Tire Help Options

[Ruroniarc]

Looking at a couple different tires for my stock GT rims. 205/55/15's.

I need something that is OK in the snow (I know an all season can't be GREAT in the snow), and I need it to be pretty darn good in the rain. That's pretty much my only requirements. These are the tires I've looked at / are available to me. But I will try to find any suggestions that you guys put out there.

Toyo Proxes 4
Kumho Ecsta ASX

I've gotta get these tires next weekend, so let me know what your experiences were. Thanks!

[GriffGirl]

This is a tough call, because so far from what I've learned, there aren't any tires that are great in the snow AND on dry pavement. You're gonna have to pick one or the other as far as it's strengths go. Where I live it rains ALL THE TIME from early November until about May. Not much snow here, but enough to wish at least 2 or 3 times a winter I had better tires, so when I got a great opportunity to get winter tires for basically free, I took it.

Before 2 weeks ago I was running Yokohama S. Drives year round. They're quite acceptable in the rain, great on dry pavement, and as far as all seasons go, they were only *okay* in the snow. Again, that's based on the fact that it doesn't snow here much. Last winter we got NAILED though, and I gotta say - they SUCKED and it's amazing I survived some of the drives in the 19" of snow we got last xmas. Thank god for cables (and I'm from the east coast originally - I KNOW how to drive in the snow!)

When I had my 4Runner, I had a set of Toyo somethings on it, they were all-season and did great in the snow, never used 4WD on it. I'd recommend checking them out - I know they were for a 4Runner, but they were NOT cheap AT ALL. The extra expense was worth it though, well worth it.

My winter tires are Hankook iPikes, I forget what size they are since they were free-ish to me, already mounted and balanced, but they're on stock Celica rims (alloys or whatever, not the steelies) so w/e the stock size is of those, that's what I've got. They've done GREAT in the snow and rain, I've been extremely happy with them. I've also been relatively happy with them on dry pavement, but then I have my S. Drives to compare them to (225/45/17) so I'm kind of spoiled now I guess I don't know how they'd perform on hot pavement though, so take that into consideration.

Whatever all-season you decide to go with, I would VERY HIGHLY recommend you have them siped. Siping is worth the small amount of extra $ to have it doen, and it makes a HUGE difference in wet and snow-weather performance. (that's part of what makes snow tires what they are, is heavy siping from the factory)

good luck and sorry for the novel