Mazda Tires

Initial Review, 2,000 Miles on Tires
April 05, 2005

They are a predictable tire when throwing it around. The lateral grip isnt what Im used to, though it should last longer than my previous tires. I am certain I cant get over 1g of lateral grip on these liky my Azenis, but they are fun. They step out in a very predictable manner then pushed hard on the Miata.



Just put them on my wifes Protege and they are a lot of fun on that. Lift throttle oversteer is beautiful on this tire. For the price you cant go wrong.

Initial Review, 20,000 Miles on Tires
March 30, 2013

Wow!!! THis is hands down THE BEST high performance street tire out there. It's the perfect balance of quiet smooth driving, AMAZING wet performance and great dry traction. It's not as good in the dry as a Hankook RS3 or Pilot Super Sport, nor as quiet as a grand touring tire designed for the ultimate in comfort, but it IS the best of all worlds. As I said...the wet traction is the best out there from what I've found. And all this grip with a long tread life? Wow. :) I can't wait to buy another set!

Initial Review, 2,500 Miles on Tires
March 02, 2010

This is more a review of these tires on my specific car.



Great in the snow, absolutely great. The more snow the better, or so it seems. Braking is easily better than all-seasons, as is handling and acceleration. Wet snow is noticable more difficult to maintain control, however. Now for the bad news, seemingly terrible in the slush. Not sure if it is my car or the tires, but the car gets pushed around very easily by even small amounts of slush. I tend to believe it has more to do with my cars suspension, weight, and width to wheelbase ratio than the tires though. Easier to drive through 6 inches of snow than 1 inch of slush. Fun to have a car willing to rotate on dry roads, but not so much on wet winter slush.



Dry roads are mixed, as these things like to grab every little pebble and sand grain the road commission dumps on Michigan. Slip and control is well within tolerance though, and really only becomes an issue in spirited driving. It takes very little to spin the inside wheel accelerating through a tight corner if there is any sand, debris. Clean roads are great in the dry though. Some tire wandering above 65 mph, although determined mostly by road surface. Tires seem to move and stretch a noticable amount more above freezing temperatures, although this is only apparent driving back to back temperature differences.



Very quiet tire, almost as quiet as the non-OEM all-seasons that I had on before. (Coopers?) Much quieter than my father and bro-in-laws Blizzak Revo's. Stock wheels are 17", these are on 16", I notice more rebounding motion from the tires than stock, although small imperfections are slightly smoothed over versus stock. In retrospect, I should have gone with 17" as the extra sidewall can be felt in hard acceleration. Not sure on tread-wear yet.



In summary on my Mazda 6s, great on the snow, bad in slush, matches wet(rain) A/S performance, dependable dry weather performance and a very quiet ride for snow tires.

Initial Review, 10,000 Miles on Tires
March 11, 2013

This is my second set of these tires. My first set I had on an Acura RSX and they handled amazingly well with that car. So I purchased for my new FWD Mazda 3 Hatchback and mounted them on my stock rims. These tires are amazing in the snow. The car handles like an AWD car now with these tires.

I did some winter camping with friends that had 4WD trucks and to get to the campsite, you had to drive up a pretty steep snow covered dirt road, then drive down a snowmobile trail. The combination of these tires, traction control and manual transmission helped me get up the hill and to the campsite no problem. My friends with the 4WD trucks were making fun of me for wanting to try it, until I got to the top of the hill....they were pretty impressed.

For the price/functionality...buy these tires.

