4heid

Talked to Eric@Tirerack and he was very helpful but I would just like to get a few final thoughts from experienced users.
I am looking for a tire that can handle moderate snow, above average wet traction and dry traction that is at least OEM tire if not and hopefully better. Must last at least 20k as well. I have narrowed it to the ones listed above and have heard a lot of different comments on other boards about these tires.
Anyone have any first hand experience with these in the conditions listed above.
BTW, I have read the archives but would like some current thoughts.
TIA,
Chris

AJLa4

good performers in the dry. Handling is good for an all-season, overall could be a bit better, but this is not a max performance summer tire. And the handling is great for 95% of the driving I do.

wet performance good also, and they are very quiet, which is the opposite of the tires I had right before these (Pirelli P7000SS).

snow performance has been fine since I got them roughly 20 months ago, although we have not had that much snow since then. Also, like most people near big cities, all they see are plowed roads, no deep fluffy powder or up mountains, and they have been fine (several people do this in Chicago and have no problems). Never felt out of control in the winter.

great wear. Have 22K on them and plenty of tread left, and I beat them all the time, even autoX.

BTW, I have driven on the other two you mentioned (have not ownwed them) and the A2s are good performers, better than the RE950s in my opinion.

But I think the Dunlop SP SPORT 5000s is better than those others.

Also good choices are the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S (but big $$$), and the Sumitomo HTR+ is suppose to be decent, haven't tried these myself yet.

DCS

they came in first over Michelin MXV4 and Conti CH95. Considering what they compared them to... doesn't seem to be much of a sporting tire. More for touring. However, I've owned a set of that tire's predecessor (D60 A2) and aside from the belts slipping and always having to balance them, they performed great even in snow.

CR results for Sport A2:

Dry Braking - Excellent
Wet Braking - Excellent
Handling - Very Good
Hydroplaning - Very Good
Rolling Resistance - Average
Snow Traction - Average
Ice Braking - Very Good

*note - in this All-season tire comparison, every tire received "average" for snow traction. Ice traction ranged from poor to very good.

I still don't know whether I should get SP5000, Sport A2 or Winter Sport M2 though.

Dunlop's own ratings between the SP5000 and A2 are exactly the same between the models except for one attribute: price.

4heid

Which are better in the snow, Sport A2 or SP 5000?
TIA,
Chris

AJLa4

don't know, sorry, I have only driven the 5000s in the snow, but TR rates the A2s better 7.2-6.7.

pwaug

Has wear indicator of 400 so should hold up well. Have 10K on mine and they still look new.

Eddie@Tirerack

you dont go wrong with any of them. Take a look at the archives & our testing results or callme to discuss for your driving!

DougR

I got tired of having to be towed out of the snow and bought a Quattro :-)

But seriously, it was a different car (Plymouth Sundance Duster,) but those tires were the worst in the snow of 3 different all-seasons I owned. Eagle GT+4 was great, but they wore out too quickly and were spendy. Goodrich Touring T/A I hated in the dry, and of course, they lasted for-freaking-ever. The D60 A2 was terrible to me in the snow. I literally had to be towed out of the snow 3 times in the span of 2 weeks.

FWIW, I ~love~ the Winter Sport M2. Great tire for cold weather and wintery conditions. Wouldn't drive it in the summer though.

YMMV!

JWG

I have put almost 38,000 on mine and they still have more than adequate tread left.

They work great in all conditions, I just ran them in the rain on canyon roads today--No traction problems.

Bridgestone has the best tire construction in the world right now, and the RE910's and RE950's are based on the F1 rain tires. My RE910's lasted 60,000 miles, they still had plenty of center tread left, but I killed the shoulders driving fast on a heavily laden vacation up and down the California coast with an alignment problem.

The RE950 improved on the RE910 on both the tread design pattern (for far better wet and marginally better dry traction) and the tread compound (the outer shoulders have a hard compound for 100% of the tread life, but the inner tread has a hard compound for the first 50% or so of tread life and gradually transitions to a softer tread for the remaining tread life to compensate for shallower grooves). Very intelligently designed tire.

The best feature of the RE910's and RE950's was the lack of performance loss after 50% tread loss. Even the Dunlops D60 A2's that I loved on my old Nissan never wore down without a noticeable loss in performance. I will not even express my feelings on the performance loss after only 10,000 miles on my OEM Goodyear Eagles. My RE910's showed almost no noticeable performance loss until the very end of their life at 55,000 miles.

At this particular time, I do not think you can do better than Bridgestone for either all-weather "daily driver" tires (RE910's for conservative commuting and RE950's for the more spirited commuter) or ultra-performance tires (S03's).