Hi. I've been reading here about tire calamities on the Mazda5 with some interest. Fortunately, I haven't had the same bad luck as your UK readers have expereinced. I live in Virginia. I have a 2006 Sport model with 33k miles on it, and my dealer says the original equipment Toyos (205/50R17 89V "Proxies A18") have run out of time. That is, by far, the shortest lifespan for tires I have ever experienced. The dealer says I'm lucky - most Mazda5 owners have seen an even shorter lifespan on those tires.

Yeesh. Mazda should be replacing them for free.

Dealer says he'd recommend going with H rated tires, that the V rated ones are just too soft. He can get Pirelli H rated tires and install them for $550. I like to get my tires at BJ's where the out-the-door price includes lifetime balance and rotate, as well as road hazard insurance. They don't carry the Pirellis.

What do you guys think? V? H? Z? Pirelli? BF Goodrich? Michelin? If my goal is to pay no more than $125 (alright, I might go to $150) per tire and I want a good riding, longer lasting tire, what brand (and rating) should I be looking at?

 

From my experience 33k on any tires is good, but then I tend to drive aggressively and purchase cheap tires. I would deffinitely not get tires from a local store without going to tirerack.com and pricing out their tires. I have ordered all tires (minus some emergeny snows) from them and have saved hundreds. Shop your price range, read reviews, order them and pay a local tire shop $50 to install. With a budet of $100 per tire you can get some nice rubber from that site. My last one's were Sumitomo's and wow they were quiet and handled nice (on a civic though).

 

I've gone through this with Saabs. It depends on what you want in a tire... good ride, $$, performance, etc. There is ALWAYS a trade-off. You can't get everything you want.

I want my tires to last a while, so I have some Yokohama YK520's. They are a bit stiffer on the ride department, but they are a harder compound. I would get Michelins if I was looking for the smooth ride (the other end of the spectrum). But they won't last as long. I'm using my Toyos now, becasue I want to wear them out and put winters on the wheels. The Toyos seem relatively "soft" compared to my Yokos.

I ran some Fuzion ZRs on my Saab wagon for a bit. They were great for the first 10K, but got too noisy later on. Keep in mind that the Saab 9-5 has had similar wear issues as the UK Mazda 5, but the Saab problem is with the rear, instead of the front.

What it boils down to is this... You need to decide what you want. Read the reviews, interpret them (I can usually tell which ones are moot - low miles so far, etc) and go with what you think will work. Most of all... REPORT YOUR FINDINGS to the rest of us.

DON'T FORGET: You can try different tire sizes, too. I have a set of 225 45/17s instead of the stock 205 50/17s
http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html

 

on a 17" wheel, with the size we have, there is VERY LITTLE tiresize wiggle room. going more than a plus1 width WILL give more sidewall roll on hard turns, and result in a wet marshmallow feel at highway speed. I personally will be sticking to stock or stock+1 (for the right tire).

I'm actually depressed to know that the 5 eats the stock tires so fast, but then i don't find myself beating on my new 5 as hard as i drove my Diamante.

One tire i found VERY impressive for the sedan was the Falken Ziex ZX-512's. They are a directional tread and had UNBELIEVABLE traction in wet and snow when I lived in western Pennsyltucky. I have since moved to Las Vegas and they were VERY sticky on the hot tarmac here. My wife has a set of Yokohama Touring tires on her sonata that SUCKED in the snow, but so far have 45k on them, and we are not even halfway thru the tread yet. They are VERY whiney though.

TireRack is your friend, and I put alot of faith into the little green and red boxes on the ratings pages. Provided of course that they have a strong sampling on each tire. Take a look at the offerings from Falken...you may be pleasantly surprised.

 

Mazda UK are sticking to reccomending Dunlop Sports! I am on set 3! 20,000 miles!!!!!
I had Avon ZZ3's for the second set. Good tyre, wore like the first set though!!

I shall wait and see if the car shreds the new Dunlops......

 

I'm wondering now if this ismore of a problem in the UK than the US. I spoke with my service manager yesterday (Cedrik @ Courtesy Imports in Henderson NV) and he said he has never heard of this issue. we even pulled all the tsb's for the 2k6 and 2k7 M5 and not a single mention of tire wear. He then checked the "internal communication forum" for mazda dealers only and there was noone talking about this issue at all. Can't wait to see what my first set of tires does. I just found out it's gonna cost me freekin 500 bucks just to REGISTER the damn car next week... EEEEEK!

 

I don't think there's a TSB on it. My dealer simply said that his experience was that Mazda5 owners were having to replace the Toyos before hitting 30K. Some before hitting 25.

After starting this thread last week, I did a lot of reading, called all the tire shops in town, and spent a lot of time on TireRack.com. All signs pointed to Kumho ECSTA ASX replacement tires. They're all season radials that top several major name brand tires (like Goodyear Eagles) in the testing they've conducted. My dealer said he's had good luck with Kumho's on his own cars, and also feels confident recommending TireRack.com. So, I ordered 4 from them (with the road hazard insurance), and had them shiped to my home. They arrived in one day (about 21 hours after I placed the order), and my dealer will mount and balance next week. His charge is only $50. The tires were $95 each, Road Hazard Ins added $11.40 per tire, and shipping was around $8 per tire. No tax. The whole job, start to finish, will cost me$510.

Why did I go this route? It was the price, plus the test results and recommendations I found at TireRack. The lowest price quote I had previously was the $555 that the dealer wanted to order and install the Pirellis. And no Road Hazard Ins if I had gone that route. BJ's would have put Michelins on (the only tires they carry that come in this size), included road hazard ins and free lifetime balance and rotate service, but it was going to be $850! Yikes. Every other price (for Falken's, Goodyear's, etc.) fell between these two quotes - closer to the $850 than the $555. So I'm very pleased with the $510 outcome.

Will these tires last longer than the Toyos? I don't know. The reviews I read did not mention expected treadwear. They come with a 30,000 mile treadwear warranty. I'm (grudgingly) accepting of the fact that I may not get more than that, and just happy I'm not shelling out $850.

That's where I ended up. Let's keep trading info like this on our Mazda5's. It's very valuable. And like many of you, I love this vehicle. There are a lot of cars out there that are fun to drive, but they're not nearly as stylish and versatile as the 5. I hope they become a hit and stay in Mazda's lineup for years to come.

-Bo