New tires on 2012 Impreza

fredjohnson

I'd like some idea of what tires some of you may be buying to replace the OEM Yokohama tires that came with the 2012 Impreza Sport Premium I have. I am mainly interested in hearing from those of you in snowy States. Don't bother mentioning any specific "snow" tires. I don't want Blizzaks, etc. I want a year round all season M+S tire that will be decent on snowy/icy roads. The OEM's are poor snow drivers---as I found out during a 14" snow storm a couple days ago here in Minneapolis. I've checked out Consumer Reports, etc for their tire opinions. Would like to hear from those who own the car. Thanks in advance for your help.

sgoldste01

I don't speak from personal experience, as I am still using my Yokos as summer tires, and do have a dedicated set of snow tires for winter time.

But if I was going to use the same set of tires all year round, I'd buy the Continental DWS tires.

Conti DWS at TireRack

xwesx

I'm pretty sure Bob (rsholland) has or had a set of those on his WRX. If I recall correctly, he was fairly satisfied with them.

fredjohnson

Thanks for the feedback. I'm leaning toward the Continental PureContact tires that just came out a couple months ago. C Reports rated them best. And decent in snow.

fredjohnson

I ended up with Pirelli P7 plus tires. They are nice on this car.

bpeebles

One of the best for all WEATHER (Not all-season) tires is the Nokian WR . The high-silicon rubber-compound offers traction on ice/snow that other tires cannot match.

high-silicon is essentially minute sand particals imbedded into the rubber when molded. As the rubber wears-away, these stick out and grab onto slippery surfaces.

Nokian specialize in cold-weather rubber-compounds and spend months testing on frozen-lakebeds.

BEWARE: My experience after years of using tires which attempt to be used in all seasons is that they get very NOISY as they wear down. Infact, the last set of tires were so noisy that I replaced them before they were worn down just to get rid of the noise.