I'm looking for a good all-season tire to replace the Dunlop SP5000's on my 2003 Protege5. After doing a little internet research (and being disappointed by the selection for this size of tire!) I'm leaning toward the Kumho ECSTA ASX, Toyo Proxes 4 or Proxes TPT. Does anyone have experience with any of these? Or maybe have a better alternative that's not too expensive? The Kumhos got good reviews on TireRack.com, I guess they don't carry Toyos. By the way, getting new wheels is out of the question.

I found the Dunlops great on dry and terrible in wet or snow. I'm willing to give up a little dry grip if it means less white-knuckle driving in the rain. Although I like to take a good curve, I'm not doing any racing on these. Just looking for a good, dependable tire.

 

If you are looking for 195/50/16 you are right, there's not much of a selection.
You can go to 205/45 and may find a better selection. I've heard good things about the ASX's
and nearly bought them myself but I feel I got a better deal buying the wheel/tire package.
Just curious, why are wheels out of the question? If you buy tires only you still have to pay to have them mounted & balanced unless you can do this yourself. Add in the cost of that and the wheels ($38 ea.) nearly paid for themselves. Plus I don't have to worry about sliding into a curb again and mangling my nice wheels.

 

I have the Proxes 4s on mine. Best sticking tires I've ever had. I had considered the Kumho's but was concerned about their wear rating. The Toyo's wear rating is much greater.

 

I put Nokian WRs (205/50/16) on my P5 recently. If you want good winter performance without giving up too much on the dry handling, these are a good bet - the winter traction is almost what I would expect from a full on winter tire - they are marked for sever winter duty - (minus some ice traction compared to a softer compound tire), with very good dry traction and handling, I would say abot 85% of what I was getting from the Dunlops. Or put another way, on my favortie offramp to work, I was able to do about 70km/hr before starting to slide out with the Dunlops, and with the Nokians, it looks like about 64 km/h before I start to lose grip.

Like any all season, they have some compromises, but I think the summer/winter performance balance of these tires so far (I have about 1500 km on them so far) is quite remarkable. The other tires you mention would likey have slightly better dry characteristics than the Nokian WR, but much poorer winter performance.

Dale.

 

I have a tendency to lean towards Toyo (yeah, I'm biased), but we don't have the same kind of winter that you have! I've been purchasing my Toyos from www.onlinetires.com because I found that the majors did not carry them and my local Firestone dealer was trying to rape me on the price. I would go with Kargo's advice and look into the 205/45s (that is what I'm running on the stock 16s).

 

Thanks for all the advice. I figured buying new wheels plus tires would be too expensive, and I like the Mazda wheels. But maybe I should look into that. Why did you guys change to the 205/45 size? Better selection? Better performance? And where exactly do you find $38 wheels?!

Unless I find a good tire/wheel package, I'm leaning toward the Toyos.

 

It shouldn't be hard to find 15 inch steel rims for about that price US$, you might come close to that even at your Mazda dealer. Alloy rims will obviously be more.

205/50/16 and 205/45 16 will both provide more choices than 195/50/16. 205/50/16 is slightly bigger in diameter than stock, and 205/45/16 is slightly smaller than stock.

I went with the bigger one because I preferred to have the slightly larger tire for looks and ride, and I wasn't totally comfortable with a 205/45/16 on the stock 6.5" rim, but obviously it can be mounted OK.

Dale.

 

If it's not too late, I'm gonna throw my two cents in. I have the Kumho Ecsta's on my car and I love their performance in both dry and wet weather. I had Yokohama's on before which were absolutely incredible in the dry, but sketchy in the wet. Now I want to warn you that You're never gonna find a good "all season" tire, rather just a good wet/dry tire. On my stock rims, I have Michelin Alpine's and they'll stick to anything that's NOT ice, but stink as a dry tire: They'd only last 15-20k if I soley drove on those. As to the profile issue, you havea trade-off between performance and comfort with the sidewall size. The lower the profile, the less sidewall-sway/rollover = less sliding in hard cornering. The higher the profile, the more comfortable the ride, but the less cornering performance. I hope my words of wisdom have helped and wish you luck in choosing a new set of tires. Remember, choose wisely because the tires are the only part of the car that ACTUALLY touches the road.

 

Wow. Great feedback! Thanks for all the advice.

So I could get 205/50/16 mounted on the same wheel, right? I just spoke to a guy at a tire store here who recommended the Pirelli P6 Four Seasons. Anyone have an opinion about these? I'm looking for something with good treadwear that doesn't hydroplane (the opposite of the Dunlop SP5000's). Decent handling in snow would be nice, although isn't really as important.

 

You can definitely go with a 205/50/16. I don't have any experience with the P6 4 seasons, although Pirelli tires I think are generally very good for what they are designed.

 

Daniel, if you haven't purchased anything yet--I got my wheel/tire package from tire rack. They came mounted and balanced for $424. plus shipping. I think I got a pretty good deal.

 

damn.. that's really good Kargo. I wish I would have gotten that good of a deal, I paid $125 for each of my rims and then $115 for each of my new tires back in '02. You got the deal of the year there bro!

 

I have the Toyo TPT's on mine. The tires are better than the stock Dunlops wet and dry. But in the snow they are pretty much the same. They might be just a little better, but not much. The road noise is about the same except under hard cornering when you can really hear them.

 

Flyin--they are just black 15" steelies for the winter tires only. The tires were
$68 each.

 

Again, thanks for everyone's help. I ended up going with the Kumho ASX's. They should arrive tomorrow...