Dunlap Star Spec II 215/45/17 Great sticky summer tire. Don't use my 06 in the winter so these are the only tires.
I've got a set of DWS 215 40 18 with less than 500 miles on them that I'll sell cheap. The worst tire I've ever owned....soft sidewall....no grip ....bad handling. All seasons should be renamed no seasons. They are made to be a compromise for everything and excel at nothing. Buy snow tires for winter and summer tires for summer. (Off my soapbox now)
Mark, Not everyone drive like us and all seasons work for them. But then anything would seem like driving on ice after driving on R compounds.
Warning my opinion here.... R compounds on cold dry pavement are the equivalent of ice driving. :wink: My 10 cents worth: What tire is best is like what oil is best. Everyone has their favorite & there won't be universal agreement. Me I like a high performance summer tire, but hate that when the temps drop in fall they can be quite dicey. For that reason I run a high performance A/S tire. Yes it is a compromise, but for me it works with good road holding in the dry & great road holding in the wet. For winter nothing beats a dedicated winter tire.
I am running Kumho 4x high performance all seasons. Mine are a 225-45-17, but that is a GTI size. On Babs Clubster we run the same tire in 205-50-16. I'm thinking we will get 40,000 miles or so out of her set. I liked those tires enough that when I needed to put tires on the GTI I went & bought the same ones. There is a new version of this tire & it comes with a $100 rebate. http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Kumho&tireModel=Ecsta+4X+II
Winter - Blizzaks, 205-50-16 Rest of the year - Firestone Precision Touring 205-50-16. In an emergency situation I needed to get a pair of tires so these were the best of what was in stock, what would fit, and what I was willing to pay for. They were surprisingly good for what they were, so when I replaced the other pair a few months later, I got two more just to keep the car on a uniform set. Are they a tire I want to run on a track or even autocross? Absolutely not. But they are reasonably competent and quiet, and a particularly good rain tire.
"Reasonably competent" is a crying shame for a MINIs tires. That's like sponsoring Usain Bolt in a footrace and giving him flip flops to wear.
By way of comparison, the stock run flats are not reasonably competent. I don't like them as much as the Hancook Ventus that I had previously, but I actually like these better than a set of Kumho Ecsta I used to have. There are certainly better options available, but I just wanted to point out that some out-of-the-norm options aren't that bad.
2003 R53 runs on Kumho Ecsta XS 215/45R17, looking at the list I might be the only one. 2013 GP2 runs on Yokohama Yokohama Advan AD08R 215/40R17
The tread pattern on those tires looks interesting. That's the nicest think I can say about them. No, wait. They are also round and black, and they keep the wheels from touching the ground. There. Those are the nicest things I can say about those tires. I had them (in 215/45-17 size) for only about 4K miles. Then I could take tremendous noise they made no longer. The tires had the full roar of an off-road mudder tire on a 4X4. They drove me crazy. I pulled them off and sold them on eBay to some poor soul and got a set of proper tires instead. Trust me, in matters involving money, I don't usually make rash or impulsive decisions. But I was happy to lose money on those tires and see them go far, far away.
I ran 2 sets of the KDW's and absolutely loved them. They need rotated every 1500 miles or so to keep them from sounding like s truck, but they performed well for summer tires. I'm sorry to see BFG quit making them. Here's a photo of them on my Coupe.
Tire rotations every 1,500 miles so they don't sound like a freight train? Why, how perfectly reasonable. :crazy:
This is definitely a case of "your mileage may vary", though I wonder why that is. I like them. I hardly notice any road noise at all and I rotate mine between 3 and 5K.