Americus Recon Tour vs Nexen N'Priz AH5 tires

For most drivers of sedans, minivans, coupes, and crossovers, all-season tires, just make the most sense as a one-stop-shopping solution for everyday driving. All-season tires are designed for year-round grip, long and even wear properties, handling that’s capable and responsive, and a quiet, refined ride on the highway with stable, solid road manners. They may fall a little short when it comes to the type of white-knuckle handling you’d expect with an ultra-high-performance or summer tire, but for most drivers all-season tires get the job done very competently. With that in mind, it’s no surprise that there are all-season tires available at every price point, from the most obscure budget brands to top-tier top-dollar tires from the biggest names in the tire business.

When it comes to all-season tires for sedans, minivans, crossovers, and SUVs, there are a staggering number of choices available at the more affordable end of the price range. In most cases, there’s a straight-line connection between price and quality, but there are also plenty of affordable options on all-season touring tires that deliver surprisingly good performance and value.

Today we’re going to look at the Americus Recon Tour and Nexen N’Priz AH5 to see how they stack up against each other. Are you familiar with SimpleScore? SimpleScore is the ratings system that the SimpleTire team developed to give drivers a quick at-a-glance idea of a tire’s strengths and weaknesses. We look at the tire’s specs, the manufacturer’s info, customer reviews, and data points, then we take that info and process it into a 1-10 numerical value for the categories of traction, handling, and longevity, as well as an overall average SimpleScore rating. In the case of the Americus Recon Tour and Nexen N’Priz AH5, theSimpleScore numbers shake out like this:

Americus Recon Tour:

• Traction: 7.9
• Handling: 8.2
• Longevity: 7.7
• Overall average SimpleScore: 7.9

Nexen N’Priz AH5

• Traction: 8.1
• Handling: 8.2
• Longevity: 7.8
• Overall average SimpleScore: 8.0

Those are, of course, some pretty respectable numbers for anything on a scale of 1 to 10, no matter if it’s tires or tennis rackets. As handy as SimpleScore is, it’s a 30,000 foot view that doesn’t get you all the way in for a close, detailed look at what a tire can offer. Let’s zoom in on a head-to-head faceoff with the Americus Recon Tour and Nexen N’Priz AH5:

Americus Recon Tour tires

Americus is a Pacific Rim brand that’s imported by American Omni, which is also home to makes like Venezia and Vercelli; it’s a great deal in an affordable all-season tire and has a lot to offer. The tread pitch, profile, and casing design of the Americus are all optimized to reduce road noise and vibrations by canceling certain frequencies and overtones. For dependable year-round grip, wide circumferential grooves evacuate standing water from the tire’s tread footprint to mitigate any tendency toward hydroplaning and a dense network of sipes multiplies the tread’s surface area and traction with hundreds of edges to slice through snow, slush and standing water.The next-generation tread compound is designed for long, even wear and dependable traction on wet or dry pavement, which pays off with a 70,000 mile limited manufacturer tread life warranty. Handling is consistent and predictable with a reinforced shoulder that helps enhance the cornering ability and reduce tread squirm during hard maneuvers and a solid center that rib gives the tire good road manners and straight-line stability as well as enhancing steering response.SimpleTire’s price on the Americus Recon Tour starts at a low $56.99 per tire.

Nexen N'Priz AH5 tires

What does the Nexen N’Priz AH5 bring to the game? There’s a lot of common ground in the design and features of the Nexen and the Americus, with similar tread patterns that feature sipes and circumferential and angled grooves for wet-weather performance. The Nexen has an innovative dual kerf design that enhances the stiffness of tread blocks for improved handling and long, even wear, and the shoulder blocks are reinforced for improved cornering and handling ability as well as keeping road noise down. The continuous center rib of the Nexen N’Priz AH5 gives it rock-solid stability in a straight line on the highway as well as adding to the steering response that’s sharp and crisp. The Nexen is also designed for low rolling resistance and enhanced fuel economy, and select sizes are available with a classy white sidewall stripe. Nexen covers the N’Priz AH5 with a 50,000 mile limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty. The Nexen N’Priz AH5 starts at $67.50 per tire.

