What tyres?

[Superpep]

Hi all, newbie here. Just about to pick up my first Subaru....23 plate XV SE Premium. Looking forward to it, test drive was great and now thinking of tyres. Car currently has a very odd mixture of two different economy brands (on different axles as well 🤨), plus one Dueler. Terrible. 

My question is, I live very rural....think muddy single track roads, potholes, loose surfaces, soft verges when meeting traffic, steep hills etc etc (rural mid Wales). Replacing a surprisingly capable '63 plate Duster 4x4, but that is shod with proper off-road tyres, so not really suited to normal road driving. 

So, question is what are the best all season tyres that actually work in mud and snow to pop on the XV?

[Scoobyfoz]

I've been using continental All Season Contact, and Goodyear vector all seasons on my Outback and Levorg for the last few years, also in rural Wales, and they've been faultless, especially in slimy wet conditions. Highly recommended.

[Superpep]

Cheers

 

I've got it down to four, so unless someone has got a horror story about any particular one, I'll probably go on cost. 

Michelin Cross Climate 3 - £577.35 (Blackcircles inc 15% discount)

continental All Season Contact 2 - £507.72 (Blackcircles inc 15% discount)

Goodyear Vector 4Season Gen3- £507.93 (Blackcircles inc 15% discount)

Pirelli Cinturato All Season SF 3 - £528 (Kwik fit including a 20% discount)

 

 

 

[Scoobyfoz]

There's very little to choose between those options, they're all as good as each other, so yes, buy on price and availability.

[Justin Time]

7 hours ago, Superpep said:

Cheers

 

I've got it down to four, so unless someone has got a horror story about any particular one, I'll probably go on cost. 

Michelin Cross Climate 3 - £577.35 (Blackcircles inc 15% discount)

Continental All Season Contact 2 - £507.72 (Blackcircles inc 15% discount)

Goodyear Vector 4Season Gen3- £507.93 (Blackcircles inc 15% discount)

Pirelli Cinturato All Season SF 3 - £528 (Kwik fit including a 20% discount)

 

 

 

The above review gives some good advice.  On my partner's new Skoda Karoq 4x4 we put these, last winter:

https://www.pirelli.com/tyres/en-gb/car/catalogue/product/cinturato-all-season-sf-3

As the winter was mild, it wasn't really an opportunity to test them, but all seemed good anyway.

On my Outback, I swop tyres: summer to full winter, about now, so we have one car at least at home which can get us in and out should things really get hairy and we need to venture out.   We live in very rural north Pennines at just under 2000 feet altitude, up a steep narrow single track lane, so it can get interesting!

Quite frankly, with milder winters and the vast improvement in all-season tyres, once my Michelin Alpin 5 SUV tyres are too worn, I'll probably buy some all seasons too. 

 

 

[Mark]

I also did some research and decided to go for Crossclimate 3 for my XV. On getting a price I found the 102 XL was lower than the Subaru 98 load rated standard fit. Just wonder if anyone had fitted the higher load rated 102 XL and if the ride comfort would be affected. Price from Asda tyres. 

[Superpep]

I went for 98 as opposed to 102 purely due to the ride comfort concerns. They were about £4 a tyre more, but didn't think that was much of an issue. 

Unbelievably, picked up a nail art the Le Shuttle terminal on one of the tyres and had to use a repair kit, which did nothing, then recovery, who were excellent, put a repair plug in which is holding well. Quandary now is that although the recovery guy said that the repair is long term (used on lorries with very high PSI's and holding fine for at least six months), I'm now left with a brand new tyre that possibly can't be permanently repaired due to use of repair gunk, but has a possible long term repair in place. So frustrating! Do I bite the bullet and buy a new tyre or just sit on the repair and hope it holds for the duration of the tyre wear?