Cheap vs Expensive Sports Car Tires: Does Price Really Equal Grip?
Does the old trope "you get what you pay for" really ring true when it comes to performance-oriented summer tires? Consumer Reports set out to see if there really is a correlation, though the findings aren't as clear-cut as you might expect.
First, some lingo: Theoretical tire quality is rated on the Uniform Tire Quality Grading (UTQG) scale, though it's not perfectly apples-to-apples across the board since each manufacturer assigns scores to their own tires.
Consumer Reports (CR) put 14 high-performance summer tires through the wringer in a bid to find out if the so-called more premium (i.e., more expensive) tires are in fact better when it comes to reality, and whether the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) traction scale (AA, A, B, C) is true to form.
From the test track, CR found that only the Firestone Firehawk Indy 500 ($149/tire in the tested size) was the sole tire not capable of hitting the AA UTQG score. And yet, it still brought home an A rating overall.
What's really interesting is that the grading gave 13 tires — roughly 93% for you math aficionados —an AA rating. This includes everything from the budget-minded Sumitomo HTR Z5 ($147/tire) to the most costly tire in the test, the Michelin Pilot Sport 4s ($242/tire).
Here's the catch: As Jalopnik points out, Tire Rack's (perhaps even more thorough) testing reveals slightly different results. Instead of the Michelins being best-in-test, Continental's Extreme Contact Sport 02 gets the nod. Ratings (scaled from 0-10) run from 9.5 on the top end to 8.7 on the low end — still excellent.
Long story short, spending less doesn't necessarily mean a dramatically worse tire; in some cases, it might mean something of an equally effective grip. However, it's important to remember that there's more to tires than just sheer grip (in most instances; we're not talking about you track rats out there). Road noise, longevity, and warranty still matter in the real world, and both Consumer Reports' and Tire Rack's respective testing only handles the initial part of a tire's life.
Your mileage may well literally vary.
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Based in Connecticut, Ross hosts The Hooniverse Podcast. He has been in the off-road world since he was a kid riding in the back of his dad’s YJ Wrangler. He works in marketing by day and in his free time contributes to Hooniverse, AutoGuide, and ATV.com, and in the past has contributed to UTV Driver, ATV Rider, and Everyday Driver. Ross drives a 2018 Lexus GX460 that is an ongoing build project featured on multiple websites and the podcast.
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