All-season tires

[11zukizashi]

Best all season tire, from everyone i have talked to: Continental ExtremeContact DWS
I bought them because I wanted the best riding, quietest tire, and I am very happy with them. They are virtually silent.
Every shop I take it to comments on them being "one of the best" or "the best"

[KansasKid]

The Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3's are pretty awesome. The first time I took Azumi around a hairpin turn at high speed, I almost fell out of my seat. That was a neat experience.

So far, they're pretty quite, and ride easy. I just hope they stay that way over the next 40K+ miles.

[yoshi2012]

The Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3's are pretty awesome. The first time I took Azumi around a hairpin turn at high speed, I almost fell out of my seat. That was a neat experience.

So far, they're pretty quite, and ride easy. I just hope they stay that way over the next 40K+ miles.

Glad to hear you got your new tires. Keep us up to date on how they perform in the snow/ice/slushy conditions.

[SamirD]

We have General Altimax Arctics for winter and Potenza RE760s for summer. The 760s grip like anything in dry weather, but after one summer on them, their wet performance has gone from great to okay. The Generals are awesome for the snow and with the awd give us the confidence to avoid the other yahoos on the road driving in 2" of snow on bald summer tires.

[KuroNekko]

The Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3's are pretty awesome. The first time I took Azumi around a hairpin turn at high speed, I almost fell out of my seat. That was a neat experience.

So far, they're pretty quite, and ride easy. I just hope they stay that way over the next 40K+ miles.

Glad to hear you got your new tires. Keep us up to date on how they perform in the snow/ice/slushy conditions.

I also have these tires. I got them last Fall.
Earlier this week, I drove my car in the snow and was rather impressed by the snow grip these had. I was able to get through light snow and compounded snow/ice reasonably well. I climbed a hill that a Lexus IS (RWD) was stuck on.
Keep in mind that I have a FWD Kizashi.

I also agree with KansasKid that these tires are excellent on dry roads. I really don't have a complaint about them other than their price. However, I got them with a rebate.

[KansasKid]

SNOW UPDATE:

So it finally snowed more than a completely insignificant amount here in Kansas for the first time this season, so I figured I should take Azumi out in the snow and practice drifting for a little while. I always try to practice driving in the snow a bit since I kind of forget how to do it from winter to winter and it's good to know how the new Michelin Sport A/S 3's that I got back in October are going to handle. Of course, they salt the crap out of the roads where I live, so I had to go find someplace to practice.

There's a nice little office parking lot near my work that's chained off, so it never gets plowed. Saturday it had a pristine layer of about an inch and a half of snow that I got to tear up. The chain is literally held up with just a carabiner on each end and a cone in the middle. A quick repositioning of the chain, and I had my own private drift course. It's a little precarious because there's an inner lot, surround by a bunch of curbed islands with trees and light poles, and an outer loop of parking spots. And the curbed islands aren't all the same shape, for whatever stupid reason.

So the first thing I do is get Azumi out in the middle, get her going in a straight line, and tried to turn. It's not like it's a big parking lot, so I'm not got over 15 or 20 miles per hour. But sure enough, I have the wheel turned all the way to the left, and get absolutely NO response from the Michelin's on the front wheels. I just slide straight for about 3-4 car lengths until I bleed enough speed that the front wheels start biting again.

After that, I take it a little easier on the throttle, meandering around the curbs and trying to figure out the proper modulation of hand brake and throttle to get the back end to kick out a predictable amount. It takes me a few laps but I finally start to get the hang of it. Only once did almost kick the back end around and slide backwards into a light pole. Almost.

I realize that the Michelin's are quite insufficient when it comes to predictable handling response once you get up to speed in a layer of snow. Sure you can get going easy enough, but turning becomes a chore. Then if you do decide to try and do some drifting in your Kizashi, you have to be careful with the throttle input/hand brake while wearing the Michelin's (or any all season tire really) because you can put it into an almost perfect 90 degree lateral slide REALLY easy. I can kind of compare this situation to an airplane in a flat spin where the plane is more or less unresponsive despite any inputs from the pilot. In this situation, trying to apply moderate throttle only serves to extend your slide until you definitely hit something; so you have to just let off the gas until you come to almost a complete stop to regain steering control. One thing I didn't try Saturday was just putting the petal to the metal. It always seemed to me that flooring the throttle in a lateral powerslide would just serve to increase the speed that you're sliding, not necessarily give you anymore control, and I never feel like I have enough parking lot to try it.

Despite the criticism of the above paragraph, after about 5 minutes I started to feel comfortable enough that I could start to weave through and drift around the islands with some semblance of grace. As long as I didn't get too much speed built up going into a turn, I could enter a turn, hit the e-brake to get the back end started, and pick up the throttle to kick the back end around to where I wanted to be pointed next with a fair bit of accuracy. My only qualm at that point was that the steering never seemed to feel quite 100% synched with what I wanted the car to do in the middle of drift. Like I couldn't really tell if I was actually in control of the front wheels, or just at the mercy of mother nature and physics. Or maybe I'm just a noob and need more practice, hard to tell. Either way, I hope Azumi is wearing winter tires the next time I get to take her out in the snow.

