Best Tires for the Subaru Forester in 2024 - Car Talk (2024)

• Written ByNicole Wakelin
• 7/10/2024

Have an older Subaru Forester? See tire sizes for previous years.

Best Tires for the Subaru Forester Base and Premium:

• Laufenn G Fit AS - Best budget tire
• Goodyear Assurance Maxlife - Best mid-priced tire
• Michelin Primacy A/S - Best superior tire

Best Tires for the Subaru Forester Sport, Touring, and Limited:

• Laufenn S Fit AS - Best budget tire
• Pirelli Cinturato P7 All Season Plus II - Best mid-priced tire
• Goodyear Eagle LS-2 - Best superior tire

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Top Replacement Tire Brands for Subaru Forester

We’ve recommended three replacement tires in both 17-, and 18-inch sizes, in budget, moderately priced and cost-no-object varieties. Whether you have plenty of cash to spend or are watching every penny, don’t worry; we’ve got you covered. All these tires have ratings of four-stars or higher based on consumer surveys:

17-inch Tires for Subaru Forester

• Budget: Sumitomo Touring LS T - Your bargain choice at $103, these all-season tires are designed for long wear and a smooth ride.
• Moderately Priced: Continental Truecontact Tour - Affordably priced at $140, these tires get excellent consumer ratings and boast a long tread life.
• Cost-No-Object: Michelin Crossclimate+ - Coming in at $191, these tires offer a smooth, comfortable ride along with the capability to handle wet weather and light snow.

18-inch Tires for Subaru Forester

• Budget: Laufenn S Fit AS - With a price of only $105, this is a great option if you want a quality tire at a bargain price. It has high customer ratings with performance handling and all-season traction.
• Moderately Priced: Goodyear Eagle Sport All-Season - This tire comes in with a price of $155 and offers all-season traction, even in light snow.
• Cost-No-Object: Goodyear Assurance Weatheready - The smooth ride of an all-season touring tire combined with a special formulated rubber that provides excellent winter weather traction can be yours for $208.

When Should You Replace Tires?

There are two regular milestones that will suggest that it’s time to replace the tires, not only on your Forester, but any vehicle in your driveway: Time and mileage.

Considering most drivers cover between 12,000 and 15,000 miles per year, most Forester owners will pass the miles their original equipment tires were intended to cover well before they’ll go past the tire’s usable age.

The life of your tire can be somewhat predicted by its UTQG (Uniform Tire Quality Grade) rating. Tire manufacturers apply their own grades to tires for treadwear, traction and temperature. When you’re researching tires online, a UTQG will come up next to the tire name in three digits and a number (ex. 500 A A).

You can glean a bit of info from the tires by reading this rating:

• 500 - The durability rating of a tire, compared to a control tire with a treadlife of 100. To obtain a grade, tires run on a 640 kilometer course for 11,520 km. Every 1,280 km, the tread depth is measured, to provide a projected tread life. The higher the number, the longer the predicted treadlife.
• A - This is the Traction rating of a tire, which indicates how well a tire stops in wet conditions. The highest letter grade is AA, followed by A, B and C.
• A - The second letter in the UTQG is the Temperature rating, which indicates how well a tire holds up to extreme heat. A is the highest, followed by B and C.

Original equipment Bridgestone Ecopia H/L 422 Plus tires on the Forester earn a 600 AA UTGQ rating. Unless they are damaged, these tires could last up to 60,000 miles before you need to replace them.

The other consideration is time. Each tire has a raised date code on the sidewall. The number begins with the letters “DOT” followed by 12 digits in three four-digit groups. The date code is the third group of four digits. To decipher the date of your tires, the first two digits represent the WEEK the tire was produced, and the second two digits represent the YEAR.

For example, if your tire’s date code is 3217, that indicates the tire was manufactured in the 37th week of 2017, or sometime between September 11 and 17th that year.

Once tires go beyond five years old, it’s time to consider replacing them. Tires are made up not just of rubber and steel or Kevlar belts, but chemicals that help the tires resist UV rays, temperature changes and a lot of other environmental hazards. Those chemicals start to break down after five years or so, and the tires aren’t doing the job that they need to do. At that point, it doesn’t matter how good they look. It’s time for replacements.

Why Not Replace with Original Equipment Tires?

