Best Tires for Subaru Impreza

I have a 25 yo Subaru Impreza RS that is completely unaffected by snow. That is as long as I put proper snow tires on in the winter, I forgot to switch one winter before a storm and my summer tires were pointless to say the least.

I’m on my second AWD car with CC2s. Subaru Impreza wagon and a Hyundai AWD Ioniq5. Pros are great snow & wet handling and braking & adequate dry handling combined with lower rolling resistance than most for better mileage.

Put cross climates on the Impreza. Drives like a different, better handling car.

You can get a good all weather tire with 3PMSF rating for less than the CC2s. See Vredestein Quadtrac Pro, Falken Aklimate, and Altimax 365AW. All of these will be cheaper than the Michelins but will provide long tread life and good performance in snow + cold temps. I put the Quadtrac Pros on my mom's Impreza a couple years ago (Chicagoland area) and they've been great. So much better than the Firestone FT140s it came with from the factory.

My wife has over 50k miles on a set of Michelin CrossClimate2 tires on her Impreza and they still have a good amount of tread on them.

I put a set of Continental TrueContact Tour on our 2016 about this time last year and so far so good. They do OK in the snow (we don’t get a lot or heavy) and I don’t think they are noisy compared to the Yokohamas that were on them before. We put a lot of highway miles on them and they handle well in the rain. Pacific Northwest, so I worry more about driving in the rain over other conditions.

Michelin Cross Climate 2 on my 09 Impreza sedan. Road noise is better than the winters I had, but I’ve heard they’re kinda noisy to some people. Wet and dry performance, especially in the hotter months is significantly better than my winter tires, and I feel much more connected to the road. Spirited drives on twisty backroads feel much better. In snow storms, starting/stopping feels amazing, like the snow isn’t even there, and I’ve never had an issue pulling through 5+ inches of snow. Making light and smooth turns has also been very good. However, I find it much easier to break traction compared to my previous winter tires if you’re being reckless, and it's harder to regain. Aggressive 90-degree downhill turns can make the back end step out. There's also a reported 1-3 mpg hit. Despite this, I would most likely buy them again.

I do have a backup set of Bridgestone Turanza (205/55R16) all seasons but I am in the market for new tires now.

I think the dunlops will wear out faster than the michelin , in my experience .

That is the tread of my Nokain Hakkapellita tire, sitting on the side of the highway after blowing off the tire at highway speeds.

This is my winter car, a Subaru Impreza. Nokian Hakkapellita winter tires stay on the car year round, as it only gets driven in the winter months. The tires are 3 years old.

I decided to start the car up and take it for a drive one night in late September, thinking nothing of the tires. I made it about 15 minutes into my drive before BANG, my front drivers side tire tread completely disconnected from the tire, and the sidewall blew apart.

I was driving about 110km/h when this happened and the car almost rolled before I got it back under control.

When I went back up to retrieve the car the next day, the amount of dry rot on the tires was mind blowing. These 3 year old tires had completely dry rotted out over the course of the summer without me thinking to even have a look.