Best Tires for Acura TSX
Tires on a vehicle are its sole communication with the ground. Tires can have a significant impact on a vehicle’s driving dynamics. There is no one perfect tire for every car, driver, and environment, so choosing the right tire compound, dimension, and tread for your vehicle can sometimes be a bit confusing. Most of the time while choosing a tire it can be a tradeoff between two vehicle dynamic traits.
Choosing the right tire for your Acura TSX will depend on how you want the car to drive. A tire with a bigger sidewall will dampen most of the bumps and provide you a comfortable ride, but it will increase your steering response and will add body roll. Tires compound plays a significant role in defining its life and on-road grip. A softer compound will tend to stick better with the ground but will wear off faster. We have shortlisted some of the best tires for different conditions and driving styles for your Acura TSX below
Best All-Season Touring Tires: MICHELIN CROSSCLIMATE 2
If you are looking for a set of reliable tires that provide industry-leading performance for everyday usage, then MICHELIN CROSSCLIMATE 2 is your best bet. They provide a comfortable driving experience along with a consistent performance in all weather conditions and seasons.
CrossClimate 2 are Michelin’s best-selling all-season tires that perform exceptionally well in most conditions faced under normal routine driving. Their grip on asphalt in wet and dry conditions is class-leading, thanks to the directional tread design. It does a great job of avoiding the car from hydroplaning on wet surfaces. The compound on the CrossClimate ensures a perfect balance between grip and tread life. The V-formation on its tread ensures even force distribution that results in uniform tread wear.
Michelin provides a 60,000 miles warranty on these tires, which is as high as it gets in the tire industry. This is because they have confidence in their product. Michelin has also optimized these tires by applying PIANO Noise Reduction tuning to eliminate road noise to a great extent. These all-season tires also serve well in the snow by biting into it with the V-formation on the tread.
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Best Winter / Snow Tires: BRIDGESTONE BLIZZAK WS90
If the temperature in your area drops below zero in winters, then the good old all-season tires won’t be a safe option for you to take your TSX on road with. It is better to get a separate set of winter tires for people living in these regions. The BRIDGESTONE BLIZZAK WS90 is one of the most reliable tire that you can get for winters without a second thought. They come packed with all the necessary features that keep your car well glued to the road even on snow or ice.
BRIDGESTONE BLIZZAK WS90 is specially engineered to perform great on snow and ice. These tires come with a soft tire tread that provides secure handling and adequate stopping power even under extremely low temperatures. The directional and deep tread pattern on these tires helps push the slippery snow slush off the contact surface between the road and tires. The horizontal sipes present on the tread bite well onto slippery surfaces like snow to get your car moving in the most extreme scenarios.
These tires are equipped with a tube multicell rubber compound that absorbs the liquid particles on the surface like a sponge to provide a better grip on the surface. Bridgestone assures 30% more block stiffness than most of the other winter tires available in the market, which might help your tires last another winter season. The stud-less tread design also ensures a smooth and quiet driving experience.
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Best Performance Tires: MICHELIN PILOT SPORT 4S
If you have got a V6 version of the TSX or have managed to strap on a turbocharger to the engine and want to have some fun going fast through the corners on the track, then you would require a set of good performance tires. MICHELIN PILOT SPORT 4S provide exceptional grip and stability on tracks to get you going fast through those corners, while still avoiding hydroplaning unlike semi-slick tires.
MICHELIN PILOT SPORT 4S are one of the best street performance summer tires for track use. These are treaded sport tires so they maintain their performance even in wet conditions. They are designed to provide exceptional road handling and grip even at high speeds. Michelin claims that their Total Performance technology provides both incredible on-road traction as well as improved tread life.
The strong sidewall on these tires ensures agile steering response and high-speed cornering. Pilot Sport 4S comes with a deep rim protector that guards the rim from curbing against sidewalks. Michelin provides a 30,000 miles warranty period on these performance tires.
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Best Budget Tires: RIKEN RAPTOR ZR A/S
If you are looking for some inexpensive tires for your TSX, that you won’t hesitate to wear out when you are doing burnouts or power slides, and don’t require the most comfortable riding experience then don’t hesitate to get the RIKEN RAPTOR ZR A/S.
RIKEN RAPTOR ZR A/S is one of the most inexpensive yet decently performing all-season tire in the market. Do not expect a class-leading performance or comfort from these tires, they perform quite average in all segments. Riken claims that their arrow-shaped tread prevents hydroplaning by pushing water out laterally.
Riken markets these tires as performance tires so the sidewalls on these tires are quite hard. Which helps in maintain a responsive steering feel and gets you safely through corners even at higher speeds. But as a tradeoff it does not provides the most comfortable driving experience over bumps. The tires are reported to be quite noisy by the users on highways, especially as they age. Hydroplaning is also not avoided quite well on these tires, as multiple users report slippage on wet surfaces.
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Best Daily Drivers: PIRELLI P4 FOUR SEASONS PLUS
If you want an economical set of tires that will assist your vehicle in providing a better fuel mileage along with a longer tread life, then the PIRELLI P4 FOUR SEASONS PLUS are a perfect fit for your needs. These are engineered to last longer along with fuel savings.
PIRELLI P4 FOUR SEASONS PLUS are standard all-season touring tires that provide a comfortable driving experience in most environmental conditions. The symmetric tread design on these tires helps provide low rolling resistance to the car, which ensures that it consumes the minimum gas for the miles covered.
These are designed to perform consistently even in the rain, as the tread pattern has 2 central longitudinal continuous grooves for water expulsion to avoid hydroplaning. They come with reinforced shoulder and sidewalls that ensures an even tread wear, and high mileage.
