeing High Performance or Performance All Season tires. Live in Wisconsin so we get a fair amount of snow. However, I understand a Celica is hardly the best kind of car to be driving in the winter but sometimes I have no choice. So I need something that is respectable on wet/snow surfaces. Any thoughts, ideas? Thanks.
If you want High Performance, All Season and Winter tires get three sets of rims and three sets of tires. All season is a hoax, they are OK for spring, summer and fall but rather poor in snow/ice. Check out Tire Rack for recomendations for nice summer tires, for winter tires consider Blizzak or Michelin Xice.
You should use the Tire Decision Guide search engine on the Tire Rack website:
Asking people to suggest tires for you is always going to incomplete and possibly unsatisfactory, simply because not every member of this forum has used every possible make and model of tire, nor do they know all of the other details of your driving patterns and habits. Using that guide on the Tire Rack website will take ALL of your preferences into account, and will cover almost every make and model of tire that is sold on the US market.
The only thing I’d add to @VDCdriver 's good advice is to then read the Tirerack comparison reviews for the tires that you’re considering. I trust those more than the buyer comments.
Tirerack and 1010tires both have good consumer rating sections. They’re worth visiting.
You can use the consumer rating section to narrow down the list. Then go to the test section and check out the head to head tests of tires on the short list. I did that before buying Continental ProContact tires. I wanted tires with good handling, wet and dry traction and was willing to give up a little ride comfort to get it. I preferred that to the extra $40/tire for the equivalent Michelins. I was actually thinking about Pirelli Cinturato P7s first, but the test wet/snow handling talked me out of that idea. Oh, and the Pirellis are $16 more each.
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I just hope that you have a better experience with those Conti ProContacts than I did with mine.
While they were—okay–in other respects, those tires would not “hold” a balance for more than ~8k miles. Even road force balancing did not help. I never before had tires that had to be re-balanced at least once each year.
It finally got to the point where I decided to replace them, even though there was enough tread left for…probably…another 10k miles before hitting the wear bars.
When I replaced them with Michelin Defenders, I found that the extra cost was worthwhile, as the Michelins were quieter, had lower steering effort, better handling, a smoother ride, and they also enabled slightly better gas mileage.
And, I have not had to rebalance them in the 1 year+ that I have had them.
I had a terrible time with a set of Continentals on a pickup of mine. Never could get them to ride smooth, no matter what I did. After fooling with them, I got an acceptable ride by making the store change the two worst of them with BF Goodys and got back to a smooth ride by eventually changing the other two with BF Goodys. I never bought another Continental and never will.
Mountainbike, I understand your attitude. I have the same one concerning Ford. I owned 3 Fords and all had flaws severe enough that I sold them much earlier in their lifetime than I ordnarily would sell a car. And I doubt that I would own a Ford again.
@VDCdriver, how long ago did you buy the Continentals? Tire Rack customers rated the PureContacts with EcoPlus in the top 3 for grand touring all seasons, and Tire Rack tested them against Pirellis and Michelins. The PureContacts came in a close second to the Michelins. I’lll remember your problem as the miles add up and see if I have a similar balance issue. Thanks for the comments.
@VDCdriver, I typed in the wrong tire. Mine are not ProContacts, but PureContacts with EcoPlus Technology. They are probably an update to the ProContacts. I looked up the user ratings for ProContacts and they aren’t rated nearly as well as the PureContacts with EcoPlus.
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Hopefully those will perform better than the Pro Contacts did for me.
As a result of those tires, it is very doubtful that I will ever again own Continental tires, unless they are an OEM tire on a new car–in which case I would have no choice.
As the OP can see, some of us have prejudices against certain brands of tires, while others might love those same brands. That is why you need to use resources such as the Tire Rack and 1010 Tires websites, and the tire test ratings in Consumer Reports.
I live with a winter climate also, if you have the 16" tire I would go with Michelin Grand touring. Cheaped out lat time with bf goodrich long tail TA, michelin cross terrain next time for me. The TA is a good tire bit a harder ride and coincidental loss of gas mileage.