This past year I finally got a set of Blizzack snow tires for my 2007 Honda Civic, and was blown away by how well it performed in the snow and ice.  I actually made a point to go out in the nasty weather just to test it out.  When March rolled around I swapped out the tires for my old all seasons, and came to a realization.  I hated my all season tires.

Up until shopping for my snow tires my standard model for getting tires was showing up to a tire place and saying I wanted good tires.  I was the ignorant consumer, assuming the guy over the counter understood what I meant by good.  It actually worked out quite well on my old civic the second time I replaced the tires, but I suspect that was just dumb luck.

My snow tire shopping experience was different.  I went to Tirerack and read a lot of reviews and ratings on tires, asked a few friends for opinions, and picked something that had the trade offs I liked.  The end result was excellent.  So I decided to do it again for all season tires.  The end results were again… excellent.

I picked the Bridgestone Turenza Serenity tires (and not just because they are named after my favorite spaceship), and I picked right.  They are super quiet, I no longer have any tire noise at all, which is hugely different from my last set.  I woke up Tuesday morning excited to get in the car and drive, it didn’t matter where.  No results on wet traction yet, given that we’re having freakishly (35 degree above average) hot and dry weather right now, so that second criteria hasn’t been tested yet.

The whole experience made me realize I really need to be a more educated consumer, even on areas of my life where I’m less interested.