Tires Hankook or DUNLOP

Both are not at the top of the current offerings...but the ZII is better than the NT05. Make sure you have a sprayer to keep them cool because grip falls off a cliff once they get hot.

I don't shave tires, and I ran 150+ runs and a few thousand street miles easily on my Z2s last year. They still have life left in them.

I have Hankook IPike w203 (couple of years older model) and don't have a single complaint (very happy).

I have lived in the snowiest city on earth (Valdez, AK) as well as the UP of Michigan and now in Maine and I've always used the Dunlop Winter Sport M3's with great results. I will keep using these (or Winter Sport 3D for larger wheels) as long as they make them.

I am running Dunlop wintersport 3D's on my Mk6 GTI and regularly take it through some really nasty stuff to go skiing here in CO. I will likely buy Dunlop winters again. They are my first winter tires, but they seem to perform well. They are on their 3rd winter, I think, and they still mange to get me around just fine. The only times I ran into issues was when I was trying to go up steep grades from a stop on very slick roads, but that is more to do with the lack of AWD than the tire. They also perform well in the dry, even on some of our testing mountain roads here.

On my MK VI R I run Hanhook Icept Evo's in the winter, they are a "snow" tire winter rated and all but they are also geared towards high performance. I feel very confident in conrnrs and such when its dry unlike some snow tires that are mush and don't handle well. In a car like the R it would be a shae to use a tire that doesn't allow the car to handle well when roads are dry or just slightly wet. the Icepts are a great snow tire. I have had zero issues wit their performance on snowy surfaces especially with the AWD you can basically go WOT from a stop in the snow and have no traction issues.

If you don't have a lot of actual ice and snow, the Dunlop Wintersport tires are fantastic. They're like a performance winter tire. I've had Nokian, Toyo, Bridgestone, Michelin, Dunlop - all have pro's and con's but for performance the Wintersport tires have been far superior as they still have excellent dry weather grip for aggressive driving.

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

In the Northeast through a TERRIBLE winter with 4 Nor'easters in as many weeks the car was awesome even on the dodgy stock Hankook all seasons.

Hankooks are noisy in my experience.