Don't blow off Nokian as a junk tire. The Canadian Mounties use them exclusively as their winter tire. Law enforcement are probably the hardest on tires of any profession. Rocks curbs, ditches, they blast thru anything and everything and any terrain. The tires hold up and get them home.
Another strike against Kia's design for this car is the tire/wheel. 21" is just oddball. If they could not fit 22, they should haev stayed with 20's..
21's is odd, yes. I bought Nokians once. ONCE. Absolutely the worst tire on the planet as far as I'm concerned. Not only that, but they did not allow my review to be published, even though it was free of profanity or any such. This explains why their tires have those 5/5 type ratings on their site...of course they do.
Mazda 2015 CX5, AWD, 2.5L Touring
Nokian WRG3 SUV tires, 225/65/17
1st issue: It took 2 trips to get them balanced, and they still vibrated a bit.
2nd issue: They were so loud that I thought a wheel-bearing was going out or a semi tractor trailer was pacing me.
3rd issue: They felt absolutely unsafe in the rain and wet pavement traction was very meh.
4rd issue: They lasted about 19K miles before they were at 4/32 and needed to be replaced.
They had replaced with Continental Cross Contact LX20's, which stayed on the vehicle and did an excellent job for the prior nearly 50K miles. They were replaced with Altimax RT43 tires which showed 1-2/32 tread ware over the next 8K miles or so when I traded the vehicle in, and did fine.
Their absolutely trash performance in every way has led me to refuse to buy any of their junk ever again.
I am aware that Michigan State Troopers use the WRG3 on their pursuit vehicles and all that jazz. That's why I bought the stupid things. Guess what? They are trash regardless of cops using them. I didn't get much chance to use them in ice/snow because the stupid things literally wore out before it snowed that year except for a tiny bit at the tail end of the winter I had them installed during. They weren't anything special in that, either. Just an absolute trash tire that excelled at literally nothing except you could probably substitute buying/driving on those tires for a midodrine prescription.
I hate those tires so much that I spent all that time telling you why. This was about 4-5 years ago.
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