Americus Recon Tour vs Nexen N'Priz AH5 tires on traction

How do the Americus and the Nexen compare when it comes to the traction category? Honestly, it’s pretty close: 8.1 SimpleScore for the Nexen N’Priz AH5 vs 7.9 for the Americus Recon Tour. While both tires are very capable and dependable in wet or dry weather, we tend to think that the kerfing design of the grooves on the Nexen makes a bit of a difference, especially on wet pavement. The Nexen is also designed with an advanced tread formulation that delivers improved traction on wet roads and shorter braking distances, so our decision:

ADVANTAGE: Nexen N’Priz AH5

Americus Recon Tour vs Nexen N'Priz AH5 tires on handling

In the handling category, both tires are very closely matched; in fact, each tire pulls down a SimpleScore of 8.2. That means they’re both capable and predictable when tossed into a corner on a curvy road or an interstate off-ramp, with little tendency toward understeer or oversteer and steering response that’s quick, light, and accurate. That’s the kind of confidence you want with any all-season tire’s handling; while those kinds of handling properties might not be up to the level of a summer tire, ultra-high-performance, or all-season UHP tire, it’s certainly more than enough to safely get the job done. Our decision:

ADVANTAGE: TIE

Americus Recon Tour vs Nexen N'Priz AH5 tires on longevity

With SimpleScores of 7.8 for the Nexen and 7.7 for the Americus,, the two tires are also pretty closely matched when it comes to longevity. It’s a bit of a puzzle, though, since usually the limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty coverage tells the whole story on longevity and SimpleScore rankings. The Americus, however, has a 70,000 mile warranty vs 50,000 for the Nexen, yet the Nexen edges it out by a tenth of a point on SimpleScore. That’s when we just defer to customer reviews, and customer reviews point to the Nexen having a slight edge here. Our decision:

ADVANTAGE: Nexen N’Priz AH5

When to use each

Like we said right on the front end, all-season tires are just a versatile choice as a Swiss Army Knife, one-stop-shopping solution for most drivers. That means handling that’s crisp and predictable, easy road manners, a quiet and compliant ride, long wear, and great stability on the highway. About the only kind of conditions where most all-season tires fall short of getting the job done is deeper snow, like the kind of snow that piles up for several inches and stays on the roads for days on end. We need to mention here, though: if you’re the kind of driver who has a sporty sedan or crossover and you really enjoy spirited driving and pushing your car’s performance envelope to the absolute limit, neither the Americus or the Nexen might be right for you and perhaps an ultra-high-performance or summer tire would be a better choice. But if you just need a reliable tire for interstate road trips or day-to-day errands and commutes, you can’t go wrong with what the Americus Recon Tour and Nexen N’Priz AH5 have to offer.

Which one should you choose?

When we get down to the “which one should you choose” question between these two tires, it’s a genuinely tough call. Both get outstanding overall SimpleScores of 7.9 and 8.0 and of course, the 70k mile limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty of the Americus is outstanding for a tire that starts out well under $60 – at one time not long ago, a tire at that price point would likely have not offered any mileage warranty at all. It’s true that the Nexen N’Priz AH5 does ease past the Americus Recon Tour in some categories, but then again the Nexen starts at $67.50 per tire vs $56.99 per tire for the Americus.It’s our honest, considered opinion at the SimpleTire team that you’re not going to be disappointed with what either tire has to offer. The best advice we can give would be if you can afford a few dollars more for the Nexen, go for it – and if you want to save those few dollars, go with the Americus. Both represent excellent values in replacement all-season tires, and both would be fantastic choices for an older vehicle where you need tires but don’t want to empty a piggy bank to do it.

Still not sure which tire to buy? Fortunately, SimpleTire is here to help, and our helpful agents will be more than happy to assist you in selecting the right tire for your ride and budge