What is your favorite brand of tire? (SUV, good tire, best)

[Coldjensens]

I just go by the testing results and recommendations at tire rack. Otherwise you have nothing to go on but advertising. Some may be surprised to learn that advertising materials sometimes lie or at least mislead.

"Best stopping traction in its class" What they do not say is the "class" as they have defined it has only two tires in it.

They also like to mislead on warranties. A failure at 25,000 miles on a 40,000 warranty, does not always mean you get a new tire, sometimes it means you get about $20 - sometimes as a credit towards the price of a new tire.

[Sean-a-thin]

Cooper for general all seasons. They aren't the most....refined, but they are such a genuine brand and their durability and tread life is insane.


For winter, studded Altimax Arctics (a rebranded version of the Gislaved Nordfrost) , no contest unless you have the extra cash to go for Nokians.

[jtur88]

I don't think I ever bought anything except Kelly or Cooper. I buy the cheapest tire I can get with a brand I recognize, and I've never had a problem with either of those.

[plmokn]

Whatever is cheapest or close to cheapest with close to equivalent high performance. There are databases online which show all sorts of performance data.

[blackhemi]

I've always liked how Michelin's ride, but I rarely get more than 30k out of a tire. I have a much to heavy foot.

[MckinneyOwnr]

Michelin's make the best tire for my car, in 315/30/18, so I don't have many choices. Pirelli's are a close second, and are what I'm running now as I got a great deal on my last set. For low profile, high performance tires, Michelin is the brand to beat in most cases.

For our Cayenne, we bought it with Firestone Destination ST's, and I originally had planned on replacing them, but they really surprised me with how good they were. Got 25k out of them and the handling was great, road noise was pretty low too. We don't drive that car easy either. Currently we have Yokohama YK580's on there, as they were already on a spare set of wheels we had. Traction and handling aren't as good as the Destinations, but I knew they wouldn't be. Should last quite a bit longer though, and road noise is low. Good, decent tires.

For our Jeep GC, currently have a set of Continental ContiProContacts. They're better than average, but nothing special. Hard to tell how well tires perform on the Jeep though, since the steering and suspension are pretty loose from the factory. Road noise levels are better than the OEM tires.

[Little-Acorn]

I had Michelin Hydroedges on my Sienna and my wife's Camry. Smooth, grippy, long lasting, but noisy. Damaged two of them on the Sienna, then found the Hydroedge wasn't made any more, so replaced them with Michelin Defenders. Those are a lot quieter, I like them a whole lot. They also have even higher wear ratings than the Hydroedges did, we'll see.

One odd thing: The Hydroedges and the Defenders are both 215R65-16 size. But the Defenders are 3/4" larger in diameter than the Hydroedges. My little tire-pressure-is-low light keeps coming on on the dash, it started as soon as I put the two Defenders on.

Finally found out that this light comes on because the Toyota anti-lock brakes measure the speed each wheel is rotating, and when they don't all match, it assumes one tire has low pressure and is bulging. I carefully put 35PSI in each tire and drove it, and the little light kept coming on.

Finally measured the distance from the center of the hub to the ground, and found the Defenders were 7/16" larger rolling radius than the Hydroedges with identical pressure. And this was with the Defenders on the front, which is heavier than the rear! 7/16" is a major difference.

I expect this kind of thing when the tires are different brands. But it's weird to find it with two tires of the same brand, only different models.

Now I just ignore the light.

I've also had Goodyear Tripletreds on both cars, those are excellent too, and quieter than the Hydroedges.

[victimofGM]

Umm, Bridgestone owns Firestone. I have a Firestone credit card and so I use either Bridgestone or Firestone. My wife has Bridgestone Turanza EL-400 on her car and I have Firestone Affinity Touring on my car. To me, Firestone is not bargain basement brand/price. They're about midlevel in price and quality. Bridgestone would like to be at Goodyear and Michelin levels of price and reputation but they're not there yet. If they were car companies, Goodyear and Michelin would be like BMW or Mercedes and Bridgestone would be like an Acura, Infiniti, or Volvo.

As much as I like Goodyear and Michelin, I can't get them for my car. They don't carry certain size tires anymore. As cars age and sizes change, the high level brands stop carrying these sizes and pass them onto the lower brands they own. However, I can still get my tire size in Bridgestone, Firestone, BFG, Hankook, and a few other midlevel and lower brands.

Has General Tire increased in quality and status? I remember way back when that if you needed tires for a car you plan on selling within a year or two, you get the General Ameri-Trac which was the cheap of the cheap. Heck, back in my high school years, all the guys wanted Goodyear GT+4 tires!

[Jan Alaska]

I had Coopers and BF Goodrich on my truck but then I bought a Mercedes ML with Hankook ipikes and wow the difference is amazing, all terrain, all weather tires that grip like velcro in the winter and yet don't have too much road noise in the summer, my current set have been on for 4+ years, I have personally driven nearly 30,000 miles with them and the tread is great and still has siping visible.

[jtur88]

I had Michelins as OE on a Renault. On all four of them, before the tread wore down, their sidewalls failed on unpaved roads.