Jetta_Pilot
Top Post Dawg
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2005
- Location
- West Hill, Ont.
- TDI
- 2015 Passat Highline TDI Candy White (SEL Premium) long gone 2002 Jetta TDI
For over one year I had the OEM Hankook tires on my car. I found them quite noisy.
So after a lot of research, reading user reviews etc., I bought General Altimax RT43 H tires. I have no need for winter tires so all I want are all season tires. General tires are "Made in Germany".
This article in an online automotive magazine has a good write-up on various tires/makes. For your information, Continental Tires and General Tires is the same manufacturer. General Tires gives you a longer tread-wear warrantee. Generals is 75,000 miles or 120,000km and Continentals is 70,000 miles or 112,000km.
The road noise has been much reduced and I am getting a nice smooth ride, where I used to feel every little stone on the road that is gone. Now I need to qualify this by saying I am NOT a fan of low sidewall tires. I come from the days when tire sidewalls were 70 and not 25.
My OEM Hankook tires were 235x45x18 and I changed to 235x55x18 which gives me some more cushioning between the road and the car. The difference in sidewall height went from 4.16" to 5.09". I still have good clearance between the tires and the fenders but I had to do away with the spacers I had on the OEM tires. This gives me a 1" or 2.5cm more road clearance which for me is quite important since I drive in Mexico for almost 6 months and there are some wicked "Speedbumps" in every City, town or village and I hate scraping the bottom of the car over these things.
One other thing it did was to bring my speedometer in line to read the exact speed instead of reading about 5% slower than real speed as measured by GPS on a long straight and level highway.
Just for whatever it is worth, I paid Cdn$ 800.00 installed,including tire disposal fees, Road Force balanced and tax out the door. That would make it about US$ 640.00.
So after a lot of research, reading user reviews etc., I bought General Altimax RT43 H tires. I have no need for winter tires so all I want are all season tires. General tires are "Made in Germany".
This article in an online automotive magazine has a good write-up on various tires/makes. For your information, Continental Tires and General Tires is the same manufacturer. General Tires gives you a longer tread-wear warrantee. Generals is 75,000 miles or 120,000km and Continentals is 70,000 miles or 112,000km.
The road noise has been much reduced and I am getting a nice smooth ride, where I used to feel every little stone on the road that is gone. Now I need to qualify this by saying I am NOT a fan of low sidewall tires. I come from the days when tire sidewalls were 70 and not 25.
My OEM Hankook tires were 235x45x18 and I changed to 235x55x18 which gives me some more cushioning between the road and the car. The difference in sidewall height went from 4.16" to 5.09". I still have good clearance between the tires and the fenders but I had to do away with the spacers I had on the OEM tires. This gives me a 1" or 2.5cm more road clearance which for me is quite important since I drive in Mexico for almost 6 months and there are some wicked "Speedbumps" in every City, town or village and I hate scraping the bottom of the car over these things.
One other thing it did was to bring my speedometer in line to read the exact speed instead of reading about 5% slower than real speed as measured by GPS on a long straight and level highway.
Just for whatever it is worth, I paid Cdn$ 800.00 installed,including tire disposal fees, Road Force balanced and tax out the door. That would make it about US$ 640.00.