Yokohama Geolander A/T-S for a minivan?

[R_Lefebvre]

My wife's Pontiac Montana needs new tires. It came with Goodyear Eagle LS-2's in 225/60/17. There's not a ton of choices in this size, well ok there are, but they all seem to be the same, they all tend to be grand touring tires. While the OEM tires worked well on dry roads and in the rain, they are really quite horrible in the snow and ice, as are all new-age all-seasons.

IMO, the current crop of "all-season" tires are completely biased to ride quality, low noise, and low rolling resistance. Any pretense of snow-traction went out the window a while ago. Most are basically slicks with a few radial grooves for water.

I'd been planning on getting her some winter tires, but now she needs new summer tires too. Turns out Yokohama Geolander A/T-S is available in the right size. I'd consider this a pretty good compromise tire. It looks a lot more like what an all-season used to be. I'm thinking if I went with a set of these, we'd have the new summer tires we need, and also the winter tires we want.

The van gets driven on lots of trips, towing, and occaisionally gravel roads. I'm really only concerned with tread noise, but the reviews at TireRack seem to be pretty good in this regard. The Geolanders in that size are P tires, not LT's, so I don't think it'd mess up the handling too much. Thoughts?

 

[cmgraves]

I use consumer reports for helping me determine which tire would work best for my needs, and so far it has been highly succesful.

From that, the tire for the light car all season tire with the highest rating for snow and ice condition is the Hancock Optimo H727. This tire will handle any gravel road you throw at it, but also, not be loud down the highway or decrease fuel mpg.


The Yokohma Geolander is the 2nd best for all terrian tire, but has terrible ratings for snow and ice traction.

good luck, there are so many freaking options.

 

[Martinjmpr]

I had AT-S Geolanders on my Taco and they worked fine in the snow and ice.

 

[mtnbike28]

AT-S too

Last winter on brand new Geo AT-Ss was fine. Lets see how they do after a year of use this winter...

 

[R_Lefebvre]

How are they for noise? I'm minorly concerned about milage, but I'm not sure anybody could even compare that.

 

[mtnbike28]

noise...

I don't notice mine at all. They replaced a set of BFG ATs that I also didn't notice.

Maybe it is just white noise to me now. But I regularly drive without the radio on, so I think I would notice. I will listen in the AM ; )

 

[kuh]

I had a set of geolander AT/S on my 2001 odyssey. Prior to that I had BFG all terrains.

The Geolanders are quieter then the BFGs. I had about 30K on the tires before I traded it in.

they looked like new and the ride was softer than the BFGs and quieter, not as quiet as all season passenger radials. The BFGs had almost 60K before I replaced them with the geolanders. They worked fine in the snow and rain. I had them siped at discount tire.

I switched to AT tires because I had to replace tires at 25K with passenger tires.

 

[ratkin]

I put a set of 235/60R-16 (OEM size) Yokohama Geolandar A/T-S on the wife's XL-7 to replace the Michelin touring tires last year. No issues on FS roads, lakeside grass, muddy field, or the three times we got snow & ice down here in the ATL! :wings:

Neither handling or noise has been an issue for her. Mileage? I've lost way more to the grain alchol they've blended in than any I could atribute to the tires! :Wow1:

Hope this helps!

- Richard

 

[R_Lefebvre]

Yeah, it is helpful. Sounds like it's not that bad of an idea.

Kuh: So... any idea how the noise compares to say... a set of passenger car winter tires? That, I could tollerate. I have Cooper S/T's on my truck, and I do not want that noise on the van.

The van got decent milage out of the OEM tires. We're at about 50,000km I think. I neglected to rotate them, so the fronts are just about done. I put them on the back and the backs to the front have about 50% life left. They're still OK in the wet, but I don't want to go into winter like this. Last winter was tollerable only because she hardly drove.

 

[ratkin]

Neither handling or noise has been an issue for her.

Sorry, I should have been clearer. The sound from the Geolanders is just about the same as the Michelins. A slighter different sound, but not louder. On pavement handling, even in the rain, is amazingly better than I expected. I don't think you could go wrong by putting them on the wife's van.

 

[digitaldelay]

Nokian WRG2 SUV

Sounds like the perfect time to try the Nokian WRG2 SUV all-weather tire. All the benefits of a dedicated winter tire, but you can leave them on all year. Best of all, no second set of rims/tires clogging up the garage!

http://www.nokiantires.com/tyre?id=11955&group=2.01.02&name=Nokian+WRG2+SUV

You can find them at Kal Tire.