The low rolling resistance from this economical set of tires also assists it in providing a quiet and comfortable experience on highways. The P4 also are priced aggressively to attract willing buyers. Pirelli provides warranty coverage for 45,000 miles on the P4 FOUR SEASONS PLUS.
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Buying guide that tells which the best is to buy for most people
So, if you are confused about what tires to get for your Acura TSX then the explanation below would help you understand what you really get in different types of car tires and what trade-offs you are making by opting for them.
Grand Touring and Touring Tires for Acura TSX
Grand Touring and Touring all-season tires will cater to the needs of most of the Acura TSX owners. Touring tires provide a balanced experience in terms of performance, tread life, comfort, and all-season performance.
Touring Tires are designed to last longer than other tires, hence are typically rated for 60,000+ miles. They are designed in a manner to ensure uniform tread wear which guarantees a longer life. The tire compound for touring tires is neither the softest nor the hardest, hence it does not wear out that easily.
Most touring tires are all-season tires as they are targeted towards the majority of the audience. Not everyone has the budget and space to own a separate set of tires for the winters. Hence, they are designed to provide adequate grip in summers as well as winters. These tires also have decent traction on wet surfaces as they are equipped with design features that help push water laterally away from the tire surface and to avoid hydroplaning. Hydroplaning is the phenomenon when water forms a thin layer in between the tire and road surface, which results in the car floating on a thin sheet of water.
Touring tires provide a good amount of comfort and significantly absorb the bumps on rough surfaces. They provide a decent amount of lateral grip and okay steering response. But do not expect to take your TSX at high speeds around turns with a set of touring tires.
Winter Tires for Acura TSX
Winter Tires are designed to be used in colder regions with snow and ice. These are not designed to be driven around in summers. Winter Tires have an extra set of design features that make them superior in handling in the winter season.
These design features are mostly standard across different manufacturers but are named differently by each to market them as something innovative or new. These design features include:
1. Studs
Studded tires have metallic studs poking out on the surfaces of the tire which helps them grip well by digging into ice and snow. Studded tires also tend to be a lot noisier than studdless winter tires.
2. Tread Compound
Tread compound on the winter tires is a lot softer than all-season or summer tires in low temperatures. Even under freezing temperatures these tires remain fairly stretchable which helps them keep better contact with the road and improves the vehicles handling
3. Deeper Tread Grooves
Deeper Tread grooves on winter tires allow these tires to push slush (snow + water) mixture away from the contact between the tire and the harder surface (ice or asphalt) for better grip.
4. Sipes
Sipes are finer smaller horizontal grooves all over the surface of a winter tire. These are designed to bite onto the rough edges on the surface and help a lot in providing grip while braking or accelerating. The presence of these sipes on the tire surface also tends to increase the road noise a lot.
5. Hydrophilic Rubber Compound
The treads rubber compound is treated to show hydrophilic (water-loving) nature; hence it absorbs water like a sponge. This allows winter tires to absorb extra moisture from the contact area to help provide a better grip on the road.
Never drive with your winter tires in the summer season, it will destroy your winter tires in not a very long period. Also, the drive will be a lot noisier and disconnected.
Performance Tires for Acura TSX
Performance tires stand out from the rest of the tire types by providing the best high-speed cornering stability and sheer grip. They are designed to have a solid longitudinal and lateral grip to help push the power down to the ground without any slippage and to corner at high speeds.
The grip is enhanced on dry asphalt in these tires by two basic methods:
1. Increasing the surface area in contact by reducing the number of lateral and longitudinal grooves. It generally also results in a reduced grip on wet surfaces.
2. Using a softer and tackier compound to enable the best grip possible between the tires and the roads. It typically results in quicker tire wear as well.
The lateral performance and agility of the car is ensured by opting for the following design choices:
1. Harder sidewalls and shoulders ensure that the sides of the tire do not compress when the car goes through sharp turns to reduce body roll and steering agility. It also results in a stiffer ride over bumps and rough road patches.
Eco or Fuel Mileage oriented tires
These tires are designed to have the lowest rolling resistance which assists the car in providing the best fuel mileage. It takes a lesser amount of work to be done on these tires by the engine to move the car forwards. It does so by reducing the energy losses while moving through optimizing the tread design and the rubber compound. These tires also are some of the quietest on-road tires and last quite long against the other types.
How much do Acura TSX tires cost?
Tires for the Acura TSX can start from about 100$ and can go up to 220 $ for each tire, although you might be able to find cheaper and expensive tires depending on the tire’s performance.
What does the number at the end of the tire dimension describe?
The number at the end of the tire dimension is known as its service description and describes the tire's load-carrying and speed limit. The number stands for the maximum load a single tire can withstand when deployed and inflated over a rim. And the alphabet next to the number stands for the maximum speed at which the tires are rated safe.
What are directional tires?
Directional tires are tires that can only be deployed in a single direction on the wheels. You need to install each one of the tires in the direction it was designed to rotate in. The tire’s allowed direction is typically represented on its sidewall with an arrow.
When do I need to change my tires?
Although you would automatically feel the need for new tires by experiencing reduced grip and performance, but if you want to check whether you really need a replacement or not then you can follow the guide below
1. When the tire’s tread is worn out for the most part. You can check it with the penny test. If on inserting the penny into the groove with Lincoln’s head upside down. And if you can see his head outside the groove. Then your tire has worn out a good amount and needs replacement.
2. If the tires are over 6 years old, it is recommended that you should replace them.
