I can't honestly say that I have found a really good overall tire for the 3, one that I can fully recommend. Of the three sets of "All-Season," Ultra-High Performancetires I have tried so far, they all seem to have their good and bad points.

i.e. The RS-A's (205/50x17,) You've all heard me rant about these, I'm sure. The only thing they seemed to begood for was dry weather driving. Got <20K painful miles out of them. I couldn't WAIT for these things to die.

Falken ZE-512's (215/50x17.) Nice tire, lightweight (<20 lbs ea,) handled and stopped well. Handled the wet pretty well too, but I'm not sure snow would be the best thing for these either.A little rough in the ride department, not as noisy as the GY'sbuta fairlyfastwearer. Still have these on the OE wheels, but they wouldn't last but another 10K, imo, or +/-25K overall.

Kumho ASX's (225/45x17.) Again, a nice tire. Better at cornering than the Falkens andthe Bad Years, softer ride, but forward traction sucks!! I'm spinning these things every time it rains... just like the Good Years, yet unlike the GY's they have excellent cornering in the wet andseem even more stable than the Falken's? Though they do have the best wear rating of any of these I've tried (400) it is yet to be seen as I only installed them late last Nov (<3K miles.)

That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.

 

im on the toyo proxes fz4s that came with the car. in my opinion they realllly didnt work that well for me. but thats because i live in ontario and the snow is just crazy. so i sucked it up and bought a pair of herculesavalance snow tires. they work reallly well and i only paid 600 for them including the rims. if your constnatly in snow dont use the all season;s. i got stuck a few times with them so i sucked it up and bought the snow tires.

 

For serious snow and ice, that is the only safe(?) way to go, imo.
But I'm not even talking about serious weather. I don't go out when it gets too serious around here. If I don't crash my own car, I'm sure I could find some other a-hole to do it for me. It's just not worth it to me anymore. I'll miss the work day if necessary.

 

well tomorrow i may miss work if i cant get up there. its reallly bad here. i cant see anything. wow

 

I don't have a Mazda3, but I do have a Protege5 with 101k miles, and I have gone through 2 1/2 sets of tires so far. I can conclude this:

1. The stock Dunlop SP5000 tires were OK, but not the ultimate in wet or snow traction.

2. When the Dunlops wore out, I replaced them with Kumho Ecsta ASXs. I strongly recommend AGAINST buying this tire. I had 3 of them blow out due to abnormal wear at the tread-sidewall corners. In one case I was doing 70 in traffic and it just let go. The second one went sort of slow but still the entire inside corner was down to the steel. The third one blew out with my daughter driving, and that was that.[:@] I took them back to Discount Tire, and they made it good by replacing all the Kumhos with the Yokohama YK520 for $10 each. BTW, I had the alignment checked twice after the first two blowouts, and it was spot-on both times. I won't even comment on the Kumho performance because it just doesn't matter.

3. The YK520s are excellent tires. They have excellent grip, are quieter than either the Dunlops or Kumhos, and seem to be wearing great. They may give up a little wet traction to the Kumhos, but snow traction is probably better. These tires are highly recommended.

Hope this helps!

 

i got to say those yk520 are excellent price and quality i use them in my mazda but i also sipe them for the winter never had any problems and i also work for Discount tire. lol

 

I just checked them out myself and am surprised to not find them on the Tire Rack"s site as well. In fact this seems to be a model specifically made for Discount/America"s Tire stores.
They do seem to be a very well rated tire, but many I saw were only H speed rated. The 205/50-17"s are a 91V rated but show the same wear (520,) traction (A) and temperature (A) ratings as the 225/45-17 HR? That doesn't sound right to me.
A VR tire should have different characteristics from it"s H rated sibling. Usuallysofter tread compound and the faster wearing that comes w/it. I suspect that DiscountTire and Yokohomaare only showing us one side of thestory here, andit"s a best case scenario.
Here are some links to decide for yourselves...
http://www.discounttire.com/dtcs/tir...T&pc=43122

http://www.discounttire.com/tireInfo...hamaYK520.html

http://www.yokohamayk520.com/yk520pdfbulletin.pdf

And here is a pretty good deal on 225/45-17 HR I found from Discount Tire on eBay, but you'd need a 7-7.5" wheel for them....
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/4-NEW...QQcmdZViewItem

http://www.epinions.com/reviews/Yokohama_YK520_Tire

 

I dont know.. those yk520 look a little boring to me. But than again I dont have to deal with snow, ice or really that much rain.
I like a sport tire, although they only seem to last 25-30 thousand, i have 24 on my Bridgeston Potenza's
Bridgestone Potenza Tires[align=left] [/align]

 

First of all what size rim do you have? The size of the rim willvary the price of the tire and the type of tire you can get.I have the 17's and had the Goodyears with the same complaints everyone else had.My secondset of tires were Bridgestone Potenzas whichI likeda lot. They cost me $150 USD and lasted about 35k miles. I would still have them on if they did not fail NYS inspection[:@]. My one grunt about them was their snow traction. The car was allover the road and would get stuck in 2 inches of snow. They were great in the rain and very responsive.
I wanted a tire that would do well in snow, andI was willing to give up some performance. I got Nokian WR's. WhenI first saw them they looked like winter tires, but the mechanic told me that they are true all season tires. The website says that also.http://www.nokiantires.com/en/tire_w...?season=summerThey cost me $175 USD. They are really quiet,absorb bumps a lotbetter than the other tires,and do well in the rain. They corner nicely but not like the performance tires, andthey are not as responsive as the performance tire. I've only had them on since june, so i can't tell you how theyare in snow, but they look like snow tires so i assume they will do just fine. good luck with your purchase

 

I have a question, many reviews of the 3 that I have read the biggest complaint is road noise. Are the stock RS-A's pretty much the cause of the excess road noise while driving?