Outback tires?

If it were a sports car, I'd know what to do. I've never bought tires for a boring commuter car however, and I'm kinda lost on what I should do to re shoe my 2012 2.5i outback for the summer. It came with blizzaks, which will go back on next fall, and a second set of wheels isn't in the budget currently.

I drive a lot, about 3000 miles a month in the summer. Mostly 2 lane highway, but I live on a muddy dirt road, have accounts on dirt and gravel roads, and it's Alaska so road construction and soft roading is always around the corner. I'd rather have tires I can drive in to winter longer and switch out earlier to maintain life on my blizzaks.

Im stuck between getting a set of AT tires like the Yoko Geolander ATS in the stock 225/60-17 size or Cooper AT3's in slightly taller and wider 235/60-17, or sticking with all season car tires of which I'm waffling between ordering General RT43's or buying Pirelli P4 Plus all seasons locally at Sam's club.

Thoughts from the collective?

I think truck tires on an Outback would be heavy and unpleasant. I have Cooper RS3-A's on my AWD wagon and they monstered through the snow this winter just fine. And they are quiet.

If you are going for AT tires I'd recommend the Cooper Discoverer ATW over the AT3. Better winter performance with the same all-terrain abilities.

If you can find a RMA mountain snowflake stamped AT that fits that would be ideal, run it year round. Firestone Destination LE2 also comes to mind, good all season SUV tire that mostly comes in P series sizes (rides good).

I have run General Grabber AT2 on two Subarus that see a fair bit of offroad use. They are surprisingly supple, quiet, and long lasting.

Wife has been happy with these low cost yoko's from TR. Put them on in November when they were even cheaper at $68 each. there on her 09 WXR wagon she drives two lane back roads 20+ each way to work in new England weather so far so good even in the few deep snow ice storms. Where seems to be good but they have no rating.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Yokohama&tireModel=AVID+S34PV&partnum=245HR7S34PV

ShawneeCreek wrote: If you are going for AT tires I'd recommend the Cooper Discoverer ATW over the AT3. Better winter performance with the same all-terrain abilities.

I just wanted to point out that this is more advice than you may realize. If you open Shawnee's profile you will see his listed occupation.
So, when he says, "this Cooper is better than the other", you can be damn sure it is expert advice.

I have used the Cooper AT3 on a 1997 Nissan Pickup. They work well on and off road and very well in snow. I have the General AT2 on a 1974 Ford F-100. They work well on and off road, I have not driven them in snow. Both tires are quiet at cruising speed.

I cannot comment on using them on a lighter more car based vehicle, but I have the geolanders on my Disco.. I cannot recommend them enough

This past fall I replaced the OEM tires on our 2011 Outback with H rated Continental TrueContact's. It was an upgrade from the OEM Conti's. A bit firmer ride and response. Winter traction seemed improved as well. Ordered from TireBuyer as they had the best price by quite a bit and had them delivered to and installed at a Firestone shop.

I'd go BFG KO2's. They last forever, are apparently nice and quiet on the road and monster tires offroad. They are winter snowflake certified, so you could probably just run them year round, get about 50k-75k miles out of a set.

Decided to go with the car-tire route after all, and ordered a set of Cooper CS5 Ultra Touring's last night. Amazon Prime FTW with free shipping to Alaska saves me about $250 over buying locally.

I know the AT3's are good as they work great on my Dad's jeep and father in law's f150 but I just couldn't add that much weight to each corner. I wish they or the ATW were made in the appropriate size too instead of a size up in case I had to use my spare, part of the reasoning for sticking with a stock sized tire.

Egghead Racer wrote: I'd go BFG KO2's. They last forever, are apparently nice and quiet on the road and monster tires offroad. They are winter snowflake certified, so you could probably just run them year round, get about 50k-75k miles out of a set.

That what I plan on putting on my 2015 Outback. Now I just have to come up with an excuse as to why a vehicle with only 5K miles needs new wheels and tires.

skierd wrote: Decided to go with the car-tire route after all, and ordered a set of Cooper CS5 Ultra Touring's last night. Amazon Prime FTW with free shipping to Alaska saves me about $250 over buying locally.

Cool :) I think you'll like them. They've got some excellent wet performance.

If you have issues I can go bother the engineer responsible for the tire line (he's just two cubicles over).

Hal wrote: That what I plan on putting on my 2015 Outback. Now I just have to come up with an excuse as to why a vehicle with only 5K miles needs new wheels and tires.

Because the stock tires are utter junk, and with global climate change it could snow. At. Any. Moment.

Egghead Racer wrote:

Hal wrote: That what I plan on putting on my 2015 Outback. Now I just have to come up with an excuse as to why a vehicle with only 5K miles needs new wheels and tires.

Because the stock tires are utter junk, and with global climate change it could snow. At. Any. Moment.

Agree on the stock tires but we only had one decent snow this year. And the tires wouldn't have helped any in 36" of snow.

So I think I've given these things a good workout after 12,500 ish miles this spring and summer.

I did get to drive on them in a decent snow, about 2-4" of fresh wet coast type snow with lots of black ice and old packed snow. They not blizzaks but they're fine for what constitutes winter in 90% of the country, at least when brand new. We'll see how they do now that they're worn a little.

Speaking of wear, if they started at the indicated 11/32, all are sitting at 8/32 already. I should easily get another summer out of them, but I was kind of hoping for better. They were rotated once this summer.

Other than some tread wear concerns the tires are excellent in terms of ride quality, dry grip, wet grip, and road noise. They're actually downright quiet imo. I live on a dirt road and these things are terrible in mud, unsurprising though as I feel like my borough uses old clay potting slip for a surfacing material when it rains.

FYI: I ended up putting Yoko Geolander G015's on my 2015 Outback. I used the stock 225/65-17 size. The G015's are a new version that has the Mountain and Snowflake winter rating. Haven't had a chance to test them in snow yet, but they do just fine in mud and on the fire service roads west of here.

I passed on the BFG KO2's because even in the stock 225/65-17 size they weighed 10# more than the stock tires. The Yokohama's weigh the same as the stock tires.

Swapped back to Blizzaks today after putting 15k miles on the Coopers this summer and getting in to the first real winter weather. 2-3" of powdery snow, temps hit 0 on my way to work this morning. Even worn about 1/3 way through their usuable life they handled the ice and snow well enough that if I lived elsewhere or heck even if I just drove less miles I'd strongly consider them for year round use on an AWD car. Blizzaks are still far superior in stopping but the coops are in the ballpark - impressive.

Pretty sure we're getting a set for the wife's CX-9 next year too.