Tires BRIDGESTONE or DUNLOP

Then installed brand new Blizzak winter tires, aired up to 36lbs. Next 3 tanks road tripping to Bend Oregon. Largest size Thule cargo box on roof. First road trip tank on the way down all rolling rural highway, so a lot of total elevation change. 24mpg.

So swapped out to an AWD Atlas, added new 17inch wheels with Blizzaks. It's a remarkable set up for winter driving, incredibly confidence inspiring

we've been using Dunlop for our vios.

Michelin is expensive, almost double more expensive than Bridgestone. I have not seen anything different between them so far. I like the Bridgestone so far.

Dude the stock dunlop's can't even handle muddy roads. I live down a really long one and turning out of my driveway onto the road always made the front tires spin and the diff lock up weird.

Changed over to as3+'s and it's never been better.

Stock dunlops...terrible in snow.

Winter tires...beast mode!

It's a night and day difference.

The Dunlop Direzza ZIII is worth looking into. A close friend has half a season of autocross and 4 time trial events (So about 17 twenty to 30 minute long sessions) on his ZIII in a 2013 NC and they still have life left. For autocross they're basically a less grippy Re-71R, but they come into their own on track.

I loved the Sottozero 3's on my previous STi. I got a set of Dunlop WinterMaxx on my R now (got them on sale from TireRack when I got winter wheels) and while they're fine and even good in the snow, they are horrific on wet pavement.

I had Blizzak on my 2014 X5 and traded it in with them, on purpose. Noisiest tires ever. Couldn't wait to get rid of them, and the X5, due to a number of cooling system failures.

I'm on ZII's on my "street wheels" and while they're fine for around town, I've never liked them from a performance perspective. Compared to the purpose built 200TW cheater tires (e.g. RE71R, RT660, RS4) the ZII's give up a LOT of grip and probably seconds per lap at a racetrack.