Tires, Tires, Tires

Ok, I know this is the BRITISH car forum and this is the exact opposite of an LBC but I'll post this anyway......It's time for new tires on my 95 Cadillac STS, it currently has 225/60ZR16 Goodyear Eagle GA's which are almost completely bald,they're expensive to replace and wear extremely quickly...I want to get a good all season tire with a sportly look that won't wear so quickly, and I'd also like to move up a size width wise(235's) how much will moving up a size affect my speedo? Any recomendations for tires?

Thanks
Zack /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cheers.gif

Zack, click on the Tire Rack banner, or go to it from the vendors list. You may have to give them a call, but I've found that they are the most knowledgable, user friendly, tire outfit going.
Jeff

I was just there, looks like the best suited tire for me would be the 235/55HR16 Goodyear Eagle GT-HR...Tire rack is a great site, a little far for me to ship up here but still a great resource to help decide on a tire.

Zack,
I have never had a set of Goodyears that didn't wear out early, and they are bad in the wet and snow! Personally I prefer BF Goodrich tires. Presantly running on Traction TAs on my daily driver. They handle great and in the wet and snow you think your driving on dry pavement! Best of all they do all of this plus have an 80k mile wear out warranty! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Zack, I'm also not a fan of Goodyears. Had a set of eagles on my 300ZX and I hated them. They wore out quickly and didn't grip worth a darn wet or dry. BF Goodrichs are good tires, they last forever. The set of all terrain TA's I had on my Jeep had over 60K on them and there was still plenty of tread left. My only complaint with them is that in order to get that long treadlife they use a faily hard compound, which IMO sacrifices a little traction, expecially in the wet. Recently I've run Yokohama Avids on my last Volvo, they were excellent. Currently have Yoko's on my wifes Jeep, so far so good. Nice highway ride, great traction wet, dry, or snow, and they appear to be wearing well. Plus they are dirt cheap. My Subie has Bridgestone potenzas on it from the factory, they are the RE92 model, complete garbage. I've heard some of the other RE models are better, but these kinda suck when you get anywhere near spirited driving. I will probably go with either Yoko's again when these wear out or Toyo Proxes, which I hear are excellent. Some of the performance oriented Asian tires makes are great performers for really great prices. Kumhos get good reviews and I know guys running them on some pretty serious performance cars and love them, plus they are also dirt cheap.

I’ll second the Yokohama plug. I had them on a Mitsubishi Starion, quite happy with them. I bought a set for my Healey, but haven’t driven it yet. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cryin.gif

I won't go into detail about all of tire brands I've used over the years, but my experience says that Yokohamas are really not worth it at any price. Every set I have had has worn out very quickly and has had some sort of problem with either going out-of-round or a slipped belt.
Michelins are great tires, most of the time but the prices are high for what you get. Also Michelin rubber tends to harden over the life of the tire resulting in a hard ride.
BFGoodrich tires are good too since they are made by Michelin, by the way I was employed by BFGoodrich for many years.
I feel the best tires for the price are Goodyears, really.
The combination of ride and wear is excellent. One big benefit is that they wear very straight across the tread even up to the last miles.
The new Goodyear Eagle GT-HR is the best for the money, the reide and handling is great, I have them on my personal car and the results are seen in the shop daily.
Just my two cents, here but I've been in tires a long time and see the results first hand.

Here's a handy calculator to compare tire sizes:

https://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html

It will show you the difference visually and show how much the speedo will be off (in %)

Thats great, thanks Eric

I prefer Michelins for the best long wearing tires. I put 120K miles on my last set of Michelins. Look for the tread life factor and get a hih rating like 400 or more. Just remember that the ratings can only be compared within a Manufacturer not between makes...

I have never had good luck with Goodyear tires on passenger cars. The set of Eagles that came stock with my new Dodge Intrepid back in 2000, where extremely aggressive & sticky tires rated at 30,000 miles. I did everything according to the book – “early” rotations checked the tire pressure all the time and they still wore out prematurely at about 25K. Also if you didn’t rotate them regularly when you should – they wore unevenly. Only up side was that they handled great. I replaced them with another set of all weather Goodyears rated at 50K. But they where of a much harder compound and handling suffered significantly.

But in fairness to the boys at Goodyear I think the trade off of performance vs. durability will be a perplexing quandary with just about any brand of rubber you chose.

Currently I am running a set of Bridgestone Potenza RE950’s on my 78B that are great but the B isn’t my daily driver. So I suspect I’ll be replacing these tires until they get old & cracked from age.

I've never really had any problems with goodyear until this last set of Eagle GA's(caddy) wore out prematurely, but it is an extremely heavy car with front wheel drive...I've always run Goodyear on my Camaro and they always lasted a reasonable amount of time and performed well. Plus since I've boughten so many goodyears I've become friends with the local Goodyear guy so I can usually get a pretty good price....Right now I am thinkin about the Eagle GT-HR, the replacement for the Eagle GTII, which I currently have on the Camaro and am very happy with them.
I've notice that alot of the sidewalls on the latest tires(goodyear assurance in particular) are really ugly...the Assurance has some kind of angled design and just looks cheap...I hear their very good weather wise, but am not gunna put a "ricy" lookin tire on a Cadillac.

Zack

I became a fan of Kuhmo tires when I owned a
Contour SVT, they can't be beat for the price,
check the tirerack.com, prices start around
$60.00 per tire...

SteveL

I've had a few Kuhmo tire recommendations now so I guess I'll check those out too..thanks

Zack