Time now for new tires for the 06 BMW X3. I am trying to take good care of it so it lasts a while! I currently have Pirelli and they don’t provide the smoothest ride. Any cost effective solutions/suggestions. Kumho and good??? Thanks!!
Go to www.tirerack.com, enter your tire size, and read the “survey” chart that shows results of owner surveys for each category of tire. You’ll quickly find which tires actual users report are best for ride quality, noise, etc.
Tirerack and 1010tires both have great customer ratingas sections. Visit both and choose your tire.
You’ll want to pay special attention to the ratings for ride comfort. The X3 is known to be somewhat rough-riding, it’s not all the Pirelli’s fault.
I would believe that differences in tire noise would be detectable but I have never noted a difference in ride from one tire to the next. That includes cars and bikes.
CNNMONEY had an article today on tires citing Tirerack and Consumer Reports. They used a 300 BMW with cheap and original equipment tires for testing and the results were pretty poor for the cheap tires. Recommended going with what was on it to begin with rather than cheaping out. Myself, I needed whitewall tires for my Riviera to last a year or so which were hard to come by. I ended up with some no name ones from the Goodlyear store that I’m sure were Chinese. They actually were smoother, quieter, and had better snow and wet traction than any of the Goodyear products I had before. Never put more than 30K on them so who knows how they would have stood up, but thought it was interesting.
The one thing I’ve notices with Tirerack comments is that no matter what tire, half the people hate them and have poor luck, and half the people think they are great. The ones I’ve got now is Michelen, Tiger paw, etc. and the ratings were all up and down even though I have had good luck.
Don’t get too hooked up on tire brand. There is so much inbreeding in tire manufacturing, like most other expendables, just take the good suggestions of using Tire Rack and other rating sources including CR, to evaluate your options. You can find good tires in brands you may have not considered that fit your needs. Research and ratings, not tire brand per se will give you better results.
Don’t get too hooked up on tire brand. There is so much inbreeding in tire manufacturing, like most other expendables, just take the good suggestions of using Tire Rack and other rating sources including CR, to evaluate your options. You can find good tires in brands you may have not considered. Research and ratings, not tire brand per se will give you better results. There just may be a Pirelli model that does ride well for example.
@Bing, individual comments on any given tire on TireRack will vary, yes, but the survey results, which are an aggregate of many thousands of data points, do give a useful measure of the RELATIVE merits of the tires being compared, in my experience. The top ranked tires in any category are definitely going to be better than the bottom ranked tires.
And, surprisingly, some of the bottom ranked tires are nearly as expensive as some of the top ranked tires, so price is not always a good indicator of quality.
Tire Rack also tests tires; often 4 brands at a time. For instance, if you want high performance all season radials, here’s a test of 4 different tires:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/testDisplay.jsp?ttid=150
They also test ulra-high performance tires if you want to look at those, too.
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/testDisplay.jsp?ttid=151
Those are just examples. They have many more tests.
For me I have tried through reading all the ratings, it gets hard, sticking with Michelin, as they seem to be a well received tire for my needs.
When my wides van needed tires, I did the tirerack thing. Got a set of Goodyear comfort tread tourings, big difference in road noise(much quieter) which is what people said. However what no one said and both me and my dad noticed (on my rec he got the same tires), was that we lost 1-2 MPG. So keep that in mind as well