So I've had my car for almost a year now. It's a silver 1998 Acura 2.3CL. I bought it used last March; it had one owner and 112,000 miles when I picked it up. Back then the front tires were fairly worn but still had a decent amount of tread left. The rears were still in great shape.

Now, though, the fronts are considerably more worn and need replacing. This was pointed out to me in rather stark circumstances when I went through a puddle which was slightly deeper than I thought and hydroplaned. For those who've never experienced hydroplaning, it is not a pleasant feeling. While driving, grip is life; when it suddenly goes away and you're no longer in control it's easy to react incorrectly and make the situation worse. Fortunately I knew exactly what to do, and it only lasted a couple seconds, so it turned out just fine.

I definitely need new front tires. However, in the course of some research more questions were raised than answers:

The model listed on my current (Goodyear Assurance) tires says: P205/55R16. However, listings for that model gives a bunch of tires which say something like "205/55VR16", or 205/55HR16". What do these letters mean?

My grandpa who knows quite a lot about cars recommended Michelins, or failing that, Goodyears. Does anyone object to these? Why? Are there particularly good brands for Hondas/Acuras, or is it all down to the particular model?

From what I understand, I should only be seriously looking at all-season tires. It's relatively cool here in the summer (80F is scorching), but the winters are more intense. Snow is a weekly occurrence, if not more frequently. It doesn't get that cold here though - average highs in the winter are around 30F, with a few nights getting down to maybe 0F or 5F. I don't really drive in the snow anyway because the bus stops right in front of my house and is very reliable.

I'm not looking for extreme performance - what I want is precise and consistent roadfeel and long treadlife. A tread pattern that is particularly good in the wet would be helpful too, because it rains a lot here. Some of the descriptions are confusing: High Performance All-Season, Ultra High Performance All-Season, Grand Touring All-Season, Performance Summer, Performance Winter, etc. What the hell does Grand Touring mean in tire terms? What's the difference between high performance and ultra high? As I've already stated, EXTREME grip is not what I'm looking for. Grip is good of course, but I'm not going to be racing obviously and I want the tires to last.

What I've found online has ranged from $100-$150. I'm willing to spend a little extra if its worth it, but I want to find the best deal. I've been looking on www.tirerack.com so far, anyone else have any other sites?

Quote :

The model listed on my current (Goodyear Assurance) tires says: P205/55R16. However, listings for that model gives a bunch of tires which say something like "205/55VR16", or 205/55HR16". What do these letters mean?

The letters are speed ratings, H would be 130mph.

Better example: 165/70 R-10 72H

165 = Tyre width in millimetres
70 = The aspect ratio percentage (height of sidewall is 70 per cent of tyre width)
R = Radial
10 = Rim diameter in inches
72 = Load index (72 = 335kg
H = Speed rating (H = 130mph)

Read up on reviews from Tire Rack customers. Pick a tire and see what others are saying. For what it's worth, I have been using Yokohama street tires and Avon track tires for a good while. I also had a set of Continental all seasons at one point. These were awesome in the snow, but an absolute joke in dry weather performance.

Toyo Proxis are the best tyres I've had on my car for a combination of grip (wet & dry) and durability. Mind you the Vredsteins may have been stickier but they had about a 10k mile lifespan.

you could get falken azenis but if you're not looking for all that grip and a bit shorter lifespan, I'd go for the toyo t1r's, still grippy but should last a little longer

Also, the speed rating MUST (in law) be greater than the speed the car is officially capable of reaching. You are not allowed to fit lower speed rated tyres (to save money) even if you never reach that speed.

Personally I always buy the cheapest tyres I can get - nice and hard for not much grip, which means more fun can be had a slower (safer, should anything go wrong) speeds, and they last a LOT longer, even with fooling around. The few tenths per mile slower they'd be in ultimate terms doesn't matter.

However, some people seem to think going faster is better, and demand pointlessly soft tyres that wear out in seconds, yet are no quicker (in real life road terms) than cheapies.

I agree with Tristan. Having had cheap all seasons and very grippy tires on my Miata, I do have one thing to add, which is that steering feel was a lot better on the sportier tires due to their stiffer sidewall. I enjoyed this about the grippier tires, but other than that I enjoyed the all seasons at least as much, as things happen at lower speeds. I also got FTD at my second autox in the wet with my all seasons which was fun. People came up asking if I was running Hoosier wets or something and I said I had the least expensive all seasons that Kal Tire sell So much of it is about how you drive, as Tristan alluded to.