[Moto]

If your goal is to drift around you are better off on summer or all seasons. Winter tires add predictability, but it would be hard to justify where you live.

[SamirD]

SNOW UPDATE:

So it finally snowed more than a completely insignificant amount here in Kansas for the first time this season, so I figured I should take Azumi out in the snow and practice drifting for a little while. I always try to practice driving in the snow a bit since I kind of forget how to do it from winter to winter and it's good to know how the new Michelin Sport A/S 3's that I got back in October are going to handle. Of course, they salt the crap out of the roads where I live, so I had to go find someplace to practice.

There's a nice little office parking lot near my work that's chained off, so it never gets plowed. Saturday it had a pristine layer of about an inch and a half of snow that I got to tear up. The chain is literally held up with just a carabiner on each end and a cone in the middle. A quick repositioning of the chain, and I had my own private drift course. It's a little precarious because there's an inner lot, surround by a bunch of curbed islands with trees and light poles, and an outer loop of parking spots. And the curbed islands aren't all the same shape, for whatever stupid reason.

So the first thing I do is get Azumi out in the middle, get her going in a straight line, and tried to turn. It's not like it's a big parking lot, so I'm not got over 15 or 20 miles per hour. But sure enough, I have the wheel turned all the way to the left, and get absolutely NO response from the Michelin's on the front wheels. I just slide straight for about 3-4 car lengths until I bleed enough speed that the front wheels start biting again.

After that, I take it a little easier on the throttle, meandering around the curbs and trying to figure out the proper modulation of hand brake and throttle to get the back end to kick out a predictable amount. It takes me a few laps but I finally start to get the hang of it. Only once did almost kick the back end around and slide backwards into a light pole. Almost.

I realize that the Michelin's are quite insufficient when it comes to predictable handling response once you get up to speed in a layer of snow. Sure you can get going easy enough, but turning becomes a chore. Then if you do decide to try and do some drifting in your Kizashi, you have to be careful with the throttle input/hand brake while wearing the Michelin's (or any all season tire really) because you can put it into an almost perfect 90 degree lateral slide REALLY easy. I can kind of compare this situation to an airplane in a flat spin where the plane is more or less unresponsive despite any inputs from the pilot. In this situation, trying to apply moderate throttle only serves to extend your slide until you definitely hit something; so you have to just let off the gas until you come to almost a complete stop to regain steering control. One thing I didn't try Saturday was just putting the petal to the metal. It always seemed to me that flooring the throttle in a lateral powerslide would just serve to increase the speed that you're sliding, not necessarily give you anymore control, and I never feel like I have enough parking lot to try it.

Despite the criticism of the above paragraph, after about 5 minutes I started to feel comfortable enough that I could start to weave through and drift around the islands with some semblance of grace. As long as I didn't get too much speed built up going into a turn, I could enter a turn, hit the e-brake to get the back end started, and pick up the throttle to kick the back end around to where I wanted to be pointed next with a fair bit of accuracy. My only qualm at that point was that the steering never seemed to feel quite 100% synched with what I wanted the car to do in the middle of drift. Like I couldn't really tell if I was actually in control of the front wheels, or just at the mercy of mother nature and physics. Or maybe I'm just a noob and need more practice, hard to tell. Either way, I hope Azumi is wearing winter tires the next time I get to take her out in the snow.

Thank you very much for the detailed handling description of these in the snow. These seem to be a world of difference from the Altimax Arctics, which turn-in fairly well even in 2-3" snow (like this morning) at 10-15mph. The back end is easy to kick out with a quick blip to the throttle, although I'm sure that it might end up at the 90 degree powerslide like you mentioned if it was continued for a good moment. Your same straight line test would definitely result in an unexpected turn-in (with some understeer of course).

[KuroNekko]

Yeah, I agree that the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3s aren't great on the snow. I was able to test them out on snow and found them to have less traction than I hoped. While they didn't get me stuck (other than in a ditch filled with snow and ice), I found that they don't grip too well from a stop on fresh snow.

However, I have no regrets getting these as they are dry traction-biased All Season tires. They are amazing on most road conditions and Michelin even touts that they have more dry traction than some Summer Max Performance tires. They grip dry and wet roads very well and are also quiet.

I only deal with light to moderate snow a few days a year in the DC/Maryland area. Much like KansasKid, I have to go looking for unplowed snow to really drive in it in many cases. For this reason, I deliberately chose an All Season with superior dry traction for most of the year, but some winter grip for those few snowy days. It's also why I drive a 6 speed over an AWD.

[KansasKid]

If your goal is to drift around you are better off on summer or all seasons. Winter tires add predictability, but it would be hard to justify where you live.

I could probably justify it from a safety standpoint, but not really from a financial standpoint. That, and I have no place to store an extra set of tires at the moment.

Other than sub par snow handling, the Michelin Pilot Sports are really nice, as long as it's above freezing. If you don't have to deal with snow more than a handful of times every winter, I totally recommend them.