hey, I was wondering what tire brands you guys would recommend for excellent all season performance? also would there be a wheel I could use that looks good but can be left on in winter?, I hate steelies! I am asking this because my car is a daily driver, so I want the performance out of my tires, but I also need something realistic to suite my needs. I was thinking of going lowpro for summer wheels/tires, and keeping the stock steelies/tires for winter, but these current tires only have 7/32 of tread left, so they will need reeplacing soon. I have a 1994 civic cx hatch, and right now im on 14" wheels, i will probally upgrade to 15" with the all season, and I have seen that yokoham and michelin make some nice performance lowprofile tires for all season, but boy they are not cheap.

 

well if ur getting 15's and want the correct tire size so u dont mess up ur speedo, odo, and gas mileage, u arnt gena want/need low profile tires. u'll prolly end up running on a 195/50R15 tire, depending on the width of the wheel...also if u want good performance, snag the lightest set of wheels u can(rotas would prolly be ur best bang for buck). a good priced all season tire i kno of are the Kumho SPT's. fairly cheap and perform well, my friend had them on his WS6 and he loved em.

 

ok thanks, and i believe the wheel size i would use iss a 15by6 or 6.5

 

What kind of weather do you drive in? Is it snowy, icy, or just rainy in winter?

I just got some 195/60R14 Yoko Avid H4Ss this winter and they are WAY better than the 185/60R14 Goodyear Eagle GTIIs they replaced. My wet traction now is almost as good as my dry traction used to be. More importantly, when these tires start to lose traction in the wet, they tend to do so gradually. The GTIIs would just let go. Standing water on the road is not much of a problem either. These tires resist hydroplaning extremely well compared to pretty much every tire I'vedriven in the last 19years. I've had dedicated wet-weather tires that didn't drive this well in the rain.

My dry cornering traction is pretty darn good for 60-series tires and not having anti-swaybars or strut braces. Accelerating/Braking traction is much better also. My gas mileage hasonly improved, if anything. These all-season high-performance tires are NOT snow tires by any means but they actually did ok from mild ice to 8" of snow, considering how wide they are for the light weight of my 00' VP sedan. I just had to drive them carefully when accelerating to traffic speed on crowned/slanted roads. They didn'tleave me stuck once, but I did have to take a different exit (with less incline)out of a couple low-lying parking lots. FWD doesn't climb icy hills very well. When forward progress was no longer possible, reverse always did the job to get me out for another try. I don't expect a FWD Honda Civic to blast through uphill hood-high drifts like my Trxus MT-shod Jeep does, so this little car did pretty well on these tires in the snow,IMO.

If you have the same stock rim/tire size as me (185/65R14), you may be able to actually get even better traction in the snow/rain by sticking with the narrow 14x5.5" rims for winter, and running a 175/70R14 or 185/65R14 dedicated snow tire. 14" rims and tires are going to tend to be less expensive than 15s. My tires went for around $50-60 each and my 14x6 D3 alloys went for $72 each at www.tirerack.com. 15x6 alloys and some 195/55R15s would probably look a little better (My 14s look like funny little donuts on my sedan.)while offering similar all-season performance and stock-similar ridefor slightly more coin than the 14s. They would besimilar in overall diameter to 185/65R14s, so your speedo/odo would probably be about right on and you wouldn't need to regear to stay in the powerband.

If you want your ride to look good, save your money for some nice 15s or 16s to run only in the warmer months with some good all-season high-performance tires. Rundedicated high-profile snowtires on the narrow 14" stockers in the winter. You'll get better performance all around and you'll probably spend less money in the long run.

 

ok, thanks for all that great info, i think i will keep the stock steel wheels i have and put on a dedicated winter tire, and then some fancier 15 or 16 summer wheels and a good all season performer. Ya, i know what u mean about snow drifts/icy hills, i live in canada and are past winter here had huge downpours of snow, and my dad used to have a jeep they are great. Well ill definitely check out those tires u were using, and im thinking of finding some stock si wheels for summer off of ebay, or rota wheels! Thanks again kommando