As for driving in the snow... any summer tire will be pretty much useless for the most part, but an all season tire can do the trick for occasional snow. If you really have a lot of snow regularly I would look into a second set of wheels and snow tires, but it depends how well your all seasons do and how much snow you have.

I'd say get the best tyres you can afford (not that the most expensive ones are the best though...). If you have to do an emergency stop or someone pulls out infront of you on the motorway, or you have to avoid an obstacle you want to have as much grip as possible. The £20 you save buying budget tyres could cost your (or someone else's) life. I don't know what to recommend for snow/winter driving, but I've just bought 2 Toyo Proxes T1-Rs for my S40 and they're giving great grip in wet and dry conditions.

Get some that are black, round and the correct size.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Also, the speed rating MUST (in law) be greater than the speed the car is officially capable of reaching. You are not allowed to fit lower speed rated tyres (to save money) even if you never reach that speed.

If it's not rated as a sportscar or a higher performance car, then it will probably have a speed limiter at 105 mph. Nearly every car available will do no more than 105 mph over here anymore.

Quote :

Personally I always buy the cheapest tyres I can get - nice and hard for not much grip, which means more fun can be had a slower (safer, should anything go wrong) speeds, and they last a LOT longer, even with fooling around. The few tenths per mile slower they'd be in ultimate terms doesn't matter.

Fully agree. I buy my tires at Walmart, the cheapest I can get. Any tire will perform fine with normal road driving, after all, you are not racing on the road in traffic. Wet performance or snow performance is a different issue. I have 4WD and was stopped on a slight hill on hardpacked snow. With the garbage Continentals that came stock on my 4WD, I was stuck and could not get going. I had to back completely down to the bottom of the hill where there was a clear spot before I could go forwards again.

With my car, I pay about $45 per tire for 205/60R15 at Walmart, the cheapest I can get. Handles just fine at road speeds. Snow handling in Pennsylvania is a different matter though.

Over here the speed rating is, I believe, based on the unrestricted top speed of the car. So a car capable of 180mph but limited to 155mph will still need whatever speed rating corresponds to 180mph+. I think.

Quote from PAracer :

Read up on reviews from Tire Rack customers. Pick a tire and see what others are saying.

I did that, but customer reviews were often wildly conflicting. For example, a tire which was given an 9 out of 10 by the site for wet weather traction would have one review which said "outstanding performance in the rain!" while someone else would say "terrible wet performance!". I'm not sure whether I should really trust anyone there.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Quote from amp88 :

I'd say get the best tyres you can afford (not that the most expensive ones are the best though...). If you have to do an emergency stop or someone pulls out infront of you on the motorway, or you have to avoid an obstacle you want to have as much grip as possible. The £20 you save buying budget tyres could cost your (or someone else's) life. I don't know what to recommend for snow/winter driving, but I've just bought 2 Toyo Proxes T1-Rs for my S40 and they're giving great grip in wet and dry conditions.

I definitely see your point, but it's always a compromise when it comes to these things. Sure, I could get a set of Azenis and maybe stop a metre or two shorter, but then you're changing tires perhaps two or three times more often, which isn't economical. As far as summer tires like the T1Rs, I find that they are more perceptible to aquaplaning than the all seasons I used before, and they generally have less grip on cold frosty mornings than either the all seasons I used before or the snow tires I currently use during winter. So while I certainly agree that when the conditions are right, you will likely be able to stop more quickly with T1Rs or Azenis, when the conditions are colder or very wet, that's not always the case. Summer tires can get very hard and lose a lot of grip when it's colder out...

If you're routinely avoiding accidents by the amount expensive, soft tyres will save over harder cheaper tyres then you really need to review your driving habits. Perhaps leave one more car length between you and the car in front, or corner 3mph slower on each bend. And learn cadence braking if you don't have ABS.

In fact, go to a disused runway, and put a cone down. Drive past that cone at 70mph, and hit your brakes as you pull alongside. When you stop put a cone down. Do it again and try to beat that cone. In half and hour you will be able to stop 5m+ earlier, which is a free upgrade to soft tyres without actually buying any.

So I ended up going with two new Goodyear Assurance TripleTreds, which from everything I've read and heard are some of the best all-seasons on the market. Rain and snow performance outclasses everything else out there, for any price.

However, the guys who put them on did something that struck me as very strange - they put the new tires on the rear, and moved my rears to the front. Of course this is a FWD car, so this doesn't make any sense to me. In a FWD car the front tires are responsible for the power, the steering, and most of the braking force. Don't I want the best tires on the front end? Even if the back breaks away, if the front is still gripping I can steer / manipulate the throttle to get it back in line.

