How about Falken ZIES ZE 950/960 tires? Any one can comment on GT Radial?
According to CR, the RT43 are “better” for rolling resistance. Kumho Solus TA11, Bridgestone Ecopia EP422 Plus, and Firestone Champion Fuel rate “much better” in that regard.
Low rolling resistance is one desirable feature among many. Where I live other factors like snow traction and ice braking mean more to me.
Buying tires is an opportunity to fine tune the car to your liking, so it’s worth it to do some research. The differences are real, and will be with you for years.
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I have had the altimax rt43’s on a few of my vehicles. the only complaint I have with them is the side walls seem to be weaker than other tires I have had. especially on lower profile tires. so keep that in mind in high pothole areas. because they tend to get a belt shift or side wall bubble easier than others tires that we had. and we do have a lot of pot holes on Long Island
Not a good place for low profile tires. Too bad they and their heavy alloy rims are so common these days. For my driving conditions, I’ll take steel wheels and normal profile tires any day.
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I get told Ohtsu tires are are in Japan.
Ohtsu Tires is brand of Sumitomo Rubber Industries (SRI), a global tire and rubber company based in Japan. SRI also owns the respected Falken Tire brand
What tires are available in your size? tirerack.com is probably the best easy source of that info. Not all tires are available in all sizes.
They may not sell tires that are of questionable quality or are very poor sellers - but why buy those anyway?
Look over the ratings in tr and maybe also CR and decide what criteria mean more or less to you. That’s how to make a wise choice. Those ratings are based on much more data than any one or few of us here can provide.
General Altimax RT43 are a CR winner, unless you want to pay for Michelins.
So you are saying buying a brand listed on TireRack is a quick way to figure it?
I am on CR online - but my search is getting me to the right article. Do you guys know which publication I should look up?
On the CR home page, type “tires” in the search box.
Sentury is in the list - tell me if I missed something! Online CR lacks formatting.
https://senturytireusa.com/about
Replacing worn-out tires can be costly but is key to safe driving. These tires performed well in our testing and cost less per mile than the best in class, based on the price we paid and the predicted tread life. You can often save even more by checking the tire maker’s website for rebates. For more value choices, go to Best Tire Values Based on Consumer Reports' Tests - Consumer Reports.
Anyone can print the full article and share it here? Here is what I saw:
ALL-SEASON
Falken Sincera SN201 A/S
Cost per 100 miles 9.9 cents
OVERALL SCORE 66
DRY BRAKING 04
HANDLING 03
RESISTANCE 04
ALL-SEASON SUV
Sentury
Crossover
Cost per 100 miles 16 cents
|OVERALL SCORE|63|
|DRY BRAKING|VERY GOOD|
|HANDLING|GOOD|
|RESISTANCE|VERY GOOD|
ALL-SEASON TRUCK
Continental
TerrainContact H/T
Cost per 100 miles 17.5 cents
|OVERALL SCORE|69|
|DRY BRAKING|VERY GOOD|
|RESISTANCE|GOOD|
How bad is avg rating of 3/5 on noise Vs 3.5/5?
This seems the one going to influence my decision. That’s why, I did not want to include the brand name. Other than avg ratings, critics have wrote commented noisy for the “3” while quite on the other. Tire shop tells me that 3.5 is the avg rating. So "3’ is below avg?
Before buying this Volt, I test drove another - the tire noise made me to hate that car. I don’t normally complain about noise. Perhaps being electric car, the tire noise is noticeable and could be bothersome!
Then look at their ratings, including of noise. I don’t know how to evaluate 3 vs. 3.5 except I know which is more.
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The tire’s mom bought for her '10 Prius a few years ago were the Michelin Defender XT’s from Costco, looked at Discount tire which we’ve used since the 90’s because of the amazing customer service but ended up getting the defender’s on sale. With her old Mazda we’d just get a set of cheap all season’s from Discount tire but now they go to Costco for Tires along with everything else.
are these not a subjective user-based ratings?
if yes, you might end up comparing apples … not even to oranges, as I’ve seen rating on super cheap tires to be better than on good ones… probably from people too happy about bargain they were getting? not sure…
look for the test results on TR site - these are the only more or less objective sources of data in my view
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People buy tires while shopping at Walmart - Sams Club - Costco or while having lunch at a fast food place next to their local family owned tire store ( that is what I do ) . I didn’t realize just how complicated this was .
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Yup!
And, while I can’t speak for the folks at Wally World or Sam’s Club, Costco tire centers have been accepting appointments for several years.
If you go w/o an appointment, one might wind-up waiting several hours for their car to be ready, but if you make an appointment–and especially if you don’t race through the store–it is likely that one’s car will be ready for pickup shortly after you finish shopping, or a bit more than 1 hour in total.
Is that a real place? I thought that was made up from the movie vacation?
My friends and I refer to Walmart as Wally World. You can’t deny that there are frequently some… amusing… sights to behold in that store.
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Agee… LOL 10 character min.
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