re; All season tires

[gatesj at twcny.rr.com (John K. Gates)]

> Any help with recommending all season tires would be very much
> appreciated. I'm tired(excuse the pun) of "good-for-1year"'s. I heard
> that Toyo make a good performance all season tire, but at the same time
> my wife's Potenza's are awesome.

Given experience since new with my VR6 Jetta with tires, here is what I've
had and my feelings on them.  Granted my Jetta is heavier and a daily
driver but it is a front-heavy VR6 with similar tire sizing:

* Stock - Goodyear Eagle GA's.  Wore nice and even, not as bad as people
say, at least for a stock tire.  Nothing to write home about though, just
a safe, basic tire.  Reasonably good snow performance.

Got 40k miles with frequent rotation and constantly pushing the car.

* 1st replacement - Michelin Pilot XGT V4.  These performed very well in
the dry and exceptionally well in the wet compared with the GA's but the
snow was a little scary.  Winter was more of a controlled slide/push but
it wasn't completely unmanageable.  We do get a major amount of snow here
though and the tires would probably be fine in areas where you get no more
than a couple of inches of snow at once.  I bought dedicated snow tires
because of this experience, we need them here.

The downside of these tires was that they wore very unevenly, with lots of
feathering/sawtoothing.  I'm convinced now that this may have been because
of rear axle beam alignment issues inherent with the car though.  After
they started wearing funny the noise was enough to drive you out of your
mind.

These were about $125 apiece + shipping, mounting and balancing.

Got about 45k miles with less frequent rotation and pushing the car pretty
hard.

* 2nd replacement - Bridgestone Potenza RE730.  Exceptional wet and dry
performance, these are the stickiest street tire I have ever driven on.
It takes a lot to unstick the car, and we all know how VR6's push.  No
experience on snow, these are not all-seasons and I have dedicated snow
tires now.  Incredibly quiet for a performance tire because of the
continuous rings in the middle of the tread.  These were well worth the
relatively cheap price.  I've been very happy with this tire.

Downside?  Again, uneven wear, though I'm more and more convinced from
inspection during rotation/maintenance that I have a slightly bent or
defective rear axle beam, so this is probably the fault of the car.  And
they're obviously not all-season.  This tire wears a little fast too but
not unreasonably so.  I'm on my 3rd summer now with these.

If you don't drive the car in snow, consider this tire, it's outstanding
and a good value.

$99 apiece + shipping, mounting and balancing.

Have gotten about 17k miles with less frequent rotation with mostly fairly
tame driving.  About 1/2 worn.

So, that having been said, if I was making a choice for an all-season
tire, I would probably look into the all-season Potenza RE9XX line and
possibly consider the Michelin Pilot line again.  I've been very happy
with Bridgestone's products on this and other vehicles also and the price
is more reasonable than comparable Michelin.  I've also been curious about
the Dunlop SPX000 line but have not tried them.

John K. Gates
--
'97 Jetta GLX - daily driver
'85 Scirocco Flash Silver, waiting for my new house/shop for a complete
teardown/buildup sometime soon...