Originally Posted by xtell
Thank you all for the advice so far. Several of the tires mentioned like Assurance Weatherready and Cooper CS5 do not come in the 195/70-14 size tire. Bridgestone and Continental do not make this size tire either. I did read up on directional, symmetrical, asymmetrical and directional/asymmetrical tread patterns and I reviewed the information from the source SubLGT kindly posted. Other than having a tire with small tread blocks, not much else seems to sway choosing one tread pattern over the other, especially when tread compound, rigidity, belt structure, etc are included in each tires makeup. Here is a list of what I have found locally available without going with $30.00 dollar per tire cheap no name tires. Anyone have any experience with any of these? I can get any one of them at a decent price. I'm an easy driver so hard cornering / ultra grip performance is not so important. I do drive the car year round so some grip in snow is needed.
Yokohama Avid Touring S
Kumho Solus TA 11
Cooper Evolution Touring
Toyo Extenza A/S
Firestone All Season
Uniroyal Tiger Paw AWP3
BF Goodrich Advantage Touring T/A
I had the now discontinued Cooper CS4 on the '04 Hyundai Elantra base (small to medium car size), replaced by CS3 which is now Cooper Evolution Touring.
At 500 miles old, in brand new snow, I was unstoppable. Snow 2" - to car's belly + ruts: all not a problem.
Ice...., forget it. It won't bite.
I would say at year 2+ your snow performance would drop because of block/sip size. Also depends on the snow type.
Rain and dry, very good performance.