Tires Firestone or Nokia
Honestly, if you have the option to get the Nokian Hakkas I would grab those. I had Nokian Haakas when I had my Golf about 8 years ago for 4 winters in Montreal. I used to drive to the mountains to go snowboarding with my daughter on weekends at the cottage and never had an issue with driving. We get ice, dumps of snow, slush and just about everything you can get in a winter season that always seems to last forever. Looooooved the Haakas.
For a guy who lives in Finnish coast. We used Nokian since it is local, but other brands and models that I often see are Michelin X Ice and Michelin studded tyre variant, Continental Viking Contact or its studded variant, lastly Goodyear Ultragrip Ice or its studded variant.
My work van has the Nokian Remedy WR G5 after coming off of Toyo Celsius (yeah, never going down the Toyo road again with a passenger all-weather tire, at least in the foreseeable future), so far they have been solid and performed well this fall, much quieter and more stable than the Toyos...
Im a high mileage driver 80k per year for work driving across Canadian Prairies and into Rocky mountains and I take the Nokian R5 every winter. You get -40 black ice roads with high cross winds in a tall minivan and never hit the ditch or gotten into accident with them. Handles deep snow with 0 issues too.
i run 195/60R16 Nokian Haakepelittas for winter and brother let me tell YOU, i'm very cautious about when i get into VTEC while driving on dry asphalt with them.
2013 cooper s bought new. Came with conti all season runflats, couldn't put down power. No grip. Harsh.
Not a month later went to Michelin A/S pilot sport all-seasons.. better, but still couldn't mash the gas coming out of a corner.
5 years later went to the ones I still run today, the Firestone Indy 500. Posh ride, great grip, and I can put full power in 2nd coming out of a corner. Behaves identical to the Yokohama S.Drives I used to have on my Rx-8. Where I live it doesn't even get down to 45\*F so I don't worry about all-seasons anymore. These do magnificent in the wet, too.
I got firestone firehawk as v2 from costco, i don't regret buying it as i can take corner really fast and good tread wear after 17k miles
Firestones will have the best handling characteristics of the 3 options for spirited driving. Michelens the worst.
Firestone fire hawks, summer tire, but all four was around $600
that's just a Firestone employee doing their upsell activity - same reason why the Jiffy Lube clowns like to tell you that you are overdue for transmission or brake fluid service.
Write your review
Help others - share your experience with this part.