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Comparing Popular Original Equipment Tires vs Replacement Grand Touring All-Season Tires
Tires tested:
Bridgestone Turanza LS-V
Vehicles used:
2006 BMW E90 325i Sedan
The drivers of many luxury performance sedans & sporty coupes are looking for tires that combine muscular looks, satisfying comfort & lively performance to complete their vehicle's capabilities with the appearance, luxury & cornering that helps make cars more fun to drive. & whether the tires are identified by their manufacturers to be Sophisticated Performance, Luxury Performance or Performance Touring tires, if the tires combine low profiles, large rim diameters, high speed ratings & year-round traction (including light snow), they fall into The Tire Rack's Grand Touring All-Season tire category.
Goodyear's Eagle featuring ResponsEdge Technology is an example of this type of tire. While carbon fiber has been used in racing tires previously, the Eagle ResponsEdge introduces it to street tires, along with a DuPont KEVLAR InsuLayer & dual zone tread compounds. This innovative technology is designed to transform luxury performance vehicles into the driver's mobile sanctuary.
As a group, Grand Touring All-Season tires are designed to blend much of the appearance, as well as some of the responsiveness & cornering of a performance tire with the smooth & quiet ride of a passenger tire. And as with any blend, there are inherent compromises that normally take place as a result. To find out how sporty & comfortable Goodyear's Eagle ResponsEdge tire is, The Tire Rack team conducted a Real World Road Ride & Performance Track Drive, comparing it with several tires from the Grand Touring All-Season category. The Michelin Energy MXV4 Plus has been a popular Original Equipment fitment on a wide variety of European & domestic vehicles, & the Bridgestone Turanza LS-V has become a popular choice for drivers who elect to purchase non-Original Equipment tires for their vehicle when it's time to replace its original set of tires.
Our evaluation used 2006 BMW 325i E90 sedans, with new, full tread depth 205/55R16 tires mounted on 16x7.5” wheels.
What We Learned on the Road
Our 5.6-mile loop of expressway, state highway & county roads provides a great variety of road conditions that include city & highway speeds, smooth & coarse concrete, as well as new & patched asphalt. This route allows our team to experience noise comfort, ride quality & everyday cornering, just as you would during your drive to school or work.
All three Grand Touring All-Season tires in our test group delivered a pleasant blend of noise comfort, ride quality & real-world cornering appropriate for their tire category. Their differences on the road were slight, indicating how competent the tires in this category have become. The tires felt composed on smooth roads, only being upset by the irregularities of concrete expansion joints & pothole repairs.
Our team felt the Bridgestone Turanza LS-V offered the best overall ride quality, although found it transmitted a bit of impact thump into the cabin when driven over larger bumps & broken pavement. The Michelin Energy MXV4 Plus offered acceptable ride quality, yet produced a slight pinging noise when encountering the sharper expansion joints of our test route's concrete expressway. The Goodyear Eagle ResponsEdge did a good job of cushioning the ride, but like the other tires, was not immune to allowing some of the road's irregularities to be felt through the chassis.
None of the tires generated what could be called significant amounts of tread noise. The Energy MXV4 Plus was considered to be the quietest of the group, with Turanza LS-V close behind due to a low growl at slower speeds. The Eagle ResponsEdge was found to be very quiet at highway speeds, but did emit a faint tone when driving on asphalt at a steady 40-45 mph.
All three tires felt well-connected to the road, with the Michelin feeling light & responsive to steering inputs. The Bridgestone required a bit more effort to turn the wheel, but delivered a solid feel around the sweeping expressway on-and off-ramps. The Goodyear was stable in a straight line, reacted gradually to initial steering wheel movement & then responded at an increasing pace as the car changed direction.
What We Learned on the Test Track
Our 1/3-mile per lap test track course includes 90-degree street corners, lane changes & simulated expressway ramps. Run in both dry & wet conditions, the test track allows our team to experience the traction, responsiveness, cornering & drivability normally only encountered during abrupt emergency avoidance maneuvers or competition events.
In dry conditions, the light & responsive feel we found on the road allowed the Michelin Energy MXV4 Plus to turn the fastest average lap time of the group. This tire felt poised & was easy to drive at the limit. The Goodyear Eagle ResponsEdge was a close second, & was praised for its performance under hard braking. Bridgestone's Turanza LS-V rounded out the group, delivering stable, poised cornering with a hint of understeer at the limit.
In the wet, as is often the case, the differences were more apparent. Here, the Turanza LS-V had a clear advantage in overall traction allowing it to post the fastest average lap time. The Eagle ResponsEdge was second, feeling a little elastic during transitional maneuvers. The Energy MXV4 Plus was third, feeling rather slippery when compared to the other two tires.
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| Bridgestone tires | Fuzion tires | Hoosier tires | Sumitomo tires | Discount tires |
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