Sound like a good deal for winter tires?

[awd]

Hankook Aurora W602 205/55R16 - $522.00 for 4 tires installed/balanced/taxes included.

Sound like a good deal? From what I have read these tires are comparable to Blizzaks, minus the price tag.

[tirebob]

That is a very reasonable price for winter tires for certain, but they are definitely not a Blizzak.

The Blizzak (WS50) has a very specialized micro cell compound that is unique to Bridgestone. It is designed to provide massive ice traction without the use of studs (even more so the most winter tires). This can be beneficial or detrimental, depending on what you want from a tire. This type of tire, while it provides very extreme winter traction, it wears very fast and has substantially reduced handling and emergency braking abilities on regular dry road surfaces. If you are an aggressive driver you will probably do better "overall" without this type of tire, but if you just simply want the best winter traction available, it works very well.

The Aurora is a decent tire, but I wouldn't call it a premium end tire. Again just depends on what you want... That being said, even if you had the absolute worst "true winter tire" (a tire with the severe winter condition symbol which is a snowflake within a mountain symbol) on your car, it will still be massively better in snow than any all season you can get...

Bob Blakeborough
[email protected]
800.661.2538
403.291.1578

[awd]

Thanks for the educated insight Bob, much appreciated.

In your opinion, is the Hankook Aurora much better than a Kumho KW17?

thanks.

[grocko]

I grabbed some brand new Blizzaks last year for $500 mounted and balanced...took a while to look for good prices, but I managed to find a decent price....If I remember correctly I got them from "Tire Wholesalers," but not quite sure.....

[tirebob]

AWD - No, I wouldn't say it was better or worse. They are both going to be fairly comparable... There will be some subtle differences maybe, but no major, drastic differences. Myself personally, I would go Kumho, but that is really due more to the fact that it is a more well known and proven tire, (consumer reports gave the KW11, which is the baby brother to the KW17, the number one rating overall in the November 2002 issue) and it would "usually" be more readily available if you were to ever have a problem with one tire, but like I said, any winter is better than no winter, and if the deal is what you are looking for, then go for it...


grocko - was that $500.00 for 205/55R16 Blizzaks? I ask because you grive a civic and they use a much less expensive size than the size tha AWD is asking about...

[grocko]

They were 14's....lol....so I most likely would be paying the same amount if I were to step it up....