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Good tires for a Cobalt?
Good morning. What are some good tires for a Cobalt? I've owned my Cobalt for a year. A couple of nights ago St. Louis had it's first snow. While driving my LS in the snow whenever I hit the breaks the car wanted to spin counter clockwise. I turned into the spin to correct this and drove carefully, but I'm sure this is caused by my worn out rear tires. I'll be looking to replace them soon. Suggestions? I'm looking for all season radials preferably 40-60K tread wear.
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I usually go by the customer reviews on tire rack. They collect survey results. You can just select the categories of tire and size and sort by customer rating. I don't just blindly buy #1 though, I look at the individual categories. Usually I pay more attention to the wet and snow ratings than the dry ratings. Then I pick out a few models I consider acceptable and see what I can get locally and at what price.
Check Tirerack. I use Firestone Winterforce. If you want more expensive ones then Bridgestone Blizzak
I think it's probably 1%, at most.
Also, it's summer tires that are unsafe below 40F, not all-seasons.
I didn't buy my first set of winter tires, until I bought my first car that came with stock summer tires, which made it a necessity.
I love winter tires and the safety they add, but I've still never put them on any car that already had all-seasons.
In an ideal world, we would all swap out tires twice a year, but that probably isn't realistic for the average '07 Cobalt owner. A good set of all-season tires is probably the best choice for most.
Disclaimers: I actually did have studded snow tires on the rear of my '77 Cobra II, which made for some "interesting" handling on dry roads. And, in a truly ideal world, I would live somewhere that I could leave my summer tires on, all year round.
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The Subaru did great in the snow with them, but where they really shined was on the minivan in the rain.
Wrong. Google it. All seasons loose their grip below 40 F as they become hard.
An all-season tire trades the summer tire's damp-road grip for the ability to remain flexible at well-below-zero temperatures."
Know Your Tires: All-Season vs Summer (Popular Mechanics)
"All season tires are a great option for drivers who live in moderate climates and do not encounter extreme cold, ice and snow in the winter months." (Bridgestone)
"Are all-season tires really all-season? If you live in areas that have a moderately tough winter with some wintry precipitation, the answer will probably be yes. All-season radials are a good enough fit for most drivers that many new cars come equipped with them." (Robertson Tire)
Edmunds could be sued for misleading advise on winter tires . All season tires are no substitute for winter tires below 40 F
By design, All-Season tires are a compromise intended to provide acceptable traits under a wide variety of conditions. However, that compromised goal prevents them from being a master of any one of them. The All-Season tire tread designs and compounds that are engineered to provide extended mileages and durability under the summer's sun are less effective in winter's freezing temperatures, and through snow and on ice. Specific winter tires deliver much better snow and ice performance than All-Season tires because their tread designs and tread compounds are engineered to master those conditions, while summer tires are engineered to deliver better handling in the rain and on dry roads. Why not have the best tires for each of the conditions you'll encounter?
I'm done with twice a year tire/wheel changes. Had enough of that back in my studded tire days.
From that Michelin link - "All-season tires are designed to perform well in a large range of conditions".
We all know that tires are a compromise. One tire can't be the fastest on the track, most controllable in the snow, and longest wearing. The Ultra High Performance tire that grips the track with tread temperatures of 200° is incompetent as its tread compound becomes like "hard plastic" at below 32°. Today's 80,000-mile tires require tread designs and compounds that maximize long, even wear... not winter traction. And while many of today's all-season tires (Original Equipment, touring and performance) address some of these issues, they still emphasize longer wear, a quieter ride or greater performance...not winter traction.
Only winter tires are designed to excel in the colder temperatures, slush, snow and ice that many parts of the country experience for three or more months a year.
It's also important to note that the recent advancements in electronic driver aids, such as ABS and traction control don't provide more traction. They only help prevent drivers from over braking or overpowering the available traction of their tires. The only thing the driver can do to increase traction...to actually get more grip and control... is install better tires.
There is a difference between "all weather" tires and "all season" tires though.
Where most drivers err is in understanding that a brand new set of all season tires will perform much better than a set that is half worn in winter weather. Every consumer advice article out there concentrates on trying to educate vehicle owners about the minimum tread depth (2/32") but that has nothing to do with what someone needs when the weather gets really bad. An all season tire with 6/32" tread will lose a significant amount of grip as compared to a new all season tire on ice or in snow. Meanwhile a dedicated winter tire worn to 5/32" tread depth will roughly match the capability of a brand new all season tire, but is no way near as capable as a new one.
Now take the need for some to impose their perspectives and twist this into a price/profit argument and you have shops that can't sell tires to the consumer even when they could truly benefit from the replacement without having to subject themselves to being called greedy rip-offs. At 5/32" my Escape's all season tires need to be replaced as they are not suitable for bad weather anymore. If that was for a customer I wouldn't even get to consider selling them a set. They pass inspection because they are above the minimum tread depth and we don't get to use any other criteria from which to base a recommendation.
FWIW. I'm putting a new set of all seasons onto my Escape this week and I'll be driving all over the Northeast US and won't be concerned at all. If I wanted to, I could go to a set of dedicated winter tires easily but with the way that this year has gone, I'd be taking them back off in eight to ten weeks from now. Instead I'll just plan on putting another new set of all season tires on next winter just like I do every year.
That's my issue with the tire reviews at Tire Rack and the other online tire shops. Just about any new set of tires will feel great the first week or two of ownership, and that's when most people write their reviews.
(Doc's also in PA, @carboy21).
I use a set of all seasons for 9 months and one set of winter tires for 3 months for the last 4 years !!
Or you could use this all year round for next 5 years amazon.com/gp/product/B00VJ5T5S8?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
About 95% of which is interstate based and I would ruin a set of winter tires each year while the all seasons would not be sufficient for heavy rain by the end of the second year.
I live in an area that has been below freezing for the past week or more (way below freezing), and one car in a hundred has winter tires. This area, like most areas north of the Mason-Dixon line, sells a ton of SUVs and AWD cars, and virtually none of them get swapped out for winter tires.
Go as far North as Chicago or Detroit, and unless it's a car that came with summer tires, almost no one is riding on winters.
Every tire dealer in the Midwest sells 99% all-season tires. Are they all criminally insane?
@Stever I've had a set of Nokian WR. While they may call them "all-season", they still have the snowflake symbol that qualifies them as winter tires. You can't really compare them to a regular Bridgestone or Michelin all-season. Won't argue how great they are.. they are great. I would have put them on my wife's X3, if they came in the proper size. Had to settle for all-season Bridgestones (gasp!).
I'm not arguing the efficacy of winter tires. I'm riding on a set, right now. It's just not realistic for the great majority of people driving $5K cars. If you live in Minnesota, or Buffalo, YMMV. Picking the worst winter storm in decades on the East Coast as an excuse to get winters is a fallacy. If it's that bad, just stay home, like the Governor says.
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That is why you get all those cars sliding and crashing on Interstate entry/exit ramps and getting gridlocked on the Interstate. In Austria/Switzerland/Germany it is mandatory to use winter tires during winter. In USA fools drive in old bald all seasons during winter and you get 100 car pileups during snowfalls on the interstate.
Frontpage - Winter tires - Nokian WR G2
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I have no real idea of what winter is like in St. Louis so I can't say which way to go here.
What tires would you use here ? All weather ? All seasons ? Winter and snow ? LOL
Seriously, remember that 4WD won't help you stop any faster and it's easy to outdrive your tires, especially when there's ice hiding underneath the snow.