When talking about vehicular maintenance and performance, tires are a very important subject. You need different tires, tire compounds, tire types, tire treads, and even tire sizes, depending on what you plan on using your vehicle for. Not every vehicle uses the same kind of tires, and not every type of tire is best for every type of activity. So what are some of the best tires you can get for your vehicle? Well, we can go through some of the options you may want to consider for the kind of vehicle you have.
Best Tires for a Sedan
If you’re rocking a sedan or a coupe or a hatchback – anything that fits within the standard car family – then you’re going to want to go with either seasonal tires or all-season tires. If you live in a state where the weather varies – going from extra hot in the summer to wet and slushy during the winter – then all-season tires are your best bet.
The benefit of all-season tires is that they have treads specifically designed for each of the four seasons, including sipes on the treads between the grooves to extricate water and snow, which help maintain grip for the tire on the road, which in turn helps the vehicle maintain traction. Virtually all top brand name tire manufacturers provide all-season tires for sedans, including but not limited to Michelin, Bridgestone, and Pirelli, to name a few.
However, if you live in a state where the weather is dry or arid all year round, then summer tires would probably be preferable. Summer tires sacrifice cold-weather performance but give you extra grip when the roads are warm and dry. Alternatively, if you live in a state that sees lots of below-freezing weather with snow and ice, then you will want to get a set of snow tires for the winter months. While all-season tires can handle mild winters, they do not provide the same level of grip as real winter tires.
Best Tires for a Pickup Truck
This can be tricky because pickup trucks are multi-purpose vehicles for today’s generation of drivers. Sometimes they’re used as frequently for commercial work as they’re used for running errands and commuting. You might also find that it’s a recreational vehicle, a work vehicle, and even a family vehicle. Today’s pickup truck has to serve many different roles, not unlike parents who have to fulfill multiple roles dealing with all the painstaking ins-and-outs of busy family life. But don’t worry, there are tires for that.
For a pickup truck used as an all-purpose vehicle, your best bet is all-terrain tires. These don’t provide the best comfort levels due to the design of the tire’s surface, with large tread blocks and sipes designed to provide grip on mud, dirt, and gravel; thus, you’re giving up a lot of flat surface area on the tire to gain a tire that can handle difficult terrain. This makes them noisier than touring tires, all-season tires, or summer tires, but they’re also designed with a purpose.
All-terrain tires are perfect for when you take your truck off the road. An all-terrain tire is specifically designed to give you the best performance on smooth surfaces, just the same as on uneven terrain. Unlike mud-terrain tires though, all-terrain tires can still handle flat, dry surfaces much like a summer tire. So you don’t have to worry about the treads wearing down as quickly as a mud tire since the treads on those tires are specifically designed to protrude with a convex surface to help maintain grip or gain traction on slippery, jagged, or uneven surfaces. If you don’t regularly take your pickup off the beaten path, then typical all-season truck tires might be a better fit.
Best Tires for a Sports Car
If high performance is at your beck and call behind the wheel of a sports car, then there’s really no argument that you need high-performance tires. If you own a vehicle like a Dodge Challenger, a Ford Mustang, or a Chevy Corvette and you typically push the limits on the highway or open roads, then there’s really no argument that high-performance tires will net you the best results.
Typically, high-performance all-season tires are a good way to go if you have to deal with some uneven weather patterns. They really aren’t good for heavy snow at all, but summers with light sprinkles, spring season with occasional rain, or chilly fall weather where the roads aren’t the warmest are where the high-performance all-season tires come into play. They can also be used if there is some occasional light snow on the road, but you want to avoid driving a sports car in heavy winter storms anyway.
High-performance summer tires are the best for sports cars because they provide a lot of grip on the road thanks to having a large, mostly smooth surface available for the tire to make contact with the road. The all-season variants of these tires reduce performance by including some grooves or sipes to help eject water from the tire’s surface, making high-performance summer tires your best choice for maximum comfort, control, and traction. Michelin, Bridgestone, and Continental are renowned for their high-performance tires, but if you’re itching to take your sports car to the local track, then you may have to swap those high-performance treads for genuine competition tires.
Best Tires for an SUV
One might think that whatever works for a pickup truck or a sedan would also work well for an SUV. However, that’s not always the case. The SUV category covers a wide array of different vehicle types, each with its own purpose. This makes it difficult to recommend a single best tire for SUVs, and it will depend heavily on what you use your SUV for.
If you own something like a Toyota RAV4 or a Chevy Equinox, then car-like all-season tires will probably be your best bet. However, if your SUV is a Ford Bronco or a Jeep Wrangler, then you likely want some real mud-terrain tires. If you have a traditional SUV, like a Chevy Suburban or a Nissan Armada, then all-terrain tires might be your best bet. And if you have a luxury performance SUV like a BMW X5 M or a Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk, then you should probably be shopping for performance tires to bring out its full potential.
If you aren’t sure what sort of tire to get for your SUV, then you should find a reputable tire shop and talk with the staff about your options. When in doubt, look up what type of tires your SUV originally came with. While they may not be the perfect tires for your exact driving style, the manufacturers will usually fit their cars with solid choices that cover a wide array of driving styles.
Finding The Right Tire For You
Be sure to examine what tire best fits your vehicle and what sort of performance you expect out of it, as well as longevity. Think about where you drive often or what you use your vehicle for to determine which of the tires best suits your vehicular lifestyle. By choosing the best tires possible tire for your needs, you can improve your vehicle’s performance, fuel efficiency, safety, and comfort. This makes it well worth your time to find the perfect tires for your car, truck, or SUV.