FAQ: Which tires work best?

Coors Light? Really??

You guys have great taste in cars but all of your taste is in the driveway. Molson's Canadian Lager.


I went with the Michelin Symetry. My wife's Regal came with them and they are quiet, handle rain and snow great, but more importantly they STOP you when you need to stop! It was an easy choice to put them on the Riviera.

Indy Firehawk 500 is a good tire too. I had them on my Roadmaster Wagon, changed from 225/75/15 to 235/70/15 and the shorter sidewall helped to eliminate excessive roll that wagons are known for. Great value at the time, buy 3 get one free.

Riviera with Michelin Symetry: (crappy gray skies and bare trees)

after recieving my 96 riviera sc from the garage, ( replaced coupler, intake gasket, and coil pack) i went and bought 4 new good year tires. since i have no job yet and no money, i now owe my dad 670 dollars but atleast she is runnin again after two years of sitting

Nice! I definitely know what it's like to owe your parents money ha!

Better to owe your dad than a credit card!!!

Congrats on those new tires !!!!

new used tires on the front: BFGoodrich g-force T/A KDW 275/40/18







the one on the right is stock size 225/60/16
Far as I can tell there is no rubbing or anything that's even questionable for clearance. 275/40 is a little wide against the 18x8 rim but it's ok. We'll see how it goes. These tires will probably be bald by the end of this summer

Once I swap out the 42lb for these and making sure they are ok, I'll switch over to E85From what I can tell, these tires seem to get similar or perhaps less traction than the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S Plus's that were on there which is surprising as these have more tread-width and they are UHP summer tires. They are down to the last 3/32 of their life though. They seem to do much better if you heat them up though while the Michelin's didn't care as much.

We've been using the Kumho Solus KR21 tires on several of our Honda Pilot and the 95 Buick Roadmaster for a few years now and they have been great tires. They seem to be a really good "all around" performer and have lasted several years. I think I've put almost 100k miles (almost all highway) on the set on the Roadmaster and they are only now starting to really show any edge wear.

I can't say how sporty they are in comparison to a dedicated high performance tire as I've had on sports cars in the past as the Pilot and Roadmaster really aren't in that class. But I can say that the ride is good, they seem very solidly connected in all weather and they seem to grip well on cloverleaf on/off ramps at speed.

At less than $100 a piece, and sometimes under $75 each, they are a great deal.

I think we're going to give them a try on the 95 Riviera.

Al

Picked up some Michelin Defenders in the stock size today, which seem to be getting top reviews for all season. Decided to stay with the 16" stock SC wheels for a while, perhaps permanently, so bought a whole new set of Michelins. Virtually eliminated the 70mph vibration I had with my old tires, which were a mixed make/model. I may still have a little due to the road I drive and maybe a bit of worn suspension. But it is vastly better

The reviews on these are very good, but of course one day of ownership doesn't give me much to share  

They aren't remarkable looking, kind of plain really.  But that doesn't matter to me if they work out well. As I put on 20-25k miles a year as my daily driver, these should be a good fit.

I got the Goodyear Eagle GT's. They're very nice. Grip very well in both wet and dry along with being virtually silent. They were the most appealing all season tires at the time, and I can't wait until it snows to test them out.

AA wrote:

I'm on my 2nd set of Firestone FireHawk Wide Ovals. Great cornering, decent straight-line accel, and excellent traction on wet roads. And even though they are a summer-only performance tire, not too bad in snow as I found out yesterday!

In theory I'm getting a set of these in a couple of days - if the local boys can pull it off.  One guy tried to get me into the Affinity Touring because they didn't have the Wide Ovals in stock.  Looked up Affinity Touring - horrible reviews, would have put me off the entire Firestone brand if the Wide Ovals didn't have such good reviews.  Also, completely not a performance tire!

It was good to find out the WO's have a 500 mile break in period reading the reviews - I bet the Firestone guys don't tell me or know it themselves.

Incidentally the Firestone website says the Wide Oval is an all-season tire.  AA, did you get the Wide Oval AS or a different version?

The Goodyear tripletred assurance worked great for me year round. Snow, rain and crap. Snow is really the tough obstacle for us midwesterners

Jack the R wrote:

Incidentally the Firestone website says the Wide Oval is an all-season tire.  AA, did you get the Wide Oval AS or a different version?

