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What should I look at replacing these tires with? Cost isn't a big concern, though value is. The car never sees snow, but it does see a good amount of rain in the winter. Do I need all season, or does no snow mean summer tires are fine? Any specific reccomendations? I'll probably spend this evening reading tirerack reviews and order tomorrow.

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Bridgestone Potenza RE92's

The WRX comes with those tires and everyone bitches about them! The tread life is bad and they don't have good grib. Ride comfort isn't bad nor is road noise however.

Regarding TireRack, they are a great company, but be careful of the customer reviews. Most people tend to do great reviews of tires they just bought because it helps them feel better about spending $1500 on new wheels and tires! I'm not saying don't trust them, just take them with a grain of salt. And the offficial TireRack reviews are great. They can have pretty knowledable and honest sales people too.

I'd like to give you a "non" recommendation: The Yokohama AVS-ES100. I have the 245-45-R17's and really don't like them. They have a killer performance vs. price and tirewear vs. price value, but they "hummmmm" down the road. The noise is unbearable. And during Auto-X, they squeel so much that you can't really tell when they are being just "noisy" or when you're actually about to lose grip. But what really stinks is that I can't justify replacing tires that havn't worn out yet and the tread life on these things is insane! (Oh, and they are great in the rain).

I don't think you need an all season tire. Just remember a "summer tire" is worthless in the snow which is very dangerous. And their grip level is lower in the cold as well, but anything above freezing is fine. I've heard great things about the Kuhmo Escta (sp??).

EDIT: amgine, I didn't read your post before making mine. I didn't mean to knock your favorite tire! Like has been said, no tire does EVERYTHING well, and the AVS-ES100s are good at tread life, price and grib (both dry and wet). I just don't like the road noise when I have someone else in the car and the empeg isn't playing as loud. Too bad we don't use the same size or I'd sell them to you!

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Pontezza S-03 Pole Position.

I know some Subaru people that drool over these tires.

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My concern with those would be tread life, the tire rack reviews seem to center around the magic number of 15k miles, which seems awfully short. I suspect most people posting reviews drive harder than I do, so I'd probably get something more than that, but I'm not sure how much more.

Matthew

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I've got Conti Sport Contacts on the Clio, very nice, good stuff wall and excellent grip. Also reasonably cheap, just bought a pair for £110 from mytyres.co.uk with my 6% Cliosport membership discount!

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How many miles you got on your Clio now? Just had mine serviced, it's nearly done 12k and the guy at Renault Bury offered to do the service for £120 which isn't bad. These tyres will be replacing the original ones on the front, they were supposed to be fitting them at the same time as the service but the tyres didn't arrive in time.

As I pulled up they had an 04 plate 182 for 10 and it's only done 8000 miles. They'll do a brand new UK car for 12.3k too, if only I was buying it now! I was hoping to get about 9.5 when I sell mine soon. Hope whoever reads Autotrader doesn't drop by Renault Bury.

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It's a '01 Honda Prelude, with 53k miles on the orginal Bridgestone Potenza RE92's. They've been good tires, lasted though some heavy driving and never let me down even now while on their death bed. The size is 205/50-16 if that makes any difference.

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My bro (who's now a car salesman) has said I should go for a drive in a Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo which is insurance group 19 but is less to insure than the scooby at group 17. There's one at a dealer nearby so I might go and have a look. With the money I should be able to get for the Clio I should be able to get a pretty good one with change left over.

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They mounted them for $125 or so, which seemed reasonable considering the savings compared to having a local shop order and install them.

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try driving a caterham i get 2k from my favorite tyres

but boy oh boy do they stick avon ACB-10

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I can't stand walmart stores, so it's not even an ethical choice for me.

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Walmart goes into communities, usually small ones, lowers prices until the local stores can't compete and go out of business, then raises prices back up, just when the local wages go down because Walmart is the only employer in town.

Not to mention that they're still riding on their pro-US-manufacturers binge a while back (before Sam Walton died, maybe?) despite the fact that they do as little business with them as possible (not that I can blame a bottom-of-the-barrel discount store for going Chinese).

And their poor employee treatment doesn't help. I don't know about you, but the places I've had my tires put on weren't places like Pep Boys or JustTires, either, but local honest mechanics, who I feel much better about patronizing.

When you add onto all that the fact that it's just a terrible, terrible, store with the dregs of humanity working there as both managers and clerks (sorry: register-monkeys and stockboys), and it takes half an hour just to stand in line to pay for something, I cannot envision ever setting foot in that store again.

Unsurprisingly, Wikipedia has a good list of Wal-Mart criticisms.

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Furthermore- I avoid 'chain garages' like the plague. I worked as a mechanic and in the parts supply world. It's worth it to find a good local mechanic that you can trust.

There's a local mechanic around here that I thought I could trust. They deal mostly with Subarus. One day, they decided to take a customer's car (without his permission) on a joyride and crashed into a pole and abandoned the car on the side of the road. The owner got the value of the car back from his insurance company, but the mods were not covered (400+ WHP Impreza WRX). The shop owner agreed to pay for that stuff, but never paid a cent yet and this happened in September last year.

The moral of the story is that you can't trust anyone but yourself. Within reason, I have been becoming more willing to work on my own cars.

Anyway, I guess the dregs of society and myself will be the only ones enjoying $11 tire mounting and balancing.

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The shop owner agreed to pay for that stuff, but never paid a cent yet and this happened in September last year.

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you can't trust anyone but yourself.

And Wal-Mart, apparently.

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Anyway, I guess the dregs of society and myself will be the only ones enjoying $11 tire mounting and balancing.

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Pulling back an old thread, it looks like my Yokohama ES100's are sufficiently worn, at least in back, that it's time for new tires.

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Costco is appealing on price. They're charging the same price as TireRack, and that includes shipping, installation, everything. If I wanted to go with Michelin Pilot Sports or Bridgestone Potenza S-03s, then Costco is great. If I want Goodyear or pretty much anything else, then too bad for me.

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I just bought these tires in 17 225 45 how many miles did you get out of yours? Ive only had mine for 1000 or so miles and I already notice them getting louder. Otherwise im satisfied with the tire.

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Do you need to pricematch to get tirerack pricing, or is that the default pricing at your local costco?