Tires GT Radial or OEM Volkswagen

I bought a set of GT radial Champiro with the expectation that it will be just a crap daily driver set. They actually have really good grip for non race tires. Seriously, so much so that when I put the front set on and went to autocross, it caused my car to spin out because the front had more grip than the rear.

Tires are 235 40 18 GT Radial Champiro UHP1 Ultra-high performance summer tire ^ VERY sticky tire w/stiff side wall (nice handling and picks up lots of little pebbles - but I would not trust this tire below 40 degrees)

I run a set of GT Radial WinterPro HP. 245/45/17 all around. Very cost friendly set of tires @ <$100/ea.

I had a great winter season last year, even in the midst of our huge snowstorms and freezing weather.

Just drove my mk5 through a winter storm. (quite literally) It performed very well! It has identical handling characteristics to the mk6 Golf. As others have said, it strongly depends on the tires.

I get 37mpg city in my tdi, and the best mileage I ever got on my rabbit (2.5 mkv) was 32mpg with 15's and ultra low rolling resistance tires.

I've had several cars of the $150 variety. The best was a 1990 VW Fox that I bought for $150 from the original owner. I then proceeded to drive it about 150K before I spent another cent on it besides oil tires and gas.

Not in my experience. I run 32/32 and my tires now have 35k on them, and are good for another 5k or so more no problemo. Wear is about as even as I've ever seen for a tire this far into its useful life. I messed around with a lot of different pressures before settling on this combo, and it's what works best for me.. and definitely no adverse wear issues.

My last vw, jetta, the rears always got scalloped eventually, even with rotations...now on the CC, just had the tires again rotated with the 30k service and the noise from the front is annoying as hell...that droning reverbish kind of sound.