General AltiMAX RT45 All Season 225/45R18 95V XL Passenger Tire

It is hard to write a review for tires shortly after you get them because you want to monitor their performance for awhile and one really can't evaluate their tread life until its time to get new ones, which will be a number of years. However, I will do my best. I needed to replace the Bridgestone Duellers that came with our 2019 Outback (bought new). In researching tires, I learned that Bridgestone is regarded as a "top tier" tire, but I will tell you I am VERY dissatisfied in the tread life of those tires. I got under 47K out of them. By comparison, my son's truck has Hankooks on it and although I'm not thrilled with the grip of those on wet roads, He's got 50k on them and probably can get another couple of thousand miles. Hankook Tires are significantly less expensive than Bridgestones. Anyway back to the General Altimax tires. I had General "Grabbers" on a truck I once owned and found them decent. In researching I found that General is owned by Continental, a reputable German company (I'm good with that- I don't want Chinese made tires). I looked on a website that correlates customer reviews and these tires scored "excellent" in every category except "snow" where they scored "Good." The tires are quiet, and the ride is smooth. The handling is comfortable as well. It had rained last night and the roads were a bit wet and these tires performed fine. These are rated for 75k tread life, but I'm not sure where any tire manufacturer gets the tread life mileage number because I've never had tires last up to the stated mileage. However, as I alluded to earlier, this tire did score "excellent" in tread life from purchasers. Of course I won't know for quite some time whether they will even approach 75k, I hope they do better than the Bridgestones though.

The General Altimax RT45 has been rated %232 by Consumer Reports (vs. a Michellin tire as %231), but it costs a good bit less, so I think its the best value. I've been buying the discontinued RT43's and now RT45's for years for all of my cars. I recommend them. They are quiet, have good all around traction and are a good value for the price for my Priuses (Prii) and Pontiac Vibe GT Manual.