Nokian WRG3's vs. Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3: At a Glance

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KansasKid
Posts: 428
Joined: Sun Mar 31, 2013 2:19 am
Location: Kansas City, Kansas

So I finally got around to changing the shoes on Azumi. For the past 3 years, she'd been wearing a set of Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3's. They are a "Performance All-Season" tire, I drove them pretty hard over the course of their life. After about 20K miles, they had finally gotten down to an average of 3/32 all around (give or take 1/32) on any particular reading.

With winter coming up, and Azumi being the primary family car, I didn't want to chance another winter on these tires, especially since they really don't handle that well in about an inch of snow. Like I never felt confident driving in the snow on these tires. 95% of the rest of the time, they were awesome where I live in Kansas. Didn't matter if it was summer heat, below freezing dry pavement, damp roads, heavy rains, uneven highways. At any speed I could drive around with absolute confidence that the tires were gonna stay planted. And I tend to drive about 80 mph whenever I do drive on the highway. But, it was weird getting in a light snow and all that confidence just seemed to evaporate.

So at the beginning of Nov. I went ahead and ordered a set of Nokian WRG3's from Discount Tire and had them installed a week later. I've wanted the Nokians since yoshi posted about them hereages ago. For those who aren't aware, the WRG3's are technically an "All-Weather" tire, not "All-Season". That means that they should provide cold/snow traction at almost the same level as a true winter tire. But UNLIKE a winter tire, All-Weather tires can be driven all year round.

The winter performance without needing two sets of wheels was probably the most important factor in my tire purchases for Azumi. My family lives in an apartment, and I don't have space to store a second set of tires. I wanted to get the the Nokians 3 years ago, but I couldn't get them from Discount Tire in my area. Then NTB ended up having a sale on the Michelin's and they seemed like the next best thing, so those were what I went with. And now that I've actually had the WRG3's for about a month, I feel like I have a good idea of how they hold up compared to the Pilot Sport A/S 3's.

Braking: 9 out of 10 - Lemme start off with the thing that I like so far about these tires. Stopping power feel is solid on these tires. A day or two after I had them installed, I had to suddenly brake from 45+ mph to keep from hitting a dog that was darting across the road to get to his owner. You get great brake feeling with these tires, even though they're low-rolling resistance, all-weather tires.

Steering: 7 out of 10 - The first thing I noticed right after I put on the WRG3'S was the steering wheel lightened up. On the Pilot Sports, the steering was heavy, and it would kind of take some effort to get the steering wheel cranked from lock to lock. Also, it was very difficult to hold the steering wheel with a light, one-handed touch in the middle of a turn at a traffic light. Since I put on the WRG3's both my wife and I have noticed the significant drop in force it takes to turn the steering wheel. I attribute that mostly to the low-rolling resistance property of them.

MPG's: 9 out of 10 - After giving the WRG3's time, I've notice some slight improvement in fuel consumption. I've only filled up a couple of times since I put on the new tires, but I've been keeping an eye on the average MPG reading in Azumi, and I can usually get the average to increase by .1-.2 mpg every time I take it in the highway. On the Michelin's, I've never gotten better than 21 mpg city driving. I did about 30 mpgs on the trip my family took to Branson last June though.

I've also noticed that the car seems to accelerate better without making the engine and transmission work as hard. Like Azumi is a little more eager to rev up and more responsive now. With the engine and the transmission being somewhat on the underpowered side, it seems like they might have been a tad over worked trying to move the sticky Michelin's.

Highway Handling: 6 out of 10 - On the Michelins, Azumi always felt planted to the road. It didn't matter how crappy the highways are around where I live. I could drive with total confidence at 70+mph around any bend in the highway with complete confidence. On these WRG3's though, not so much.

The night I had them installed, I took my buddy to pick up the Hyundai Elantra that he had purchased earlier. There was this dumb misting precipitation going on, so it wasn't "raining" but all the roads were fairly damp. I took a hard right corner at a traffic light right after picking him up. Totally ended up overloading the front tires and understeering into the left hand lane a bit. I've taken similar turns on the Michelins, and Azumi would whip around exactly where I told here every time. I would have to pushing the Michelin's A LOT harder to get them understeer like that, even on damp roads.

Then the dealership where my buddy needed to pick up his car was about 20 minutes of highway driving away. The hold time the car kind of felt a little squirrel-ly. Like there would be just the slightest amount of lateral movement in the body of the car while travelling at 70+mph. At first I thought it was just because the roads were damp, and maybe the tires needed to be broken in, but I don't think so. Each time I take the car on the highway, even in dry, semi-warm conditions, the car just feels more unsettled when the road is uneven. It's probably for the best, as I've started to tone down how quickly I drive with my family in the car, but I was still unpleasantly surprised. The Michelins definitely win in this category.

Winter Driving: TBD - So like I mentioned before, the Michelins weren't a very good winter tire. Once the temperature dropped, they weren't quite as grippy on dry roads, which is to be expected. But once it snowed, they just seemed to be not helpful. It would take me about 30 minutes of driving in an empty lot to get used to how the car handles in the snow. Obviously, Azumi and I would be doing donuts in that parking lot, but there was still a significant amount of retooling I would have to do on the fly because the car just felt so different driving in the snow.

As for the WRG3's I haven't had a chance to drive in legitimately wintery conditions yet. We finally got our first day of below freezing temps here, yesterday, and of course it hasn't snowed yet. I'll update when I finally get a chance to take the WRG3's out for a spin in the snow/slush.

Overall Impression: I'm glad I picked up the Michelin's instead of the WRG3's like I wanted to after I replaced the OEM tires, 3 years ago. I had a lot of fun driving Azumi on them in the mean time, and the winters since I put them on have yielded very little snow. That and 3 years ago, the WRG3's were running like 40% more expensive than they are now. So I saved a little money. All things considered though, the WRG3's seem to be a very capable "all-weather" tire. They should do me and my family good for the next 55,000 miles or so. Assuming that I can learn to take it a little easier in the turns. :drive:
My Cars (Their Names)
'93 Ford Escort (Jorge - Prior)
'06 Kia Optima EX (Sakuya - Prior)
'11 Suzuki Kizashi SE AWD (Azumi)
'09 Subaru Impreza 2.5i Base 5MT(Akari - Prior)
'11 Chevy Cruze Eco 6MT (Erika - Prior)
'12 Suzuki Kizashi Sport SLS AWD (Kitsune)
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KuroNekko
Posts: 5170
Joined: Wed Aug 15, 2012 5:08 pm
Location: California, USA

Thanks for the comparison report. I also have the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3 tires and agree that they are great all around, but their weakness is snow grip. I've had other All Seasons that gripped snow better. However, now, snow isn't even a concern at all for me and "fire-proof" tires would be more useful in California. Jokes aside, I could probably run Summer tires all year round now, but may go back to the Pilot Sport A/S 3 tires again given my positive experience with them and that Costco carries them (with frequent rebate offers). The versions available now are the "A/S 3 +" which apparently have improved snow traction. Sounds like Michelin knew of this weakness and worked on it a bit.
2011 Suzuki Kizashi Sport GTS 6MT (Black)
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