Best Tires for the Subaru Forester sti

Very amazing tires. Replaced my Pilot Sport 4's after the good reviews due to a good significant price difference. However I must admit I love these tires more than I love the Pilot Sports. I occasionally drive sport and the feedback is really good. Tire wear is absolutely impressive over the Pilot Sport 4's. I beat on them and showed hardly any wear. For me this is my most favorite tire so far.

Having had a proper winter this year, it was interesting to see how these tires fared. I'd heard good things about their dry handling and feedback, but to be frank was sceptical about how a non-directional tire would fare in the snow. The answer was pretty good - maybe not quite as good as Nokian WR-D's or similar but with decent power on tap those wouldn't be the best on dry or wet roads which is TBH the norm for most of an English winter. I went on some seriously rural roads including 1 in 5 hills with over 7cm of snow and going uphill on shot ice and didn't spin a wheel. The handling figure given is an estimate as you'd have to be driving like the Original Nutta to get them to unstick in the Forester which is not a good idea with typical road conditions round here i.e. a dry stone wall on one side and a 150ft drop ont' other. Unless I end up moving to a snowy part of the Highlands I'll get some more. How they would do on a hot summer's day i don't know, but then it would always be the Nokian Powerproofs for me when the weather's warm.

When these landed the first thing I noticed was the really wide grooves, 2mm wider than the previous Z-Lines, the only grooves I'd seen anything like this wide were on Michelin PS4's - what was the dry grip going to be like I wondered? Then a bit of poking showed that the sidewalls were definitely more flexible than the previous tires - :rolleyes: Anyway I needn't have worried about the grip, as the guys in Finland have obviously working hard to improve their rubber. It's superb, dry and wet - I've never managed to unstick them in the slightest, I think you'd need to take them onto a racetrack for that as it would involve speed/manouvres that really aren't meant for public roads, hence the N/A rating for how progressive they are at the limit. The softness of the sidewalls is noticeable though, you get the slightly odd feeling that the tread is welded to the road and the car is moving a bit on top of that. Upping the pressure a few psi helps with this, but doesn't altogether remove it. Steering feel/response is very good, the extra tread grip compared to the previous tires gives a sharper turn in and more focused road feedback, though this is slightly spoiled by the soft sidewalls. And they're quieter and more comfortable than the Z-lines too, though if you're driving a car like the FSti that's likely a secondary consideration!
Will I buy them again - probably, unless Nokian do what they ought to and make a version with stiffer sidewalls - after all they have the Wetproof for general high powered cars, why not make the Powerproof for those of us who really want to DRIVE?

fitted on Subaru Forester SF5 turbo...

great balance all rounder....

for the price range...nothing will beat this tire...

very good quality...superior to any cheap unknown china made tire...

drive with confident..never have any air pressure loss or leaks or blow out...

definately the tire to go in on budget and still thinking about safety...

The Sunitrac Focus 9000 was recommended by a good friend who owns a tire outlet company.
I had never heard of these tires before. I have always driven on Bridgestone, Dunlop, or the well-known brands so was a bit reluctant to try these tires after some reassuring invested in Sunitrac Focus 9000.
After a month fell into a pothole and damaged tire, when i went to purchase a new tire was told they had stopped stocking them Drove the tires around town and some motorway driving, I noticed the tire handled well on dry roads, in the wet good traction impressive.
What i didn't like was the noise i started to experience on the roads around town, and worse on the motorway. It got so bad i had the car checked thoroughly exhaust, bearings etc everything checked out good, decided it had to be the tires.
Not a bad tire for the price but i wouldn't invest in them again the noise was too much.

Bought these on a hunch that they might be better than a lot of winter tires in the wet/dry (which compose 90% of British winter weather) and indeed they are. However they're also very good in winter conditions with excellent grip on fresh and frozen snow and ice, climbing a 1 in 6 hill in fresh snow was no problem, as was stopping on black ice. Their outstanding characteristic is the steering feedback, better than most winter tires (Nokian, Vredestein) that I've run - though obviously won't be as good as a HP summer tire, due to isolated tread blocks and loads of sipes - and the sidewalls are stiff enough to make the car feel controlled and give you confidence when pushing through the corners. And lastly they're suprisingly quiet for a winter tire too, less high frequency noise than the previous summer tires I ran. All in all a very competent tire at a decent price to boot, and the folk at Avon are most helpful with information.

Mixed feelings on these, while braking and grip's not bad wet and dry and the wear is very good, steering feedback is not the best, and they don't inspire as much confidence as my previous rubber (Nokian Z-lines). I put some of this down to the rather narrower tread width (180 vs 200mm), and also the sidewalls aren't the stiffest. In short they're a very competent tire, but if you have sporting pretensions and want to enjoy your driving , check out other options first. Also they don't seem to be overly tough, I've lost 2 to kerbs/potholes in 2500 miles :-( , while that could be just bad luck, similar calamities in the past haven't resulted in tire failure.

These were my third set of Nokian WR's and I was expecting great things on the new motor, but have ended up rather disappointed. The great thing about these tires in the past was their great all round ability, very important in the UK where we rarely get an "all snow" winter. I noticed when fitting them that the rim protector bead previously present had gone, a query to Nokian resulted in the reply "it's to reduce rolling resistance". Seems that's not all that's changed, the carcass feels less rigid and road feedback has dropped to the point where it can be positively worrying in a performance car even when not driving hard. They're still great in the snow, but in mixed conditions I can't recommend them to a driver with any sporting pretensions.

yessss this tire performs on the road much like any other expensive premium tire....last longer, more reliable sidewall than those thin-sidewalled premium tire brands... treadwear rated at 420..u can expect it last more than 50k kms easily even when abused....the tread design also promotes silent and comfort highway driving..which is pretty pleasant experience.

all of that is really good when the price is less than half of those premium branded tire....since this tire came from some major "rubber producer country" in the world, u can expect high quality rubber with less money...

got it with the price of RM255/pcs (around $80) whats more u can ask from that?

Decided to go with the S001 as my preference in tires is a primarily a stiff sidewall, and Bridgestones tend to have this. The S001 certainly has this which translates to a nice direct & tight feel :)

A standout feature of the tire is wet performance, which quite frankly is eyebrow raising, especially in standing water. Confidence is immense with totally predictable progression. The center channels are huge which must drive water out. When driving at higher speeds in the wet, a huge trail of water spray can be seen in the rear mirror.

Dry performance is very good, . I have an uprated rear arb fitted which gives better balance, with oversteer if provoked, again with reliable progression.

The only downside is wear rate, which has been quite alarming. However, given all the other standout attributes, the fierce wear rate seems a fair trade off

Reassuring safety, high confidence levels, and will buy again. Limited choices available in this size tire

STi 330/340