Best Tires for the Ford Mondeo ST220

After 20000 miles and 3 years on my Mondeo ST220, I would not recommend these tires. Two tires failed the MOT test after approx 15000 miles with sidewall cracking, at a point where they were dangerous. 5000 miles later, one of the remaining 2 started to delaminate the tread. All 4 have gone now, replaced with Goodyear F1 assymetric 6, far superior all round. The Nexen's grip was distinctly average in the dry, not at all predictable in the wet. Steering feel was poor, just heavy all the time, with no change in weighting. A complete contrast to the Goodyears, where you can feel the road surface change and the weighting vary as the grip leve and cornering speed changes. For comfort and wear they were OK, but seemed to have quite a high rolling resistance. Overall, based on my experience, I would NOT buy again, and considering that 2 had failed after 2 years and 15000 miles, I would consider them dangerous.

Acceptable in the dry, but in the wet these are dangerous. Seriously do not buy even if you're on a budget. These tires should not be on sale.

Black, round and rubbery. Perfect! Your average man on the road can not review or score a tire. Lewis Hamilton wannabe's can't really drive and they certainly don't have the equipment to measure "how good" a tire is..

Excellent tire had them on for almost a week, Wet grip when cornering just gets tighter as you turn into it can actually feel the amount of grip, My mondeo ST is on firm springs so comfort is not something thats going to change with a tire as there low profile anyway. The sidewalls seem alot stiffer compared to the RS3 aswell. Definitely a tire worth buying by all means.

I paid £90 a corner fully balanced with new valves.

Never used the phrase ditchfinders before; however, if there is a tire worthy of the title these are it. I drive a Mondeo ST220 estate and these tires came with a set of Focus RS 19s I got on eBay. I've had the tires on the car for a while now and I cannot stress how bad they are, the only reason they are still on is because I rarely drive the car and virtually never in the wet as it's a second/project car.

Dry grip, very poor, the car just wants to understeer and if I go near the throttle setting off I get tire squeal.

Wet grip, what wet grip? These tires are outright dangerous in the wet, they don't aquaplane too much, but again even with 220bhp I can spin the wheels up in third and it's a long geared car. The car just meanders about as it feels. I've driven with bald tires that have better wet grip than these things.

On the plus side they have lasted alright (if you can see it as a plus side), as I was hoping they'd wear quicker so I would have an excuse to get them off my car faster.

The car is in for a load of suspension work next week so will be getting these off the car ASAP after that! I'm looking for Michelin Pilot Super Sports. No matter how cheap these things are they aren't worth it, even if you get offered a set for free, decline the offer they are that bad!

I first fitted a set of GT-Radial Champiro Winter Pro HP's a couple of years ago and was pleasantly surprised with the all-round capabilities of the tire, especially factoring in the price! The dry grip and handling is pretty good on these, and is certainly better than the price would suggest, but they fell a little short in the wet. I found myself backing off somewhat while cornering in the wet due to a rather understeery nature in those conditions, but by no means excessive or unpredictable.

I also had chance to use these tires in rather bad snow and ice, and was really impressed with them in this department. These tires got me all over the place in fresh snow, compacted snow, ice and all combinations of the above, with little effort.

The negatives of this tire, at least for me, was the fact that they needed a LOT of balance weights to get the wheel in balance, suggesting they're not made all that precisely. And the tread blocks also wore unevenly, dispite the pressures being obsessively maintained, and with no issue with tracking or suspension geometry, etc.

I decided to go with these tires again for the rear, so clearly I've been happy with then for the price!

I decided to try the Vredestein Wintrac Pro based on the price, available reviews and comments made in the 'winter tire recommendations' video on YouTube.
I paid £98.00 inc vat per tire, delivered (225/40 R18).

My first outing on the Wintrac Pro's was a trip from Sheffield to Cumbria in very wet 5°C weather, with a good combination of roads to tests them on. Firstly, I was most impressed with the tires performance in the miserable wet (very wet) conditions! I came from a Falken ZE310 ECORUN - a tire which has performed very well for me in wet conditions, but the Wintrac Pro had a noticeable increase in lateral grip while cornering over my previous tires in these conditions, which left a big smile on my face to say the least! Even when pushing the car a little harder than I was previously comfortable with there was no onset of understeer or loss of feel towards the limit of grip.
I was also able to perform a full emergency stop (wet road 5°C), thanks to a suicidal deer! And in and process the car came to a stop very quickly, and with a fantastic sure footed feeling....the dear walked away to live another day with plenty of room to spare.
I would describe the Wintrac Pro as a quiet, very confidence inspiring tire with excellent handling qualities, with fantastic levels of grip in both the wet and dry. Extremely happy so far! Looking forward to testing them in the ice and snow.

A serious risk to safety of yourself and all those around you. Noise is so bad that they drown out the sound of damaged wheel bearing. Potholes feel like small cliffs. Painting the edges of your rims black and leaving them off will do you a favor.

Just completed 20000 miles on a set of these and for the price you will find these at most tireshops they are pretty good value. In the year I've had these the only criticism I would have with these would be the following-

1 - They are quite noisy, on UK roads and motorways the road noise is as loud as the rest of the car

2 - They seem to have quite hard sidewalls as I could feel every little bump in the road, even joins between sections of roads result in a noticeable thud when passing over them

3 - When worn they become very skittish at high speed on uneven road surfaces (country B-roads etc), you will need to keep a hold on the wheel when on the straights as they tramline a fair bit

I wore my fronts down to the limit (or maybe just past it as they resembled slicks!) and in the wet I still found it fairly hard to break them free, and they didn't seems to aquaplane often.

If you don't want to break the bank then there isn't much else in this price range that will be any better and to get 20000 miles out of them I felt was pretty good value for money.

Overall, this is the 2nd set of Falkens I've had (prev 452's) and have never had any major problems with them, would definitely buy them again if money is tight.

I've read numerous reviews on how bad these tires are and felt I had to have my say before people get the wrong idea about these tires. I must say that they do exactly what it says on the box. They are WINTER tires so are designed to work at temperatures below 7 deg. If you drive aggressively at 12 deg temperatures then they will break away and feel like there is no grip in exactly the same way as a summer tire will not work if not up to temperature. For this type of temperature you need SUMMER tires. If you do the same type of driving when the temperature is near freezing and you will think you are on your summer track day tires. In the snow and ice they will grip like you are on a dry road. Not all tires are the same - just ask the F1 teams. There is no such thing as a universal tire.