WRXtranceformed

So we're at about 40,000 miles on our RDX and it's time for new tires. The Dunlop SP Sport Maxx it came with didn't have a ton of life left when we bought the car anyway. I was pretty sold on the Nitto Motivos until I read some very contradictory reviews that made me nervous. I was looking for a good high performance all season that would have really good wet traction and decent enough winter weather traction for us to be able to take it up north to visit family. I didn't think I would end up buying another Dunlop, but the new version of the Signature HP seems to be performing extremely well. It outperformed most other tires in a wet weather comparison on TireRack, including the BF Goodrich G-Force Comp-2 A/S which costs about $125 more after rebates. Overall, it very closely stacked up to the BF Goodrich but for the price and the fact that it had a 500 AA A vs. 400 AA A treadwear rating I thought the Dunlops would be worth a try.

TireRack actually did an instrumented test on the Signature HP vs. the BF Goodrich, General G-MAX AS-03 and Hancook Ventus S1 Noble2. Being a data guy I ate it up and felt the Dunlops had the best value per performance out of the bunch. I guess time will tell! Here is the review including a video:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/...y.jsp?ttid=200

I will have to report back after we put some miles on these, especially during the winter time. But just wanted to give everyone a heads up that these seem to be a pretty good bang for the buck!

WRXtranceformed

New tires are massively better so far. The service writer was not our usual chap and apparently he was kind of a dick to my wife when she came in which fired me up. After the alignment he called me and said that they were able to get everything in spec except for the front two wheels which were left at -2* camber. My wife said he tried to blame her asking if she had been in an accident or hit a really bad pothole (which we have done neither since we owned it). His recommendation was to replace both of the struts. I told him we're good, my old TL-S couldn't be aligned to close to 0* camber for the front wheels either straight from the factory. I ended up buying a camber kit for that car. Unless someone here educates me otherwise, it's my understanding that it's toe that kills tires not necessarily camber.

I do have to take it back because they didn't "center" the steering wheel (to keep the car straight you have to keep the wheel turned right about 5-8*) and I am going to make sure our normal service writer puts their A team mechanics on it. Even with those things, the new tires feel so much better. Much more comfortable over bumps and road imperfections. Very curious to see how these handle the elements!

WRXtranceformed

And it turns out the service center's alignment machine was broken ... the car is aligned just fine :P