Tires BRIDGESTONE or Nokia

Used Nokian Hakkapeliitta 9's or 8's. Used Hakkapeliitta R3's if you're living somewhere where studded tires are illegal. Cost will be around $150-350 USD depending on your tire size, and performance will be equally as good as a newer low-end tire or even a mid-range tire if you get one that's only a year old.

Nokian Hakkas, Toyo Observe GSi-5 and 6, Blizzaks have been the go-tos on all of our vehicles and among my family.

We put Nokian Hakkaapelitta R5’s on our 2023 Cooper SE (electric). It’s going to be fun to see the difference once the snow flies.

Usually run the hakkapeliitta 9 studded when I used to drive a lot between New England states. Best tires I’ve had for winter. They will feel a bit marshmallowish until it gets really cold 32F and under. Getting closer to 0F they firm up a bit and drivability was amazing. Assuming roughly same for a similar tire

I had these tires but studded on my RWD Cadillac CTS Coupe in Saskatchewan and absolutely flew through the snow and ice for a few years. They’re awesome.

Not a WRX owner (came across my feed) but I've owned two sets of these R3's, a set of 7's for mom, and a set of C3's for the work van. Don't worry about winter traction ever again.

Nokians are the best.

Have R3's on my Golf and love them. I know, wrong forum, but we all use winter tires. Going on soon for the second season.

I'm a Michelin fan myself, but I've heard good things about Nokian. Judging by the tread pattern alone, that's a very agressive tire that'll likely work incredibly well on the WRX.

You can take a bigger hit in tires alone. For instance, on my stock ContiProContacts, I average 27 mpg with 235/50r18 tires. Same size but with Nokian Z-line A/S, a tire that grips the road much better wet and dry, I'm lucky to hit 25 mpg, usually more like 22 mpg.

The problem is that the more aggressive the snow [tires] the noisier they were. After 4 seasons on Blizzaks I was ready to burn them.