I am ready to make a decision between the 09 Cobalt SS and 09 Mazdaspeed3 but the only thing making me lean towards the Cobalt SS is better all-season tire choices.

The 215/45R18 tires on the MS3 are limited to sh*t, summer tires, and squirmy dedicated snow tires. Although I plan to drive my MS3 in MI winters, I prefer good all-seasons like Goodyear Assurance TripleTred or Continental ContiExtremeContact that work well in the snow. Snow tires are generally very squirmy on dry ground and tend to hydroplane in the rain, not to mention noisy.

What are my choices? I don't want to handle the logistics of separate wheels for the winter - been there, done that. It's a PITA. Can I swap in 17" or 16" wheels?

The Cobalt has a much better tire size: 225/40R18 where there are plenty of good tire choices that aren't necessarily snow tires. Silly as it sounds, the tire choices would be a deal breaker for me.

It looks like Goodyear makes the TripleTred in 225/50R18. The specs indicate that it would fit a 7" wide wheel and has comparable load specs to the stock Bridgestones. What do you think of this size for the MS3?

 

Tire rack shows seven different all season radials available for the MS3. And that is just in the stock size.

 

They're all rubbish for use in light snow. The only all-seasons worth their salt in snow are Bridgestone Potenza something, GY Assurance TripleTred, and ContiExtremeContacts - none of them are available for the MS3's odd tire/wheel size.

 

Yea, that could be, I didn't look at them real close. I use snow tires in the winter, and summer only tires the rest of the time on my other cars. I will probably do the same on my 3.

 

My thought is to use 16" wheels with snow tires (Blizzaks are my preferred tire) and switch back to the 17's in the summer with the low profile summer only tires.

 

Another person that has an interesting reason for one car over another. Did I say interesting, I meant retarded. Tires, holy crap.

 

How is it a bad reason? I need a car that can be driven in all conditions. Personally I think it was idiotic for Mazda to include summer tires at the factory for the Mazdaspeed3. I have to spend under $1000 to ditch the summer tires and swap in all-seasons, but what makes it more difficult (or rather asinine) is that Mazda used an obscure tire size. Hopefully the 2010 MS3 does use 225/40R18 at the factory so I can toss out whatever summer tires they include and go with all-seasons.

High-output FWD cars are easy to drive in the snow or in the rain. I've driven mainly RWD cars in the snow w/ all-seasons and they can be a handful, but FWD offers much more initial control. There's far more weight over the driving wheels with a FWD car. I think most people instinctively let off the throttle when they detect fishtailing, which can further induce oversteer on a FWD car. That's probably one reason why most of the Big'3 FWD cars suffer extreme understeer from the get-go.

 

Because problem's solved for under 500, then sell your stockers. Serious dude, don't buy one, all you're gonna do is whine.

 

The stock size is rubbish. There are no good all-season offerings in this size. 225/45R18 is a better size that also works within 5% of the stock speedometer calibration. I just don't understand the idiot at Mazda that thought choosing a weird tire size was the smart thing to do. It looks like they wised up for 2010: 225/40R18 just like the Cobalt SS.

 

You can easily put 225/40/18 tires on the stock 07-09 MS3 wheels if you want... although once you get used to the grip of summer tires, you won't want all seasons. Having a dedicated set of winter wheels/tires is a great compromise. I bought a set of 16" Blizzaks with steel wheels for the winter months from Tire Rack for $550 mounted, balanced and shipped to my door.