Jason

 

[The Adam Blaster]

You don't want Hankook 727's, if you go that route, you'd want the 725's.
The 727's are WAY too hard of a compound to provide decent grip in the colder weather. The 725's handle much better for an all season tire.

Regarding the Yoko AT/S's, I think the slightly increased noise over your OE tires wouldn't be obnoxious, and the grip overall would be a huge increase. But as you've noted, all OE tires are designed to be quiet and have low rolling resistance to of course help with the fuel economy ratings.

You may want to look at the Goodyear Tripletreads, they sound like they may work for you as well. They're designed with diffeent compounds through the tread to help in dry, wet, as well as winter/ice conditions. The chain store I now work for sells tons of them.

I have also heard some good things about that Nokian all season/all weather tire as well. However, I have no persnal experience with them and have never sold them.

I'm not sure how much gravel you drive with the van, but out of all the ones I've mentioned, I think the Yoko's would probably hold up the best.
Gravel is probably the single worst thing to expose tires to that just chews them up and shortens their lifespan. There's not a tire out there that will hold up really well against gravel, and give you good winter traction. A hard compound that holds up against gravel won't grip well in icy conditions and vice versa.

I always advise one set of true winters and a set of all seasons or summers.
That's what I run on my own vehicles, including the wife's.

 

[R_Lefebvre]

Adam, one of my friends was just making fun of me because I was a winter tire nut in the past as well, castisizing him for not running dedicated snows.

Things change when you have kids and dropping $1200 on a set of snow tires and dedicated wheels isn't so easy.

Seriously though, if it wasn't for the fact this stupid van takes special wheels and I can't get cheap steelies, I would get snows. Also, the winters here are fairly mild (relatively speaking) and you can make do with just good all-seasons.

The problem is good all-seasons are very hard to find now. I also drive the van much differently than my other cars.

The tread on these doesn't look very good for the snow?

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Goodyear&tireModel=Assurance+TripleTred

Sounds like the perfect time to try the Nokian WRG2 SUV all-weather tire. All the benefits of a dedicated winter tire, but you can leave them on all year. Best of all, no second set of rims/tires clogging up the garage!

Those look pretty good. Actually remind me a lot of the Dunlop Wintersport M3's I had on my WRX. Those tires were phenomenal. Great in snow, ok on ice, and on dry pavement they gripped better than the OEM all-seasons. I actually didn't want to take them off in the spring. The only downside was some noise. They even handled better than the OEM's. The tires that Subaru put on the WRX were absolutely tragic.

Now that I think about it... maybe these are the answer:

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Dunlop&tireModel=Grandtrek+SJ6

 

[The Adam Blaster]

The tread on these doesn't look very good for the snow?

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Goodyear&tireModel=Assurance+TripleTred



Now that I think about it... maybe these are the answer:

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Dunlop&tireModel=Grandtrek+SJ6

I know the Tripletreads don't look that great, but apparently they do test fairly well. Are you more concerned about deep snow traction, or more ice over ashphalt/black ice traction? I know some of the winter tires designed for snow have a deeper tread on them, and when you drive on the highway, the tires will sometimes pull and drift a bit.
A true ice tire has a bit shallower tread and you won't get that squishy feeling as much.
IMO - driving 99% on surface streets and highway, take the ice tires over the snow tires. It's a lot less safe to go sliding around on black ice at highway speeds than it is getting stuck in a snow drift at 25 km/h.


And those Dunlop SJ6's are dedicated winter tires, so you'll run into the issue that they will wear very quickly in the summer heat.

Recently I've been running into more and more people that just straight out run winter tires 100% of the time. The climate is obviously very different out here than it is in eastern ON. When it gets below freezing on a regular basis by early October, and doesn't stay above freezing until mid-May, leaving winter tires on all year round really isn't that bad of an idea both from a safety as well as a financial perspective. The tires will likely last almost 4 years if you don't drive too much...

I'm not sure how much you drive the van in any given year, but if it's under 15,000 km, you may want to consider going this route.

I hear you on the cost issue though, it's pretty easy for me to suggest getting 2 sets of rims and tires when I get smoking deals on both.
But in all seriousness, there's no safer way to go than dedicated tires for the different times of the year.

 

[Flagster]

I had AT-S Geolanders on my Taco and they worked fine in the snow and ice.

second!
Mine have been great for 2+ winters in N. AZ...