Wide Oval is a performance summer tire, not all season. My comments about them being "not too bad in snow" were a bit premature. After running true snow tires, I wouldn't recommend Wide Ovals for all-season duty. Summer only...

http://www.firestonetire.com/tires/firehawk/firehawk-wide-oval

The more I've used performance tires in summer and snow tires in winter, the more I've realized all-seasons are purely for convenience - not for having fun on nice days, and not for keeping you safe in harsh winter conditions. I suppose for cruising duty they are adequate. To make a shoe analogy, if summer performance = Air Jordans, and winter snow = Timberland boots, then all-seasons would be Hush Puppies walkers like these:



If you can stand the thought of buying a cheap set of extra wheels ($75-100) for winter duty, and swapping them twice per year, it's worth it. And your tires won't wear as quickly being used only half the time, so you still get a good amount of mileage out of each pair.

Lol! Great analogy aa. How is the winter treating you in Ohio? We got slammed in Chicago

We lucked out. Got some rain and a little snow, so roads are slick. But nothing like being up on the lake. Freezing temps overnight, so driving to work in the morning will be fun. Then it will warm up and melt, then freeze again. Typical Ohio weather.

AA - I certainly agree that all-season tires are a compromise.

Where are you seeing the Wide Oval AS listed as a summer only tire? The Firestone Tire site, Firestone service center site, and tirerack.com all say it is an all-season tire.

I assume "AS" means all-season, but Firestone's regular Wide Ovals are summer only (see link above).

Mine were the Wide Oval regulars, not the AS. The difference is in the tread design (more grooves with AS), but also in the rubber formula. The AS version would use a rubber that stays compliant in colder temp, whereas the regular Ovals' are optimized for warm/hot traction. I can remember running the ovals on colder days - the rubber was so hard that it would retain the flat shape from the contact patch and "thump, thump, thump" for 3 minutes until the tire warmed up.

I see - AS is the only version that shows up for our cars on the Firestone site, I assumed that was what you had.

Firestone is assuming you want to match the OEM spec. Any 225/60R16 size tire can run on the stock wheel. You can also run close sizes like 235 (tire side wall will protrude), or 215 (rim may poke some). Check Tire Rack and you'll find the regular Wide Oval option for Riviera.

I had my Wide Oval AS's (AS's LOL)  put on today.  I haven't got a chance to clean the goo off the rims yet but it looks like they only got one little ding in the mounting process, which could have already been there (but I don't think so).  HOWEVER, the Firestone guys did mount the wheel weights on the OUTSIDE of the rim .  My question for you guys is, rather than try to get Firestone to mount the weights inside the rim where they are supposed to be (which they've probably never heard of), and wait another 5 hours at the store, can I do it myself (and how?)  Off the top of my head I don't see why it wouldn't be possible, just as long as I get the same amount of weight in the same spot.  I have no idea what's involved in internally mounting a tire weight, but it can't be that hard.

According to the Firestone techs I've talked to, it is more difficult to use the adhesive weights on the inside. Not sure why. Maybe they don't like to do it because the weights are more likely to fly off over time. I don't think it's as easy as locating weight opposite the heavier part of the wheel. When they road force balance with the hunter machine, it can matter whether the weight is toward the inside or outside if the rim, I think.

I do know it you don't request the adhesive weights, usually they will clamp to the rim near the outside bead - it's technically not wrong, as our wheels have a lip on the rim for that purpose. It's just a preference.

It will probably mess up the balance if you do them yourself. They probably don't mount them inside the rim because of all of the gunk buildup that they would have to clean to get the adhesive on the weights to stick.

You absolutely cannot balance the tire yourself. There's a significant weight difference between the bang-on and stick-on weights as far as centrifugal force is concerned. You're moving the location of the weight closer to the center of the wheel in all directions. Doing so requires more weight to keep the same balance.

Firestone guys didn't do it wrong by putting bang-on weights on the wheels. The car came factory with them, so that's what they used. We do the same thing unless otherwise requested by the customer. So, the wheel weights are only supposed to go where they were originally. On most applications where the wheel has a lip, there's a weight that fits it. I don't usually go around defending tire shops (most of us know they suck ass), but in this situation, unless asked to use sticky weights, they did nothing wrong.

O.K., learn something new every day. I can't say I'm happy seeing the wheel weights on the outside, but maybe I can tune them out. I've spent enough time waiting for tires.

Has anyone tried a 235/50R16 on the stock wheels?

Is there any reason why I can't retorque my lug nuts on the ground (I'm assuming they were torqued too high with an air wrench)? I'm thinking the rim may end up off center some tiny fraction of a millimeter, but I could be worried about nothing.