Bridgestone  Potenza RE97AS

I was disappointed after buying my 2017 GTI to see the rating given these tires. However, after over 15,000 miles, I find them much better than I had anticipated. They handle very well, have not hydroplaned despite the record amount of rain in the DC area, where I live, and have very positive dry traction as well. They are comfortable, firm, but give good road feel but not a harsh ride. They appear to be wearing well and have not yet become particularly noisy. NOTE: I keep them fully inflated, often adding a PSI or two since they are more lively that way. I would not hesitate to buy them again.

I was very surprised at these tires that came with my premium edition of my STX Cadillac. A former professional race driver, I habitually "test" myself on cloverleafs, taking curves at twice their pre-marked speed, etc. in a sedan that is absolutely not designed for such spirited driving. These tires delivered all the traction and grip one could expect and surprised me at the tread wear. I could get another year out of them, but mid-west winter is coming and my wife also drives the car. The minor tire noise is a small compromise to get this kind of performance. I want to buy the same tires again.

Hands down this is a great tire.
This is my second set of 20 inch 97AS' and I could not be more pleased with this tire's performance. They came standard on my car and I drove them hard. The first set gave me a premature wear of only 40,000 miles. But that was purely my fault; again I drive them hard.
Moreover, they ride great and take small road bumps very well. However, I inadvertently ran over a pothole and thought that I had lost a wheel. The tires don't necessarily have the overly aggressive looking tread patterns; however, this is still a very nice looking tire. As a matter of fact I actually thought that they looked better after they started to wear.
During the summer, and if you drive spirited like I do you will be able to take corners at speeds that will surprise you. During hard cornering I never felt as if the vehicle was slipping away from me.
Braking is exceptional as these tires are tack sharp! I can't really comment on hydro planning as I tend to slow down in the rain anyway.
The problem with these tires occurs during the winter. I live in Atlanta and the light snow we have is an issue for this tire. Because the tires are unable to heat up you will never get traction and will slide all over the roadway. If I lived in an area that had hard winters I would more than likely purchase winter tires. If you are unable to purchase winter tires, drive cautiously.

Finally, when they wear they get loud at highway speeds.

Overall this is a great tire.

This tire came factory installed and I have gone almost 55K on this set. Tread wear is fantastic with rotation every 5K and proper air pressure. In the beginning, I could go 80mph even in heavy rain without hydroplaning. I even drove in a heavy snow storm once without any issues. It did slide around but it was very controllable. I have 3/32 tread now and the road noise is horrendous. It sounds like heavily worn wheel bearings. It is very annoying. Dry traction is still superb but heavy rain slides the car around. Light rain is still fine and no sliding. Other than the serious road noise that started at about the 6/32 mark, I can't complain too much. This tire lasted longer than expected and performs as well as any leading tire in the same category, minus the crazy loud road noise. I love this tire but I hate road noise so I am up in the air about getting another set. I might try the Hankook S1 Noble 2 just because I have had Hankook tires before and the noise was not this bad. These Bridgestones are also not cheap tires so right now, price will play a factor in what I get. The Hankooks are a bit cheaper and based on previous experience, I will probably get those.

Potenza R97 245/40/20 came on the 2015 Chevrolet Impala LTZ when I bought it new. The test drive sold me on the car and the tires. Cornering, traction, comfort were beyond my expectation. I put 55,559 on the tires before I purchased a new set of the exact same tire. I travel both road at speeds of 80-85 mph and city. I live in the South so I rarely experience snow or ice so I can't give an opinion on that. The tires have been a great ride from mile 1 to mile 55,559. The tread depth left on the tire when I replaced them was 3/32. The tread on the edge of the tires was worn off on most of the tires (which made sense to me) but the rest of the tread showed normal expected wear. At 55,559 miles I had no reservations of driving, on the highway or in the city, rain or shine. The performance of the tires hardly dropped off at all up to the time they were replaced. I read in reviews before I purchased my new set that some people graded this tire a little low on road noise. There is faint road noise but I'm not sure if that is because of the tire or the car. Some cars, smaller sport models especially, don't hold out road noise. Road noise from the Potenza R97 has not been an noticeable issue to me.

I would recommend these tires to anyone.

Replaced tires at 95k and still had life. Rotated tires regularly. Drove in Midwest weather and handled great. Quiet ride. Just bought another set .

Decent tire for dry pavement City/Highway. Once you are driving in wet or snowy conditions be prepared for a white knuckle drive.

I drive in rain, snow, slush, and ice on the highway in this car using it for summer and winter road trips. I point this out simply to provide a my perspective from having decades of driving experience in the mountains in all forms of weather. I purchased these tires for three season use on the Passat W8 (4motion all wheel drive) Wagon. I have a dedicated set of Continentals for winter driving.
This tire proved to be one of the scariest tires (if not the worst) I've ever owned when driving in wet to very wet conditions on the highway. In a heavy rain I felt like I was driving on ice. The two safety systems in the Passat (one regarding the all wheel traction control and one to throttle back available power) both kicked in while in highway traffic and although those safety features did what they were supposed to do when the car looses traction, I've never had them do so before in any condition (snow, slush, ice, rain) in the history of me driving this vehicle. I've experienced hydroplaning in heavy rains but this was off the charts in my driving experience. This episode of traction loss was repeated at lower speed on a large radius corner and at that point the car computer simply locked up in the low power, anti-slip mode for the remaining 200 miles of wet highway. Can't fathom how this tire could perform in winter but that's not what I purchased them for.
Dry traction seems precise or "sharp" and maybe could be called a little 'sporty'. Road noise seems ok on dry roads. I'm moving on to another tire.

