Gotland

Unfortunately these aren't "average tires" -- they are below average, which makes it an even worse offense. I'm going to get Continental ExtremeContact DWS06 or Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3+ in next month.

Dan in St. Louis

Just for the record, the category "Ultra High Performance All-Season" cannot be directly compared to "Grand Touring All-Season." A numerical score of. let's say, "8" in a winter spec on one will be different in the other category.

That is, the numeric scores are valid only within a given category.

bnewton89

Looks great - thank you so much for sharing!

CoMeader

I agree the stock tires are far below average, and I would say far below acceptable for a premium car. They are easily the worst handling tires I've ever had with the exception of a set of Nitto's I bought for my Z3M when I had a blowout and they were the best tires available within 200 miles. Anybody who wants those Nitto's can come get them - less than 1k miles on them.

The average consumer probably doesn't know or care about the tires on their car. I've had friends who were of the option that pretty much all tires were the same and bought on price. I've opened a few eyes by letting them drive my cars with good tires (especially in the winter).

For an update on my tire problems with the stock tires (pulling under acceleration with the stock tires, but not either set of other tires I've had on the car), I finally got the stock tires back on now that winter is mostly over so the dealer could look at them. The dealer basically said they feel the pulling I'm describing and understand that it only happens with the tires that were delivered, but they don't see any tire damage and they believe the stock tire just isn't stiff enough to prevent the pulling.

Once I get the update on surround camera issue I'll take a run at Audi with both issues and see if I can get some satisfaction.

bob m

Do you think your particular set of tires are defective, atypical of the brand or do you think this is how these tires perform across the board?

CoMeader

Sorry for the delay in answering - I've been doing a bit of traveling.

When I first took delivery and encountered the issue I thought it was more likely an alignment issue or maybe a bad strut. When I put the snow tires on and the problem completely went went away my thinking changed more toward a tire problem (especially since the problem was gone with two very different types of snow tires). When I took off the snows and put the original tires back on and the problem came back I was pretty convinced it was a tire issue.

I had the tire shop road force balance the tires which would normally have identified a major tire manufacturing issue, and the dealer who investigated the probelm also seemed to rule out defective tires - especially since changing tires around on the car didn't change the behavior.

I suppose there's still a possibility there's a subtle alignment issue or other suspension problem, but the dealer, who would have made money on the alignment, didn't seem to think that was an issue. On the other hand, I've driven a few other B9 Allroads with the same kind of tires and some had the same issue but others didn't.

I think the stock tires have reasonable snow and dry traction for their market segment and they seem to ride fairly quietly as well. To answer your question, I don't think the tires on my car are defective although they may be on the weaker side of the regular manufacturing variance. Since my issues completely go away when I put other tires on (I've had two other sets of tires on the car), I've come to the conclusion that these tires just aren't a good match for this vehicle. Or at least my specific set of tires, and one other set I drove, isn't a good match.

Given that half of my small sample size had the same issues, I'd say this is a problem Audi should have addressed. I'm curious if Audi used these tires when doing development testing on the vehicle or if they were chosen seperatly.

TREGinginCO

Bob,

Sorry for the delayed response.

The tires would fall out of balance every 2 to 3-weeks. Would go back to the shop, they would be rebalanced, work great for a couple of weeks, then back out of balance.

Continental was no interested in helping out. Finally, Chris, the manager at Discount wanted to make things right and got me taken care of.

I'm not on Yokohama YK740 GTX's --- and they are solid!!! Been thru some intense rain and they give stellar wet driving traction.

We didn't have much of a snow season, so I haven't gotten a good feel for them yet that way, but all indications are that it will be good.

bob m

To you and CoMeader, thanks for the replies. As of yet, I have not had any of these issues - my Allroad tracks straight and seems quiet enough so I don't know how to explain what's happening with your tires, certainly something's wrong, as a new set of different tires fixed the problem. Problem is, some drivers would not notice these issues and continue to drive with them and just wonder why the wore out so quickly. And most drivers would not not be able to evaluate proper - better/poorer performance - ability to handle turns, wet weather traction, etc. But because most driver are not aware of the mid/poor performance of the standard tires does not let Audi off the hook for not supplying the better/best tires, if anything it speaks more poorly of their decision to go lowball.

bnewton89

I've decided to go with the Michelin Premier A/S for my allroad . I'll be having those tires installed on Saturday morning. I'll report back with an update once I have them installed.

bnewton89

Michelin Premier A/S installed - more detailed review after i have a few more miles under my beat.