Hockyguy4u

Warning: read Tirerack reviews and survey on the Turanza's in our AWD F-Sports..
Our Turanzas are outright DANGEROUS in snow...

For those of us northerners who bought our GS350 AWD for driving safely in the winter, we need to consider getting winter tires!!! AWD will not save you with poor tires!!!

PLAYTYM

Mine came with Michilen Primacy MXM4 All Seasons. I think I will run them and see how they work out.

Hockyguy4u

I think only the AWD F-Sports have these Turanzas

PLAYTYM

Tirerack's Ranking of the top four touring all season tires...looks like the Lux AWD version were given one of the best overall.

Bridgestone Turanza Serenity (Grand Touring All-Season 205/55R16 91H)

What We Liked: Comfortable ride
What We'd Improve: Wet traction
Conclusion: A good Grand Touring All-Season tire that's beginning to show its age
Latest Test Rank: 4th
Previous Test Rank: 2nd (August '08), 2nd (July '05)

Continental ContiProContact (Grand Touring All-Season P205/55R16 89H)

What We Liked: Impressive dry traction
What We'd Improve: Road manners and wet grip
Conclusion: Still a good all-around option
Latest Test Rank: 2nd
Previous Test Rank: 4th (July '07), 2nd (July '05)

Goodyear Assurance ComforTred Touring (Grand Touring All-Season 205/55R16 91H)

What We Liked: Responsive steering
What We'd Improve: Wet traction
Conclusion: A good choice for drivers wanting to blend responsive handling with good road manners
Latest Test Rank: 3rd
Previous Test Rank: Not previously tested

Michelin Primacy MXM4 (Grand Touring All-Season 205/55R16 91H)

What We Liked: Excellent wet traction and good road manners
What We'd Improve: There's not much that needs improvement
Conclusion: A very capable Grand Touring All-Season tire
Latest Test Rank: 1st
Previous Test Rank: Not previously tested

Hockyguy4u

Unfortunately, F-Sports have the Turanza EL 400, one of the worst (not the Serenity)

Rexus300

iTrader: (1)

I already switched out the crap Bridgstones EL400-02 in April after 1 month with the F-Sport. I knew by the ride and feel that these tires were terrible and were going to give me a huge problem down the road in the snow, etc. I got Continental all season tires on my 19 inch rims for the 3 seasons and right now I have 18 inch Enkeis with Michelin Pilot Alpin PA4 winter tires and my car feels much better than the bridgestones in terms of the road noise, ride comfort, handling, and traction.

Tirerack is the best place to research and get the tires. Get them road force balanced, not dynamic balance, since the GS vibrated with poor balancing easily. The Road force balance is the hallmark and I always get my tires and rims balanced this way on all of my cars now. It cost more and takes 2 hours to do all 4 wheels total which is well worth it for a smooth car ride. I do not do any place like discount tire, sears, cost-co or belle tire. Tirerack has list of top installers with the hunter road force balancers that you can ship the tires to for installation.

Outrage

The garbage OEM tires were one of the reasons I passed over the AWD F Sport model and purchased a Luxury model instead. There are no high performance all-season tires available in the AWD F Sport's stock tire size (235 / 40 R 19). There are lots of high performance all-season tires available in the AWD Luxury model's stock tire size (235 / 45 R 18). I'll probably switch to Michelin Pilot Sport A/S Plus tires in the future if I stay with the stock wheels.

Hockyguy4u

My Turanzas are going into the trash can. I will be putting on winter tires next week on my AWD F-Sport ( Pirelli Sotozero II's on the 19" Stock wheels)
Next Spring I will put on Michelin Pilot Super Sports as my summer tire--either on the 19" stock wheels, or maybe upsized on new 20" Vossen wheels....
I always prefer alternating between dedicated summer and winter tires than to have All-Season tires

Rexus300

iTrader: (1)

You can always go for 235/45/19 or 245/40/19 which will give you many more choices of tires and using the tire calculator online, the speedo difference is not more than 1% for the 245/40/19 and 3% with the 235/45/19 which is fine according to the rule. This will give the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S, Michelin MXM4 A/S, Continental DWS, Continental Contiprocontact, Bridgestone Turanza Serenity Plus, etc.

mehran888

I'm going to go this summer with the EL400s. Will let you know how it turns out. My plan will be to get new rims and unique summer/winters when I need to replace these. Hopefully they'll be ok.

But agree with the comments here that they're the lowest of the low in terms of all-season choices, particularly for a $50K+ car.

alex206

So I have a FSport AWD and am thinking about changing my crappy tires too. So is 245/40/19 or 235/45/19 better? What are the main differences that I will see/feel? I'm thinking of Michelin Primacy MXM4...any inputs would be great! Thanks in advance!

82nd

I was thinking about making the same move as the above poster and would love to hear any comments on MXM4's. Winters suck here.

Rexus300

iTrader: (1)

I had the Michelin MXM4 tires on my GS F-Sport for 1 month only since they were defective and I had gotten 2 bad batches of 4 tires. They kept causing my car to vibrate in the steering wheel and in the seats on the highway even after several road force balancing and they were slightly out of round and not under the Lexus recommended specs of 10 lbs or less for the road force. They also caused my car to wander more but I attribute it to the poor production batch of these tires which were from late 2010. Despite that, they had good ride comfort over bumps around city and good handling feel. I returned them for full refund to tirerack and got the Continental Contiprocontacts which were very good and smooth at all speeds. The handling is a slight step down from the Michelins but the overall stability of the car at high speed is excellent and the ride is perfect. Traction is very good in the rain. I am very happy with them.

If I had to do it again, I would get the Michelin MXM4 in the size 245/40/19 in the 94V rated tires and not the 94W rated version which I had and these were sitting in the warehouse for a long time. Sydtoosic had the MXM4 put on his car and he was very happy. This person has a GS F-sport too. I have the Michelin Alpine PA4 tires right now on my 18 inch and they are excellent. I am impartial to Michelins despite the bad production batch of MXM4s I had. Make sure that when you get them that the dates show production in 2012 and not 2010-2011.

chiefguy

Hi,
i'm just about to make a decision on the F-Sport or the Premium AWD. I really like the F-Sport, but all the models i've seen have those Turanza El 400 tires. I don't really want to change out tires and stuff. Any suggestions? i was thinking of asking the dealer to swap the tires for different ones if i decide to go with the F-Sport.....if not, i guess i'll have to go with the Premium....any thoughts would be appreciated...thanks!

Hockyguy4u

Not getting the F-Sport just because of the tires is a pretty flimsy reason. There are so many pluses to the F-Sport (if nothing else, the great steering wheel!!!). So, yes, I would negotiate a tire swap with the dealer.