Tires RIKEN or GISLAVED

I had a very good experience with the Gislaved Nordfrost 100s. They were fairly priced, they have a crazy amount of tread for a tire, and their performance was very good.

Gislaved Nord Frost 200 factory studded tires.

I had Conti Vikingcontacts and those were great. Also, they are hard to find, but Conti owns a company called Gislaved tires who make outstanding winter compounds. They are from Sweden and engineered specifically for Scandinavian, Canadian, and Russian winters.

Rikens are fine. They're quite a soft tyre, probably because like you said Michelin make them butbthat does meant the grip is decent.

Gislaved tires. They are studded from the factory and made by Continental. They are at least 30% less cost than Nokians and nearly as good. I have had both and will buy the Gislaveds every time.

I use gislaved winter tires on my A4 and they have worked well for high speed highway driving and also wet winter roads. Full confidence in snowy conditions. I am going with the same on the OB.

Gislaved snow tires from Sweden. I've been driving 35 years and never felt so good!

Speaking of cheap tires, I recently switched my tired old 41k mile Sumitomo ZIII with these $43 in 225/45 17 Riken raptor ZR and quite surprised how well they are. They grip as good as my ZIII did, way quieter and rain performance was fantastic. I was hesitant at first until I read reviews on tirerack phrasing these are great tires and they are definitely good. I also learned Riken is part of the Michelin tires company so its probably of decent build quality.

Commute was great. These tires are amazing. They're called "Gislaved Nordfrost 200's" if you're wondering, I believe they run for around $1,400cdn for the 18" size I have, but would be cheaper for smaller sizes.

Gislaved is a Continental brand: they are OK-ish tires at best.