There’s nothing wrong with putting on the same tires that were on your car when it came from the factory. Although they’re perfectly fine, you may be able to find a tire that’s better suited to your specific needs.

You only need to purchase ONE set of tires for your car every four years or so, depending on how much you drive. When an auto manufacturer purchases tires, they buy them by the hundreds of thousands. For the manufacturer, the decision to choose a supplier one brand or another comes down to a price point.

For you, your consideration may be completely different. If you could get a tire that stopped 20 feet shorter for an additional $10 per tire over the original equipment, you’d probably do it. Similarly, if there was a tire that made less road noise for a minimal investment over stock, you’d probably decide on the slightly more expensive tire (that is, unless you’re trying to drown out the conversation of your back-seat-driving spouse.)

Subaru Forester Tire Sizes

Depending on the year and model, you may be shopping tires to fit anything between 15-inch for older models to 18-inch wheels with various widths and sidewall sizes along the way. It is possible to change the wheel and tire sizes, but a general rule of thumb is to keep the total diameter of wheel and tire the same. So, that means that downsizing an 18-inch wheel to a 17-inch wheel would include a proportionate upsizing of the tire sidewall to compensate.

Downsizing wheels has its advantages. Benefits include:

• Better ride quality – More rubber means more cushion for poor road conditions.
• Cost reduction – Big tires are expensive, so moving to a smaller wheel size will mean less costly tire purchases.
• Seasonal changes – Winter and snow tires are available for a larger selection of smaller wheel sizes and the narrower footprint will provide better traction.
• Off-road – Many people choose to downsize wheels for off-road use to increase the vehicle’s shock absorption capabilities and bump traction on loose surfaces.

On the other side of the coin, going up in wheel size has its benefits:

• Better handling – Slimmer profile tires makes for less rubber to move around.
• Better looks – This one’s subjective, but many people feel that larger wheels look better than smaller wheels with more rubber.
• Better braking – Larger, wider wheels provide a bigger patch of rubber on the ground to slow the vehicle, reducing braking distance.

See our recommendations for the Best Extended Warranty for your Subaru Forester

How to Read Tire Sizes

When reading tire sizes, it’s important to understand what the numbers mean. The Subaru Forester’s 18-inch wheels come with P225/55R18 98H all-season tires:

• 225 - indicates the width of the tire from one sidewall to the other in millimeters. This tire is 225 millimeters wide.
• 55 - indicates the aspect ratio, or sidewall height, as a percentage of the tire’s width. In this case, it’s 55 percent or of the tire’s width.
• R - means radial tires. Radials are the most common type of automotive tire and have fabric woven in at various angles with tread that is strengthened with additional layers of rubber.
• 18 - indicates the wheel diameter.
• 98 - is the tire’s load rating.
• H - is the tire’s speed rating. H-rated tires have a maximum top speed of 130 mph.

You may have noticed that the Subaru Forester’s two tire sizes have different diameters and different aspect ratios. Generally, automakers choose tires that have the same outer diameter. This allows them to have only one speedometer setting.

Now that you know what comes on a new Forester and how to read the size numbers, let’s look at the different types of tires available to you. Depending on the type of driving you’re doing, where you live, and the weather, you have a variety of choices for tire types:

• Touring and All-season tires - provide a smooth ride, good wet and dry traction, decent winter traction, and longer tread life. These tires are acceptable for winter use but can’t be expected to provide the traction and stopping power that a dedicated winter tire can.
• Performance tires - are focused on providing confident handling, better wet and dry traction, and a sporty feel. Their higher grip and speed ratings come with a tradeoff of shortened tread life and reduced ride quality.
• All-terrain tires - are built to maximize off-road traction and provide good durability overall. Their construction means more noise and less comfort on the road, but winter traction and tread wear is acceptable.
• Winter and snow tires - are made with special rubber compounds that maintain grip and pliability when temperatures drop. They are also built with special tread patterns to maximize the vehicle’s ability to start and stop on very slippery roads.

Car Talk Community's Favorite Tires

Car Talk's very active online Community has many interesting and thoughtful perspectives on the best tire brands in the industry, based on real life user experience and knowledge.

Read more on the Best Tires in the industry according to the Car Talk Community here.

Read more on the Best Tire Deals available here

See our overall recommendations for Best Tires

See our recommendations for the 10 Best Tire Brands for 2024

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