I had about 45k miles on my 22' Forester Sport and only had around 2/32's of tread left before being down to the wear bars on the stock Falcon tires. I knew I didn't want to drive through the winter on almost worn out tires so a little while back I started watching for deals on tires. I'm in central IL and am a big fan of all weather tires, I've had Toyo Celsius on my past Forester, have Celsius 2's on my wife's Ascent, and before that had some Nokian WRG2's on a Mazda CX9 that she had before the Ascent.
I tend to go for Toyota Celsius tires as I've had good luck with them and they seem to be priced pretty well, but I ended up picking up these Nokian Outpost APT All Weather/All Terrain tires on sale from Simple Tire during their Labor day sale a bit ago and I was able to get them cheaper than the Toyota Celsius tires I would have normally got. I figured this was a win/win they have a better tread life warranty and also a more aggressive looking being they are an AT tire and not just all weather.
I'm not going to lie, I really got the APT's because of the more aggressive look of them. I don't really "need" all terrain tires, but I do occasionally drive gravel and dirt roads, and maybe a bit through the grass and dirt/mud of some property we are cleaning up, but I've got by with the stock Falcon tires for over 2.5 years. I do really like all weather tires though for the winter weather we sometimes get in central Illinois, there isn't enough to warrant winter tires, but I live out in the country so the roads can be sloppy for a while so they are very nice to have.
Anyways yesterday I had the tires mounted and balanced yesterday and so far I really love them!
I was a bit worried that they might be a little on the loud side being AT tires, but I think they are barely louder than the stock Falcon tires, but I do also have a stainless Flowmaster 40 series axle back exhaust that I welded up, so that may drown out a bit of the tire/road noise ?. My wife drove the car with the new tires and didn't mention anything about them being loud, so that is a pass in my book. LOL. There is just a little whine/hum around 30-40mph and a little road noise around 65-70mph, but you have to actively listen for it with the radio off. If you turn the radio on at all it isn't noticeable. They may get a bit more quite as they wear in as well?
Dry pavement traction and handling is definitely better than the stock Falcon tires. We have a large S curve heading out of town and you can notice a noticeable improvement going through the S curve.
I'm doing some dirt work with my tractor on some property next door to us, so I have a large hill of exposed loose and rutted dirt to "play" on. The tires did great going up and down this hill. There was a little wheel spin here and there going up the hill, but between traction control and the AT tires the Forester went up the hill and through some ruts and loose dirt like a champ.
We also just had a thunderstorm roll through so I was able to try the new tires out in some heavy rain and deep puddles and they are at least just as good as the stock Falcon tires and probably better.
Next week when I'm off of vacation and back driving to work we'll see if my mileage is affected much. I don't expect it to be as I drive mostly rural highways at 55mph or so.
Overall I'm very happy with look and performance the Nokian Outpost APT tires so far! I really look forward to testing them out in the snow and really hope they hold up for the 65k warranty. I had good luck with tread life on Toyo Celsius tires in the past and I hope to see the same here!
