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Like Our Macan, It Could Really Benefit From Summer Tires - 2014 Mazda Mazda3 S Long-Term Road Test
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Like Our Macan, It Could Really Benefit From Summer Tires - 2014 Mazda Mazda3 S Long-Term Road Test
The handling of the 2014 Mazda 3 is so good that you might want to invest in a set of summer tires to best take advantage of it.
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Here's an idea, edmunds does a test to see if the sumemrs makes a difference?
Test the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3s versus a set of dedicated summers, while you're at it. I'm curious how much I'm giving up with my Fiesta.
It used to be easy to have a set of summer and winter tires on separate wheels. Now with TPMS, you need an extra set of sensors and a way to reprogram the car to detect the new sensors each swap.
The fact is those tires are crap. In their category, there are two SP Sport 5000 models listed by Tire Rack. They came in at #22 and #24 out of 24. Fewer than 4 out of 10 owners said they'd buy them again. Why does this have to be dumbed down for us by Edmunds into a summer/all-season debate?
They were just as bad on my '03 Protege5, and God help you if you drove on them in the snow.
Mazda's not alone in using some of the worst tires available on their cars, but I don't understand why they do it. Surely something better is available at the same price point.
i also had them on my 2002 protege5. i didn't think they were that bad; other than the fronts wearing out in under 30k miles (didn't bother to rotate tires back then). i also remember passing people in the snow like they were standing still; so i thought they were fine. however, that was TWELVE years ago!! really mazda?? no tire has come out since then that you think might be better???
They were loud and rough riding on the our Protege5. Went through several different ones that were varying degrees of quieter and slightly smoother over the 11 years we had it. Some gave ti bad understeer but finally found some that made it a whole new car. I've never understood how they can put such bad ones one cars from the factory. Are they getting these for free? Otherwise they are sacrificing a lot of ride quality and NVH for no good reason.
honeslty if the grip level was .83 with the all seasons then that is very good this is a front wheel drive vehicle and there are very few that get over .90g or over. summer tires are great from a ride comfort and noise level standpoint so i guess it just depends on how long you want your tires to last the summer tires will be better but i think that the car will reach another performance/bottleneck with the gripper tires. (understeer/torque steer)
I'm up for a Pilot A/S 3 versus Pilot Super Sport comparison on the 3.