gainful

Just wondering how this company survived when it only makes crappy tires. All the ratings on the forums or tireracks are giving them lowest ratings.


WInter is approaching, i am thinking to get a set of better tires for my TL to replace the Turanzas, what would you recommend? Yokohama A4s?

mickey3c

SO3s are great... you would be better off checking tire rack and see the ratings for dry handling, wet handling, speed ratings, wear ratings, you name it...

One typical rule of thumb, the better they perform the faster they wear out and the more expensive they may get.

shingles

Bridgestones has always had good tires. It just depends what you are looking for.

RE71 - old school no longer made.
S02
S03
ALL fantastic performance tires.

The turanza line of all weather stuff, isn't that great for performance, but decent touring tires.

JDM5lugHatch

Oh course they make good tires. Maybe there cheaper stuff isn't all that great but it's not as bad as people make them to be. I have had good years and you know why they are named that? It's because if they last that it will be a good year. Bridgestone Potenza S03's rock!!! I had those on my WRX and they are some of the best high performance tires on the market. Then they have RE070's which are some bad ass R compounds. There are RE92's also which come on the WRX and some other cars as well. The only problem with these are they aren't even close to being a performance tire because they have soft sidewalls. However, they offer decent snow traction for an all season. If you use S03's in the winter I hope you have life insurance.

If you want an awesome All-Weather tire get some Nokian WR's. You won't be sorry.

leeherman

I've had two Toyotas and the TL come with Bridgestones.

The tires that came with my 1993 Camry and 1999 Solara were pretty crappy.

The TL-42s aren't bad, flat-spotting not withstanding. I haven't driven the TL in the snow but the little wet weather driving I've done has been OK.

richrath

Gainful -- sounds like you want to use all-seasons for winter. This is fine, and being from Philly originally it should work for the conditions you'll face. Winter tires are of course even better, but it's your decision about whether you want to change them twice a year. B'stone Blizzak models are excellent winter tires, as are some michelin (Alpin, for example) and also Consumer Reports likes the Goodyear winter tires -- not sure if they come in the right size for TL.

Anyway, there are a number of solid all-season choices for the TL (stock size) -- as others said, check TireRack and search on the size you want. You can make selections for brands to look for and for types of tire (touring, high-perf, ultra-high perf, winter, etc). You might consider Avon, Conti, Kuhmo, Dunlop & Yokohama from TireRack, and other good choices are Falken, Toyo and Nitto that are handled from other online and brick-and-mortar outlets. The Yoko A4S you mentioned is a fine tire, but only comes in TL size with an H speed rating, below that of the stock tires. You could get away without any serious issues, but you might find the sidewalls softer than V-rated tires and you'll lose some cornering. If you do hard cornering. If not, so what?

And to join the chorus, all tire mfr's make some models that are really good and others that are mediocre (or, Suck, if you like to be dramatic). For instance, I'm using Pirelli P-Zero Neros on my '04 5AT, but that is the only Pirelli model I'd buy, based on what I've read. I love those tires! If I were looking for summer-only performance tires, and didn't want to spend for Michelin PS-2's, I'd look hard at a couple of B'stones (S02, SO3) and for all-season their RE950 isn't bad and neither is their RE750. They are less good in snow than some other choices but are certainly not bad tires.

One just can't make blanket statements about tire mfr's entire product lines. Good/bad tires is all about how you drive, what conditions you drive in, and what your expectations are.

hcekc

Aren't Bridgestones made by Firestone?

toynaround

look into the vredsteins and nokians

mbwmn

after my dealer replaced my Turanza's (goodwill) I drove to the nearest Firestone dealer and got them swapped out for S-03's for the price of mounting and balancing ($65.00). Nice tire, try it- you'll like it! it is a summer only ultra performance tire....

Adobeman

Yes, they make a great tire for the winter....the Blizzak line. Get them for the winter and them get something really exotic just for the summer. All season tires dissapoint all year round. Get good grip in the winter and then put something with outrageous performance on in the summer. The tires you want in the summer have no place in a Philly winter!

shingles

No, bridgestone is the parent company of Firestone.

spyfish007

You and I have EXACTLY the same list. I used to run the RE71s on my old Integra and they were incredible. I was a little dissappointed with the replacement RE710.

They tried to make the OEM turanaz too much of the potenza and that is where the tire fell apart.

cable2

Firestone agreed to replaced my stock Turanza's with a set Potenza RE750's they gave me two new tires and prorated the other 2 (which had 17,000 on them).
I really like the 750, ride is good noise levels are down, traction is great in wet and dry conditions.

Parker75

Please give details how you managed this? I have 13K on my Turanzas and facing the MI winter makes me very nervous after seeing its performance in rain a few weeks ago. Maybe I can use your technique and get a pro-rated replacement to Blizzaks.

SebringSilver

In prehistoric times (basically, when I was still young), Bridgestone made a really good tire called the Expedia S01. Later this was superceded by the improved Potenza S02, and subsequently, the even more "potent" Potenza S03. I've run all three tires on my sportier cars over the years, and all have been excellent.

mtw156

hmmmmm.

cable2

After a couple of conversations with Acura Corporate basically telling them how unsafe these tires were in wet conditions I felt that I was getting nowhere, the admittance from them would have probably run into some legal ramifications for them, they told me the only complaint they recieved was the fact that the tires would wear out around 20K.
At that point I figured I was wasting my time and they were not going to help.

I gave it one last shot called Bridgestone and spoke with someone at their corporate office they listened to my story and put me in touch with my local Firestone store.
The manager at that store inspected my tires got approval to switch out the tires and had a happy customer.
My old Turanza's still had a lot of tread left and were in very good shape I basically told Bridgestone that these tires were horrible in the wet and would hydroplane I even went as far to tell them to check out the reviews on the Tire Rack website.

PoochaKannInc

I bought Nokian WR's to replace my EL42's. Great tire from the reviews, and the dry handling is not bad. I haven't personally put them through the snow yet, but I have high hopes based on reviews.

Parker75

Thanks for this additional info. I will try this out.

crm_codder

Company is OK, they are making tires for F1.
One Acura (cheap!!!) placed on mine TL got replaced long time ago. But I did replaced them with Turanza LSZ and I am fine now. Perfect all season performance tires. For winter I get Pirelli SnowSport 210 with new rims, seems OK too.

Bobzmcishl

I just went on tire rack online site to look at replacements for my EL42's and I asked for "best sellers" and it pulled up the EL42's which are being closed out at $ 142.00 a tire. I can't believe such a lousy tire can sell for that much money.

crm_codder

Sure, EL42 is cheap and worse model Acura could place on TL. But other models (LSZ) are good. I am very happy with them even price is high too.
Don't look on tire models company initially installing, almost same story for any car brands. They are saving money on any item they possibly can.
Also, make sure that Bridgestone tires are made in Japan, slight chance of better quality.

Gansmanms

A lot of dealers are actually buying El42s online (like at Tire Rack) and reselling them at $240 per tire (nice profit) because that was the original tire and of course the Mfr said so.