ChemChina, Finanzaria Buying Pirelli In €7.1B Takeover Deal

Well the new Trofeo R tires are apparently teh new hotness.

@John R Unlike the Oldsmobile Trofeo, which was never a hotness or hot mess.

@Rod Panhard Those turned into a hot mess quickly unless great care was given. Hard to find today.

@Corey Lewis Ah ye of little faith my son, for the Trofeo was always powered by 3800. They are rare because of waning interest in PLCs and the SUV boom of the late 80s/early 90s.

@Corey Lewis Oh holy 3800 de santis! My thinking was actually more about the high level of dated tech, CRT, digital gauges, and very specific trim parts which were certainly unobtainable within a couple years. I bet they were in BHPH lots by 1996. Plus, you buy a 92 Trofeo, and by God it looked outdated when those Riviera's came out soon after.

@Corey Lewis 3800 cares not for those creature comfort doodads, it will run nonetheless which is what's important (yes though the GM "Pac Man" dash liked to fail, my understanding was the CRT system was somewhat solid). The G-body Riv didn't come out until nearly three years later for MY95, but point taken. I preferred the formal roofline and look of the E-body Toro over the "space age" Riv.

@Corey Lewis I agree, formal roof! I thought that final Riv was rather flimsy anyway. The Trofeo in this dark red is win. http://carphotos.cardomain.com/ride_images/3/2042/3261/30104130001_large.jpg Plus, rear light bar win, and flip-up lamps.

I would give the edge to Michelin, although Continental has a very good reputation, as well. My GLI came with Dunlop (owned by Goodyear) all-seasons which are awful in the snow but decent in the dry and wet. Will be getting snow tires if I still have the car next winter. I put a set of Pirelli P4 All Seasons on my old Altima, and they were very good tires.

Michelin makes high quality tires. They make some tires that are poor value, and some performance tires that aren't actually performance, but all of their tires are high quality. Continental makes some of the best tires and many indifferent ones. They'll chase price points and work with car manufacturers at the cost of quality. Bridgestone is the same. Bridgestone's best tires are often best in class, but they'll build whatever a car manufacturer wants, right down to Ford quality. Pirelli is Euro-Goodyear. Kumho is probably better. Pirelli once made excellent calendars, but they got a little too National Geographic long ago.

@CJinSD What do you think of Cooper Standard and Yokohama? I agree with your assessments thus far. If Goodyear makes tires that are equivalent in quality to their extruded hose, their tires are garbage.

@tresmonos I'd agree with that too. Yoko is good but I think they suffer a bit from always looking up at Bridgestone. Cooper lacks the capital to play with the big boys. Goodyear actually sold off their hose/conveyor belt division a while back. Continental just bought it early this year.

Continental is probably the best all around. They really don't have a bad tire, just different trade-offs between tires. If you research the attributes you want in a tire, Continental probably makes a tire you'll be happy with. Michelin too me is like an over priced Pirelli. For both brands, they have some good tires, some OK tires, and some terrible tires. The Michelin Pilot Sport A/S Plus is probably the worst non Chinese tire produced in recent times, but its replacement the A/S 3 seems to be one of the best all season performance tires available. Some Pirellis are decent, especially for their price. I really like my set of Winter 210 Sottozero Series 2 that I used on my Subaru in the winter. I only bought them because they were the cheapest winter tire in my size at the time. They ended up wearing very evenly, they were decently quite, and still have over 50% of the tread remaining. Some of their tires have many issues with excessive road force. (Especially their Scorpion truck/SUV tires) When I buy tires, I don't pay too much attention to the brand, and look at each tire individually. There are just too many variables in tires to search by brand only.

@tresmonos Cooper Tire is sort of like GM. People think they're an American company, but chances are you're just getting 2nd and 3rd tier Asian stuff for your money. Cooper is very big in China. This article states that they can claim 'Made in USA' even on tires that aren't: http://www.moderntiredealer.com/channel/retailing/article/story/2014/05/made-in-america.aspx I find that odd because the Cooper tires I've seen have Made in China stamped on them. I've driven a friend's car on new high performance Coopers, but I didn't drive it fast enough to gain much insight into their characteristics. The ride wasn't awesome on our crummy roads. I'm not familiar with Standard tires at all and I had really bad experiences with Yokohama tires many, many years ago that inspired me to avoid them since. They may be just fine now, but I won't know unless I find myself unable to get a decent deal on one of the three brands I know make great tires.

@MBella I think based upon what everybody says here, and other things I've collected in my brain from reading here - that Continentals will replace my Goodyear AS- whatever they are.

@Corey Lewis I have the Continental ExtremeContact DWS tires on one of my cars. I have about 18,000 miles on them. So far, so good.

@CJinSD I couldn't think of the model, but that's the ones people are always talking about around here.

@CJinSD Used to have the same tires (Conti ExtremeContact DWS) on my Evo X. Loved 'em.