2018 CX5 AWD owner - FL driver, and weather.
These tires made my short list because they are 3 peak snow flake rated and have pretty good ratings. This mattered to me because I'm approaching a time when we'll be road-tripping to colder states and will inevitably encounter the wintry stuff.
Best word to describe these: compromise.
They don’t seem particularly excellent at anything, just a great jack of all trades which has an upper hand in wintry conditions vs A/S tires. These will do 95% as good a job tires like the Premier LTX or similar – yet are far superior in winter, less $$, and from reviews it seems they actually go the distance with their rated mileage. I've always had Michelins in my vehicles and they always wear out at about half their warranty rating.
I hope the following will give you a feeling of what these feel like in my GT:
Handling: less of a knife, more like a spatula. With that said, they aren't fully broken in yet.
Wet traction: So far so good except one red light I spun tires a little, but it might just be the release agent because they are new. Drove over deep puddles at speed, yet I couldn’t break them lose.. they just bit the road.
Dry traction: It’s an SUV not a race car. They do just fine.
Comfort: they are on the softer side it appears – maybe a little bouncy. However you can feel every grit on that pavement. It’s as if they don’t isolate the texture from the driver, instead they transmit it straight to the steering wheel + seats. Not sure if this is a plus or a minus, but in my case, I'm not loving that too much. Yet don’t confuse this with noise. Feeling is different from hearing.
NOISE... oh the noise many complain about. This was the category in the reviews which made me hesitate at getting these, but in the end I guess I took the dive.
I will divide this part into subjective as well as objective:
Subjectively (personally) I do feel they are a little louder, but not much - maybe 1 or 2 decibels. The added road feel I think plays a trick with your brain to make you think they are louder than they are (combining the actual noise with the gritty feel on some concrete roads).
Objectively (with a decibel app on my Samsung Note 10) – shocking enough - they aren’t louder. I tested on my car, on a stretch of road at 50 and 60 mph. accessories off, windows closed, stereo off. 50mph = 70 decibels. 60mph = 72-74 db. 70mph: 74-76 db.
Here’s the interesting thing: I immediately went and test drove a BRAND NEW 2021 CX5 GT with stock Toyo A36s which are the original tires for this car– and I got the EXACT same #s / db ranges. . New OEM tires seem to be just as loud (or quiet however you want to interpret) as these. IF there is a difference, I’d argue it’s subjective and does not exceed 1-2db. However the stock tires do seem to isolate the road feel better, which might explain why they might come across as quieter.
One thing these tires DO have is a little humming noise. It’s there, it’s present, yet not intrusive. If you roll down your windows, you can hear it outside bouncing off the curbs and walls and such. This car does a decent job at hiding it with the windows up but it's still there.
Overall, for the promise of added traction in winter conditions, I think it's a solid tire. I don't think anything else out there really combines these features with the promised mileage these have. Oh and looks wise... smoking!
I hope this helps!