Initial Review, 25,000 Miles on Tires
March 17, 2013

Great tire. Nice and quiet. Decent response. Smooth ride... I'm no crazy driver but I do once in a while like to drive fast. My first concern was about 10-11k miles in when I was driving on wet road. I was making a decent curve and right away I noticed the car was going out of control. I never had that problem with them but I guess traction was reduced already. Ever since that day, I would be super careful driving in the rain. Great in the snow. We don't get crazy snow in North Jersey but it handle pretty well. Didn't leave me stuck anywhere. The one thing I did not like was the soft sidewall. Here in NJ we some of the worse roads I driven on and these tires didn't not like it. Three of them developed bubbles due to impact. Most of the impacts weren't as bad as of the ones I hit when my old falken 912 tires. When I saw bubbles, I was really disappointed. Tire still had good amount thread left and I was force to get new tires. :( Overall, I would recommend this tire but I would be more careful while driving but in NJ that's almost impossible. I didn't like that tirerack doesn't let you buy hazard protection if the manufacture offers it. This tire offer for 1 year or 1st 2/32nd thread but I was way over. I was stuck getting new tires..

Initial Review, 3,000 Miles on Tires
March 11, 2013

I bought a Mazda Protege a few years ago that came with a set of these along with some summer tires. Prior to that I had only ever used All seasons. WOW huge difference in the winter. I live in Rochester NY and we can get some pretty strong snow storms and in the 3 years of using these I only lost traction when buried in tons of snow or when I did something dumb. I also ran them in the summer once and the tred wear was not bad.

I now have a Mazda 2 and put these on a month ofter getting it because the all seasons it came with are junk. I highly recommend these tires.

Initial Review, 43,000 Miles on Tires
March 06, 2013

I've had these original equipment tires for over 40K miles and three New England winters. I'm surprised at some of the other reviews showing very low mileage as I am not yet ready for replacements and I don't drive conservatively. Also, these are not snow tires and "all season" is a BS industry marketing ploy. I haven't needed to switch to winter tires but I drive carefully knowing stopping distance in snow is worse than with snow tires. Duh. Overall, these have been excellent tires. I may or may not get a second set when the time comes but only because I don't like the premium price compared to some other reasonable replacement tires such as the Yokohama PradaX. Beware of some of the exaggerated negative reviews although perhaps Honda and Toyota have matched the tire poorly but my Mazda has done just fine.

Initial Review, 2,000 Miles on Tires
March 04, 2013

I’ve used two other brands of snow tires before buying these, General (Articmax) and Bridgestone (Blizzak).
First impression is that in the dry weather, these ride more like an all season tire. The Generals and Bridgestones were very loud and kind of felt squirmy at highway speeds. Once you got used to is, it was fine. The Dunlops are smooth, quiet and responsive at all speeds.
On to the Snow, these are about 80% of the other two in the snow. They are still good, but not as sure footed, especially in heavy slush conditions. With the other two, I felt like my Mazda was an SUV!! I don’t have the same confidence with these, but if you drive “normally” they will get you were you need go without much drama.
Overall, I think they are a good tire, but just not up to the level of the other 2 I have used. I cannot comment on tire wear, as this is the first season.

Initial Review, 2,000 Miles on Tires
March 10, 2013

Have driven these tires through 3 major storms and have not had a single issue with starting, turning, or stopping in the snow or slush. In deep snow, these tires just bite down and keep moving. Handling, noise, and ride in the dry are on par with an average all-season tire. These tires are average in the wet and are perfectly capable for normal day to day driving - definitely better than what I was expecting from previous reviews. My set of tires were made in Germany so that is a definite plus. I would definitely purchase again.

Initial Review, 10,000 Miles on Tires
March 04, 2013

Excellent Summer tire, good dry grip, reasonable in the wet. Autocrossed a few times with these instead of usual A6's and found them to have an easy and progressive break away. May go to a bigger size and run the road tire class this year. Les

Initial Review, 30,000 Miles on Tires
February 21, 2013

This tire seemed to be better on wear then what we bought before

Initial Review, 3,500 Miles on Tires
February 28, 2013

Great for light snow and slippery roads. Not the best for deep snow but way better than all season. Tire performance in wet conditions is excellent overall. Handling is only slightly less than the OEM Bridgestones. Cornering on dry salty roads could use a little improvement

Initial Review, 1,500 Miles on Tires
January 08, 2013

Initially there is a tire pull or torque steer with these tires upon acceleration and deceleration. I had them rotated and most of that issue is gone. These are directional tires so it's hard to figure out which tire has the manufacturing issue causing the tire pull. The Sumitumos that were on it before dd not have this issue.

