I am on my 3rd set of Hankook V12. They are definitely quiet within the first 5000 miles. As they continue to get worn down.. they are loud as *****..So beware..

I don't see a deviation from topic here at all. I'm assuming the comment I was replying to is fully on topic with noise levels of tires.

So my question stands. All-season a bad idea (in the context of noise) or not?

It depends which tire you choose. For example, the Kumho Ecsta Platinum LX's I am currrently using are worlds quieter than the Bridgestone Potenza RE92's they replaced. They don't handle as well, however, an expected tradeoff. A notable positive, or negative aspect of these quiet Kumhos depending how you look at it, is sometimes it doesn't even feel like my car is lowered because the ride is much quieter and smoother now... The car truly feels like a luxury car again.

All in all, i'd recommend checking out the reviews on tirerack.com for more input about which tires are great if noise is a concern for you, too.

Cheers!

I'd never run all seasons personally, because as I said, they suck at everything.

In winter, winter tires are significantly better and safer.

In all other seasons (ie it's above 35 degrees), summer performance tires are significantly better and safer.

While the average person might not care about a 20% skidpad improvement, they sure should care about ~20% shorter braking distance (actual result comparing snows to all seasons by edmunds.... and then comparing summers in wet braking to all-seasons they found the all-seasons were 40% worse.... that my friends is suck).

(in dry weather the all-seasons are only 10% worse on braking than summer tires... not as horrible, but still worse enough I care)



Living someplace with a "real" winter (ie significantly snow more than a couple days a year) I would always recommend running two sets of tires for the year. It's a real, significant, difference... a bigger one than RWD vs. AWD in fact.

(and while I have lived in NY and Canada both, I currently live in NC, so I can get away with summer tires year-round... there might be 0-5 days in an entire year I can't drive safely on em, and everything else is closed those days anyway so no big deal I just leave the car in the garage).

Thanks. That's my concern with Hankook v12s. I'm leanin toward Michelin Super Pilot Sport. They get tw highest rating and reviews on Tirerack.

+1 on the PSS. Hankooks also have super soft side wall.. which make it unpredictable while driving it hard. My next set will be PSS for sure.

I just checked the reviews for the Michelin PSS on tr. Nearly perfect in every category.. God forbid, if my Kumho Escta LX Platinums don't hold up as well as I hope they do, my next set will be these tires as well!

I kinda wish I had seen this thread before I bought my tires.. oh well. I don't think the shop would take my tires back after I've already driven them through the rugged North Carolina terrain, lol

I'm at about 7k on my Hankooks and haven't noticed em getting louder yet... I suppose they might, but at nearly half the price for >PS2 performance (and thus likely 90% of PSS performance) I'll be fine with that.

Don't really understand the "soft sidewall makes them unpredictable" remark- they do feel that way but they don't perform that way at all... the C&D comparison even makes that exact point-

Try Firestone.

I just ordered some Yokohama ADVAN S.4 tires for my rear wheels. I'll let you know how that goes.

So, What I get from this thread is Hankook for the cost and PSS for the performance.

I was hoping more DWS owners would chime in...

Pretty much yeah.

The gold standard from Michelin until recently was the PS2, which cost considerably more than the Hankooks, and the Hankooks outperform them by a little bit.... so you were getting 105% of the performance for roughly 50% of the cost with the Hankooks.

The PSS is (fairly) new, and will outperform them both, but by a relatively slim margin, for again about 2x the cost of the hankooks.

Tirerack gets $826 for the PSS in stock sizes vs $480 for the Hankooks (both totals using the respective MFG rebates of 70 and 80 bucks).

If you want bleeding edge no expense, get the PSS... but you'll have a hard time talking me out of 90+% of the performance for just over 50% of the cost, which is what the Hankooks give you.


As to the DWS, as I think I've mentioned, they are very very good for all-seasons... but they're still all-seasons, so they'll significantly under-perform in every way compared to good dedicated seasonal tires... just by less of a margin than lesser all-seasons will.