According to these guys, no - Goodyear and Michelin sent them some sort of directive saying that when replacing just two tires, the new ones should always go on the rear, whether it's FWD, RWD, or 4WD. One of them said that particularly in front-engined, front-drive cars the rear will hydroplane first, since there's very little weight back there. So one wants the grippiest tires in the back in order to prevent hydroplaning.

Has anyone else heard this? Does it make sense? They told me they'd be glad to switch them to the front, but I would have to sign a waiver absolving them of all liability. These guys are tire professionals and I trust their advice, so I stuck with what they did originally. I can bring it back to switch them for free anytime I like though.

Yeah, that makes sense. The front tyres are the ones you feel and react to first, so it makes sense to have them weak - all passenger cars are understeer biased. They'll wear out first this way too, so then you'll have newish tyres all round, rather than new fronts and REALLY old and hard (but still treaded) rears.

However, just because they are 'tyre professionals' doesn't mean they know much about tyres, handling, rubber, tarmac, driving skills, aquaplaning physics etc. They are just tyre fitters/suppliers with a shiny sign. Best not to be fooled into thinking they know everything.

Quote from tristancliffe :

However, just because they are 'tyre professionals' doesn't mean they know much

Well yeah I know, which is why I took their advice with a grain of salt.

Their argument made sense, it just seemed to conflict a little bit with what I understood about the dynamics of how FWD cars should behave. Therefore I asked on here and called up a couple family members for their input. They all agreed, so problem solved.

Thanks for the help everyone.

Quote from Lateralus :

So I ended up going with two new Goodyear Assurance TripleTreds, which from everything I've read and heard are some of the best all-seasons on the market. Rain and snow performance outclasses everything else out there, for any price.

However, the guys who put them on did something that struck me as very strange - they put the new tires on the rear, and moved my rears to the front. Of course this is a FWD car, so this doesn't make any sense to me. In a FWD car the front tires are responsible for the power, the steering, and most of the braking force. Don't I want the best tires on the front end? Even if the back breaks away, if the front is still gripping I can steer / manipulate the throttle to get it back in line.

According to these guys, no - Goodyear and Michelin sent them some sort of directive saying that when replacing just two tires, the new ones should always go on the rear, whether it's FWD, RWD, or 4WD. One of them said that particularly in front-engined, front-drive cars the rear will hydroplane first, since there's very little weight back there. So one wants the grippiest tires in the back in order to prevent hydroplaning.

Has anyone else heard this? Does it make sense? They told me they'd be glad to switch them to the front, but I would have to sign a waiver absolving them of all liability. These guys are tire professionals and I trust their advice, so I stuck with what they did originally. I can bring it back to switch them for free anytime I like though.

I'm a tire professional, and you should always put new tires in the rear.

I've done a bunch of "ride and drives" with the major tire manufacturers testing that theory. With the TripleTreds when they first came out actually. (Good choice, how much did you pay by the way? I'm always interested in everyone elses prices.)

Its much easier to regain control of the car if you do have the better tires in the rear. You can control the front end with the throttle/brake/steering inputs, but if that back end breaks too far out in a fwd drive car, and your tires have under 4 32nds of tread, its much harder to pull back in than a new tire.

(Run On!)

You may not notice driving every day, but when you take the same car and test 4 different tire combinations it is pretty evident.

Sometime the way I have to explain it to customers so they can get it is:

"If you drive up hill all day, it'd be fine, but when the car starts to slide going down hill on ice, what will keep those old tires on the road?"

Plus, all the car manufacturers, say you have to, the tire companies do, and the RMA does.


Actually most car makers say you should always replace all 4, but they are also insane.

My company makes you sign a waiver if you do anything against what the car company says, so thats all pretty normal to me really.

Quote :

However, just because they are 'tyre professionals' doesn't mean they know much about tyres, handling, rubber, tarmac, driving skills, aquaplaning physics etc. They are just tyre fitters/suppliers with a shiny sign. Best not to be fooled into thinking they know everything.

You're right. I don't even let my techs talk to customers, they are idiots. They just know how to work the machines and read workorders.

Round black ones.

Quote from MattxMosh :

how much did you pay by the way?

$131 each, plus $2 for new valve stems. The cheapest I could find them online was $127, which isn't enough of an incentive to wait several days.

Quote from MattxMosh :

Actually most car makers say you should always replace all 4, but they are also insane.

Insane in general or because of this statement.