These tires are the OEM tires that came on my car. They are, without a doubt, the worst set of tires I've driven on. Living in Michigan, I would expect that the tires the OEM installs on a sedan would be, at the very least, somewhat usable in the snow. If there is more than maybe 1/2" of snow on the road, don't bother trying to drive your car anywhere, as climbing a hill at any speed is nearly impossible and your 0-30 mph acceleration time will be x10 what it normally is. It does not matter how light or hard you are on the gas, these tires just will not move a car in the snow. When it is raining, your best bet would be to drive very cautiously. Hydroplaning resistance is mediocre at best, but the traction is downright horrible. Accelerating, braking, and cornering all must be done with the most gentle touch, otherwise the tires will break loose. On dry pavement, it is surprisingly easy to spin the tires from a stop, and taking a turn moderately quickly will make them squeal. Road noise on the highway interferes with your ability to have a conversation with passengers and under some conditions overpowers the nice Bose stereo system in the car. Additionally, I average 35-40,000 miles on my tires, and these ones need replacing at 30,000. Overall, these tires are terrible at best, and dangerous at worst. Please avoid these at all costs, there are plenty of better options that are less expensive than these.

After driving numerous different cars for over 50 years, these are the worst tires I've ever had. The car came from the factory with Bridgestone Potenza RE97AS. Bad choice by Chevy to put such terrible tires on such a good car. Zero traction on snow and ice, any accumulation over 1" you're better off to keep the car at home. Shoulders are cupping badly after 4,000 miles. Noisy. No traction from dead stop on wet roads. Rough ride. Do Not buy. There are much better brands out there.

I got these tires (like other reviewers) on a new Chevrolet Impala (mine is 2014 Impala 2LTZ). As others have said, these tires have HORRIBLE snow traction! All it takes is about 1/2 inch of snow and these tires will skid all of over the place, rending them USELESS in snow. They are also noisy and have a rough ride. In 2015, after doing a lot of research, I replaced these tires (P245/40R20) on my 2014 Chevrolet Impala 2LTZ with Pirelli Cinturato P7 All Season Plus tires in the same P245/40R20 size. I recommend others with this car replace these awful Bridgestone tires with these Pirellis. The Pirellis have a MUCH better ride (not noisy and not too rough) and so far have handled well in winter weather. They were able to allow me to control the car in a snow storm that left other cars skidding all over the place. I have not experienced any issues with the OEM Bridgestones in wet conditions as others have indicated. I replaced the Bridgestones well before they wore out because of how DANGEROUS they are to drive in any snow of ANY kind. I am upset with GM for including these tires with the 2014-2016 Impala LTZ (I expect these tires to also be on the 2017 Impala Premier); because I got the Adaptive Cruise Control, I was forced to get these tires. The P245/40R20 tire size GM chose doesn't leave many tire choices unfortunately (thanks GM for choosing a tire size that severely limits tire choices). I recommend that those with the 2014-2016 Impala LTZ with this Bridgestone OEM tire replace it with the Pirelli Cinturato P7 All Season Plus tire.

These were the tires that came on my Accord Sport 6-speed. I just replaced these today after 44,000 miles. I would say that I'm satisfied with the performance but not wowed by them. The tires didn't have any faults but they didn't have any glaring strengths either. I've definitely driven cars with tires that beat these out in all performance categories. That being said, I never really felt 100% stable in wet weather with these tires even when they were brand new, and snow was the same as well though they did get the job done with some finesse and careful driving. Definitely not dangerous, but also not confidence inspiring in wet weather. The tire life was pretty good for me having lasted this long. I could have probably stretched the tires out to 50k miles, but the only reason I replaced them today is I'm going to be taking a trip to a few places that will see a good bit of snowfall this week, and I figured that now would be as good a time as any. Also, I noticed that as the tires got more wear on them, the noise would increase a good bit. Not something I would call noisy but enough for me to notice. Now with the new tires, the noise is gone, the car rides smoother, and it just handles and feels so much better. (I bought a different brand)

So in short, the tire is decent for factory original equipment, but when buying replacements, there are much better choices out there that blow this one away.

These are factory tires on my 2015 impala Let me start by saying these are the worst tires I have ever had they are very noisy and hard riding. I like everything about my new Impala except these tires. I still don't know why GM puts these on any of there new cars!! I will be putting on new Pirelli centurato p7 very soon I do not recommend buying these tires if you are looking for a quiet smooth ride.

These tires have been quite a disappointment for a top name like Bridgestone. While handling and grip is quite good both in dry and wet weather, ride comfort suffers especially over expansion joints and the road noise has been terrible since day one. I almost returned them within the 30 day trial period hoping things would settle down, but missed that opportunity so we've been stuck with them.

The road noise is like a hum that just gets louder and louder the faster you go. Even at 60mph on the freeway, the road noise dominates over the wind noise. Even more upsetting is that the hum isn't a constant pitch. Whenever you go over a light bump where the car's weight shifts, the pitch changes a little which makes folks unfamiliar with the car think the tire is going to come off. When turning in for a highway off ramp, the noise dissipates somewhat as the side-wall folds over and the outer tires load up - I suspect these tires might work better on cars that specify a little negative camber - most Subarus specify 0deg camber.

Luckily we have a nice stereo so we've made do for 16,000 miles, but I would not recommend this tire for anyone who wants a smooth and quiet ride.

I’ve always been happy with Bridgestone tires in the past I’ve always bought their high-performance tires. These are OEM tires on my car and I generally expect all-season tires to terrible but these aren’t bad. I don’t agree with VW pressure recommendation of 42psi! I think that’s done only to boost fuel mileage at the expense of traction. But what I really hate about these tires is the noise! My winter tires are quieter than these. I took the car in to have the wheel bearings checked but it’s the tires that are making the noise. When these wear out, I’m definitely replacing them with something quieter.