Initial Review, 3,000 Miles on Tires
January 31, 2013

Four of these tires with studs makes a front-wheel drive car a brilliant performer on ice!

We live on a gentle hill that became slick as snot after freezing rain last week. It was so slick that it was perilous to walk down the sidewalk. But with their studs, these tires did great -- going down the hill our Mazda 3 never lost any traction. Even when I tried stepping hard on the brake, these studded tires did not slip even a little.

Besides ice, we've driven on a couple of inches of snow and with a set of four we had no problem in our front-wheel drive Mazda 3.

I bought these from TireRack, who also installed the studs and mounted them on rims. What we received from TireRack was ready to mount on the car, which we did at a cost of $25 at the local tire shop at the beginning of the snowy season. This was a good customer experience.

Initial Review, 1,000 Miles on Tires
February 12, 2013

Tires seem to have better traction (both wet and dry) and ride quality that the Kumho ASX's I had on the car previously. Seems to be a much better made tire. Hopefully I can get more than 24K miles on these, as this has been the most mileage I have gotten off of any of the ultra high performance all season tires I have had on my MazdaSpeed 6.

Initial Review, 8,000 Miles on Tires
February 25, 2013

Bought that because of the all-terrain capabilities, along with the fact that these are rated "severe snow", which is required by law during winter time where I am.

Excellent traction on snow, sand, dirt, asphalt (wet and dry), but this is definitely NOT an ice tire.

My biggest surprise was very low noise these tires make, even with such a big and aggressive thread.

Sidewalls are very hard, which makes the ride less comfortable compared to OEM tires, but ---- these tires are tough : driven in massive potholes at high speed and no damage whatsoever.

Will definitely buy again.

Initial Review, 10,000 Miles on Tires
January 07, 2013

I have about 10,000 miles on these tires now. I drive very aggressive and came from a set of Aurora H107's. Those were rated as all seasons but are definitely summer only with unmatched treadwear and dry cornering paired with nonexistent wet traction, hydroplaning and snow traction. The car slides around in the rain as if I was on ice. It won't even move in the snow.

I needed to trade my performance for practicality. Enter the Kuhmo ecsta4x. The dry cornering just isn't there compared to the Aurora's, but it's still good enough even for me. Hydroplaning and wet traction is excellent. Driving 80 through a downpour is stable and easily done. Snow traction is acceptable, deep snow traction is less than acceptable - but that's what I have my snow tire set for.

Treadwear is iffy. 10k on them and they're halfway done (but again very aggressive driving).

I would recommend these tires to an aggressive or average driver that wants a great balance between wet and dry traction.

Initial Review, 42,000 Miles on Tires
February 12, 2013

Rock Solid performance through 6 seasons of winter in Ottawa Ontario, where snow arrives and generally stays, and ice and slush conditions abound from late November through to early April. Never stuck and never in a steer and pray condition. Great tire to mate with the 2.3L dZi Turbo that gives the CX-7 its ZoomZoom.

Initial Review, 10,000 Miles on Tires
February 12, 2013

Since I bought these we have not had deep snow so I can not coment on there deep snow ability. They are very good in light snow and they have worn very well, still showing almost no wear after almost 10K miles. The negatioves about these tires are they significant noiser then the bridgstones that come with the car and you loose about 1.5 miles a gallon (36.8 with the factor Bridgestoe all- seasons vs 35.2 on the Altrimax snows), handlin g in the dry and wet is about the same, they are much, much better even in light snow slush and black ice. The MPG is not a bad trade off for the better winter ability of the tier. The noise was expected afteall it has a much more aggressive tread. I also take my dog to the park often and these tires are also much better on dirt roads, makes the car feel like it has 4 wheel drive, much better traction on dirt, no slipping or sliding.

Initial Review, 4,000 Miles on Tires
February 12, 2013

As a winter and race track instructor I really appreciate the excellent ice and snow handling characteristics and much lower noise level this latest member of the x-ice family present.