That statement is correct. You should replace all 4, because all 4 should be wearing evenly, because you should be rotating your tires on a schedule (oilchange? every 5000 miles?) to give you even wear.

I don't think I've ever rotated my tires for even treadwear on schedule though. when I see them worn down on one end, that's when I rotate them. Else, I wait and replace the worn ones so I only have to lay out the cash for 2 at a time....

Quote from mrodgers :

That statement is correct. You should replace all 4, because all 4 should be wearing evenly, because you should be rotating your tires on a schedule (oilchange? every 5000 miles?) to give you even wear.

Who's going to change their wheels every 5000 miles? Besides on a FWD vehicle the front tyres are wearing faster than the rears so by rotating the tyres you put the worse ones to the rear. That's smart. As the rear wheels are the ones that keep you going in the direction you want.
On an RWD vehicle the tyres wear more evenly. They wear differently on the front and rear. But the amount of tread gone is about the same. I'm talking about normal driving and not dragging or racing or drifting. So rotating the tyres make them wear more evenly per tyre.

Many modern tyres have a directional tread pattern which makes tyre rotation impossible. I bought two new studded winter tyres for my car. Only two because two of my previous set still have enought tread to last this "winter" because they were the rear tyres. Finding directionless tyres was quite hard.

Quote from March Hare :

Who's going to change their wheels every 5000 miles? Besides on a FWD vehicle the front tyres are wearing faster than the rears so by rotating the tyres you put the worse ones to the rear. That's smart. As the rear wheels are the ones that keep you going in the direction you want.
On an RWD vehicle the tyres wear more evenly. They wear differently on the front and rear. But the amount of tread gone is about the same. I'm talking about normal driving and not dragging or racing or drifting. So rotating the tyres make them wear more evenly per tyre.

Many modern tyres have a directional tread pattern which makes tyre rotation impossible. I bought two new studded winter tyres for my car. Only two because two of my previous set still have enought tread to last this "winter" because they were the rear tyres. Finding directionless tyres was quite hard.

Posting from my phone now, just did that for a customer.Front to back, after 5k, flip and rotate after every 10k is what I recommend.Also, at my place they are 124.69, per tire everythin included. Make the 12 hour drive to save 7 bucks next time haha.

If you're going from winter tyres to summer tyres and vice versa regularly, you might as well rotate them, as it's no extra work. And even if you don't, it really doesn't take much time to change four tyres.

And about those recommendations to buy the cheapest/hardest/least grippy tyres available... That's plain stupid, imho. Sure, the most expensive tyres don't always work best, but there are some tyres out there with quite appaling performance, so I would always check some reviews and don't buy a tyre I don't know anything about.

Quote from tristancliffe :

If you're routinely avoiding accidents by the amount expensive, soft tyres will save over harder cheaper tyres then you really need to review your driving habits. Perhaps leave one more car length between you and the car in front, or corner 3mph slower on each bend. And learn cadence braking if you don't have ABS.

And if you buy expensive grippy tyres and do the same, you don't gain an advantage? Your reasoning is very short-sighted, or to put it more bluntly: utter selfish and plain stupid. The problem with accidents is not the amount of money it costs to repair your car afterwards. The problem is that humans are often involved who can be seriously injured or killed (those things do happen, you know). A car stopping only two metres earlier can mean a saved life. And driving habits don't even come into this. Sometimes things happen unexpectedly, like children jumping out right in front of you. If something like that should ever happen to me, I will want to be on the best tyres with the shortest stopping distance possible. Even if that means having less "fun" at "safer speeds".

Quote from tristancliffe :

Personally I always buy the cheapest tyres I can get - nice and hard for not much grip, which means more fun can be had a slower (safer, should anything go wrong) speeds, and they last a LOT longer, even with fooling around.

In which case you have to buy a super light supercar, with the shortest stopping distance known to man. Surely saving a few quid to buy a daily runabout is immoral and wrong if it costs someone their life.

My point was rather than relying on expensive tyres, learn to brake properly and you'll still stop quicker than average joe. Of course if you want to play the victim card even more, do the practice and the tyres. Then buy a really fast braking car. Then realise you might as well walk.

I've always worked on the principal that I'll do my bit (learn to brake, stay aware, not speed in residential areas, maintain my car well enough), and if anyone jumps out into the road in front of me, for whatever reason, then that's their problem (although it's partly my problem I know, but it doesn't worry me).

Advertising: "ROADS - THEY HAVE CARS ON THEM YOU KNOW. CARS HURT. EVEN ONES WITH STICKY TYRES."