[ZeGermanHam]

Originally Posted by Shiny

We used to buy Michelin but seemed they lost the benefit of their higher cost about 10 or 15 years ago.

We have had good luck with General since then.

We put Altimax RT on our Outback a year ago and they have been good so far.

The original tires got annoyingly noisy after a couple years and these Generals are much quieter. Jury is out on life but I had a set of Generals on a Jetta that went 40K and still had life left with no issues when I sold the car.

Don't know where you got that idea about Michelin tires losing their edge. As a road course track instructor, I can tell you that it's absolutely not true. Michelin is consistently at the very top of the heap when it comes to tire technology and performance, which is why they are standard equipment on new Porsche GT cars, C8 Corvette, and on and on. You will not find a single person in the automotive sphere who frequently tests tire performance that says differently about Michelin. They are known as the industry gold standard, and are worth the extra cost.

General and Altimax are budget brands. Cooper is ancient history. They're fine for most people (and certainly fine for an '09 Vibe), but if you're going for the best product, it's not going to be offered by any of those brands.

In any regard, it's pretty easy get a better sense of how tires stack up by doing research online. Tire Rack does tire comparison videos, which can be helpful. There are also channels on YouTube devoted to objective tire testing, such as https://www.youtube.com/user/TyreReviews.