We live in Wisconsin (Madison area) with pretty good winter service and during a blizzard we just stay at home. Almost everyone here just has all-season tires.

With my 2005 Mazda 3 I experienced that the stock 17" tires totally totally sucked in winter and I had to buy 16" winter wheels with winter tires. Our 2007 Mazda 6 with 17" all-season tires handles very well ins snow with the stock tires. So Mazda must have chosen better tires for that even if it is same size.

My question is will the 17" CX-5 stock tires be good enough (like my Mazda 6), or is the CX5 a car that needs winter tires (like my Mazda 3)? We are looking at the touring. the GT is too expensive and I doubt the 19"tires would be any good in snow and are very expensive to replace.

We don't care about high-speed performance, high-speed cornering etc. My wife likes the look of the CX5. We also look at RAV-4 (that being an appliance car, the chance of having tires less geared towards high-speed are better).

I don't want AWD, and dealing with snow-wheels is expensive, a hassle. And we drive so little that I still have the original tires for summer on my 2005 Mazda 3 (they age more due to age getting brittle). so having snow tires wouldn't save me money on the summer tires.

I realize all-season tires aren't perfect. but also know if the tire is more geared towards high-speed (=high temp), it loses in winter and vice versa. that is why a sports-oriented car manufacturer as Mazda may not be what I'm looking for.

On another note, it likely is too soon to tell, how is the CX-5 corrosion-wise? My Mazda 3 is horrible with pieces corrding off. the "6" holds up OK.

 

I'm wondering all of this as well. I only ever used all-season tires on my Blazer and it always went really good on show and ice.

 

According to tire rack the stock tires don't get good survey ratings for snow:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....=Touring%20AWD

 

thanks for the answers. Yes writing down the tire data and looking up reviews would have been my next step. but I don't recall the ones at the dealer having those yokohama tires (and if they cost $200 they are not for me anyway) and when I go out and actually buy a car they may have switched them (in case Mazda found a cheaper supplier).

 

All anyone can comment on is the current tires that are on the car. It is impossible to speculate on what might be on the cars at a later date.

It isn't uncommon for the stock tires to be both not great and expensive. I guarantee you Mazda negotiated a better deal on them than what they charge retail and I'd bet the tire company plans to make up the difference by selling the next set of tires to people that just buy what was on the car.