Final tire choice : Yokohama or Bridgestone ?

IMHO, I would not go with either.

Michelin is the best

The difference in price is only $6/tire if you purchase from TireRack. The RE950's are excellent tires and I've never regretted purchasing them. They handle great, are awesome in the rain, and wear extremely well. On the down side they're a little noisier on certain road surfaces and snow performance is average at best.

I'm really not a fan of Michelin tires -- think you're paying a premium for the name. I've had Michelin MXV4 and the newer Energy MXV4 Plus tires and both were fine for the first 10K miles or so. Then they started squealing everytime I took a corner and rain performance was lousy. I have heard really good things about the Michelin Pilot series, but you'll pay thru the nose for them.

I'm pretty frustrated with the lack of tire selection for my 17" rims. I've always liked the old Dunlop D60-A2s, but they aren't available anymore. Their lower speed rating wasn't a problem for me.

I never liked the horrible Bridgestone Potenza RE92s on my 2000SE or the just-ok Turanzas on my 2002GLE. While the rain performance of the Potenza RE950s is attractive to me, I need something passable in New England winter weather as well. After having Potenzas once, I almost hate to put the same name on my wheels again, but the reviews are favorable so I will probably go with the 950s.

If anyone has better suggestions, let me know!

Pat

My experience with Bridgestone is they typical employ longerlife compound/design that doesn't grip as well. Yokohama's I've run were gummier but didn't run as long.

For my driving I couldn't get those "quick to give up the grip" Bridgestones off my car quick enough... they'd howl even at moderate on/off ramp speeds...

My '99s OEM Eagle RS-As were poor for wear, average for grip and I had one sidewall failure. The Dunlop Sport SP2s I have on now seem better so far.

Comes down, as always, to your budget, conditions and driving style.

Michelin Pilot Sport is the best. Costco carries them at around $210 each. Although bit noisy, my 00SE Max fell in love with them from the first ride. I'm into 5000 miles with those tires now and I think the performance and the ride are exceptional.

Agree -- I had RE92's on a Supra and they sucked. The difference between those and RE950's is night and day. I had to drive several miles through 6" of unplowed snow yesterday on my way to work. I wouldn't want to go through more than that with 950's.

I am considering these in the A/S version (all season) in addition to the RE950s. They're only(!) $171 at Tirerack, plus shipping, etc.

- Are the 950's sufficiently better to justify a $70 - $80 extra for a set of 4 ?

I did look into TireRack and I concluded it's not for me. Simple arithmetic: I added up the tire cost, shipping, ~7.8% California sales tax and ~ $100 price of local installation, balancing, disposal fees,etc [it was the same at 3 installers]. For each tire I checked, I got a lower total from several local tire dealers than with TireRack. Maybe this only happens in Orange County, CA.

I spend $18.95/tire for mounting/balancing/disposal fees, 2nd day shipping to Maryland was $30, and no tax. The lack of sales tax nearly offset the shipping charge and nobody around here even came close to TireRack's price for the RE950's.

I really liked my RE950's for the first 18,000 miles. The rain performance is just unbelieveable, even better than the previous set of RE930's I had.

But I now have 26,000 thousand and I won't be buying them again.

First, the tread is now wearing badly on the shoulders. Only 4/32 there, but I have 6/32 or more in the center. They've always been inflated properly. It looks like the AQ technology has pushed all the soft rubber to the edges, because that's where the wear is happening. I don't think I can push them past 32,000 mostly gentle miles. That's what the RE930's delivered, even with a significantly lower mileage rating, and at $20 less per tire from Tirerack than the RE930's.

Second, the noise on coarse road surfaces is now so bad that I can't hear voices on the radio clearly without turning it up. Looking at the tread, it is obvious why. The center of the tire have lost almost all the sipes and it is just a solid chunk of rubber. The entire tread seems to be turning into a big, noisy block of rubber, in fact.

And if snow is a concern, I agre with the comment that this is the wrong tire. Performance is so-so when new, and will go downhill too quickly when the tread gets significant wear. There are better M+S tires for the snow.

JM

I have 20k on some Yokohama 420's from Discount Tire. They are great on my 99 SE.

------------------------------------------------------- Posted with NewsLeecher v1.0 beta 9 - Super fast binary usenet leecher for Windows -

or Bridgestone

miles) driven mostly in

trips ?

extra for a set

I meant to say that the RE-930's were $20 less than 950's of course. So the 930's were on the right side of the value equation, while the

JM

As you're noticing, tire opinions are very subjective. You'll never get a good agreement on what's best. My opinion is these are two great sets and you can't go wrong either way. But maybe you would be better taking that $75 and spending it on some other part of the car - maintenance, or fix a couple minor dents.

Personally, I buy my tires locally because I get lifetime flat-fixes, rotations, etc without any hassle. TireRack will need to ship your replacement to you.

Dave

Neither, buy Kumho tires from Tirerack. Call and talk to a rep and see if he agrees.

Almost like a discussion about diets ... Sorry about that, forum, didn't mean to pit Atkins vs. Jenny Craig. Let's stick to one subject we agree with, i.e. how much we like our Maximas and the tires they ride on ... J

I like my kumhos! Best bang for the buck period.. At least the ectsa hp4s are.