Dunlop Winter Sport 5 Reviews - Page 3

Bought these tires because my previous Debica Frigo2 were almost done. I changed my tires size also, from 185/65/R14 with 5J iron wheels to 195/55/R15 on alloy with 6.5J and ET35. That is, wider wheels, better tire stretch, wider mount bearing. So, first impression (comparing with the Debicas, also): they almost feel like a summer tire on dry and wet, which is great! Very good grip. Steering is lighter overall, and the sidewalls are softer, so they are flexing a little bit more, but we are talking about a non XL winter tire. I am very pleased about their behavior. They insipre confidence. At a whole other level than those Frigo2 tires. Obviously, the colder it gets, the harder the sidewalls feel, which I like, but not a major difference. The tires are balanced.
Also, on snow, they do their job well. I can throw my car in deeper snow, bearing in mind that I'm running on sport springs, lowered stance. I can decently make my way and invent new parking spaces, so they dig well into snow. I would buy them again because of the good performance on dry and wet. In snow, most of the winter tires are alright, even my ex Debicas were pretty nice. Can't say anything about the wear, yet. Safe roads!

These are great tires, end of. I've had my Yeti since new -nearly 6 years now & I'd never run a 4 wheel drive car before or used winter tires. In that time I've run Vredestein Wintrac Extremes initially, then Pirelli Sottozero 3s & now the Dunlop Wintersport 5s. Although the Vredersteins were great & really opened my eyes to the abilities of decent winter tires, the Pirellis were an improvement, but not by as much as the difference between the Pirellis & the Dunlops. The snow, & in particular ice performance advantage of these Wintersport 5s is really noticable. My car is over 200hp & has 430nm torque but traction is never a problem & it has the same brakes as a Golf GTi with all Brembo hardware fitted, yet even in really bad conditions these tires just grip. Slight, very slow speed understeer in snow is their only tiny flaw, but disappears as speed increases. A recent early morning commute in a complete white out before any tire tracks in the snow revealed the same level of grip as a wet road, amazing. I don't normally buy the same tires again as I always try to replace them in sets of 4 & as time moves on, tire technology advances & so does tire performance, but these might prove to be an exception. They're very impressive. Wet grip, aquaplane protection, ride comfort & quietness are all right up there. The Pirellis were nearly as good in these conditions, but the economy of the car also seems to have slightly improved & with the significant increase in snow & ice performance, the Dunlops are definitely in a class above.