Vehicles using 225/50R18 tire size:

• Volkswagen Taos
• Subaru Crosstrek
• Subaru Outback
• Toyota Previa
• Toyota C-HR
• Mini Countryman
• Mazda Mazda6
• Kia Seltos
• Kia Sportage
• Jeep Renegade
• Hyundai Azera
• Infiniti M
• Infiniti A60
• Honda CR-V
• Honda Odyssey
• Buick LaCrosse
• BMW 3 Series
• Audi A6
• Audi RS Q3

1. Pirelli P4 Persist AS Plus - Best All-Season Tire

Let’s kick off this list with a premium all-season tire with the Pirelli P4 Persist AS Plus. For decades, drivers have loved Pirelli for high-performance tires and a full lineup of all-season and touring tires. Pirelli has a lengthy reputation for engineering, quality, and performance, and the P4 Persist AS Plus does a great job of carrying that flame. The P4 Persist AS Plus is a tire you can rely on to deliver low noise, refined ride, crisp handling, and excellent wear properties along the lines of a Grand Touring tire and versatile year-round traction. With its low rolling resistance design, the Pirelli P4 Persist AS Plus saves on fuel costs over the tire's life. Straight-line stability on the highway, handling, and tread wear are all excellent thanks to the reinforced shoulders of the P4 Persist AS Plus, designed for the rigidity and reduced tread squirm that a performance-oriented tire needs to be able to stand up to the hard lateral forces of cornering. The P4 Persist AS Plus avoids hydroplaning and enhances wet-weather performance with circumferential grooves that remove water from the tire’s contact patch. Its angled lateral grooves engage a solid mechanical grip on wet or dry pavement. The solid center rib in the middle of the P4 Persist AS Plus’s tread is designed for great road manners and precise steering response. Tread life is another real plus with the P4 Persist AS Plus – Pirelli backs this tire with an 85,000 mile limited manufacturer tread life warranty. That all comes out to SimpleScores of 9.7 for traction, 9.9 for longevity, 9.5 for handling, and an overall composite SimpleScore of 9.7.

2. General Altimax RT45 - Great All-Season Tire

Let’s wrap this list up with one more great all-season tire, the Altimax RT45 from General. The Altimax RT45 might be a more affordable all-season option, but don’t let that fool you; this tire offers great performance and value. It’s a tire that’s a great choice in all kinds of weather conditions thanks to a tested all-season tread design, and General Tire covers the Altimax RT45 with either a 65,000 or 75,000 mile limited manufacturer tread life warranty (depending on tire size). We did the numbers and gave the Altimax RT45 a SimpleScore of an outstanding 9.9 for longevity. The Altimax RT45’s tread is designed to deliver year-round traction, a forgiving ride, low noise, and handling and braking performance that are consistent and precise (SimpleScore for traction: 9.0). For handling, the Altimax RT45 gets a SimpleScore of 8.7, thanks to a network of sipes and lateral grooves and a solid center rib that boosts road manners and steering response. Another innovation is the visual alignment indicators that give drivers a heads-up to uneven tire wear or wheel alignment that’s out of spec. The words “Replace Tire” are molded into the tread of the Altimax RT45 to display when the tread depth reaches a minimum of 2/32”. Select sizes of the Altimax RT45 are available with a great-looking outlined white letter sidewall.

3. Continental ExtremeContact DWS06 PLUS - Best Ultra-High Performance Tire

Next up is a tire that makes a great showing in the UHP performance game, along with the year-round traction you need – the ExtremeContact DWS06 PLUS from Continental. The ExtremeContact DWS06 PLUS gives you the non-nonsense versatility of an all-season tire with safe, confident traction in wet, dry, or light wintry weather. That comes with the kind of road manners, cornering, braking, steering response, and overall handling that are more like what you’d expect of a UHP tire. Remember that UHP and summer tires have a softer tread compound that hardens in the cold, gives up its traction, and needs to be dismounted and exchanged for all-season tires in colder weather. The ExtremeContact DWS06 PLUS is a successful upgrade of the popular ExtremeContact DWS06 in just about every aspect, with cornering ability, braking, and steering response that are all enhanced by the tire’s reinforced 2-ply sidewalls and macroblocks in the tread. Our team reviewed all the data points and gave the ExtremeContact DWS05 PLUS a capable SimpleScore of 9.9 for handling. Long life and great wet-weather traction are also definite pluses for the DWS06 PLUS, thanks to its silica-rich tread compound, sweeping lateral grooves, circumferential grooves, and X-sipes for rainy roads or light wintry conditions. SimpleScore for traction: 9.8. With a 9.2 SimpleScore, longevity is quite good, too; a 60,000 mile warranty covers the Continental ExtremeContact DWS06 Plus.

4. Goodyear WinterCommand Ultra - Best Winter Tire

For rough winter weather with deep snow that lingers on the roads for days or weeks, many times a dedicated winter tire is the only one that can reliably get you from point A to point B and back because an all-season tire is just not going to be able to get the job done. Our pick for a dedicated winter tire in the 225/50R18 size is the Goodyear Winter Command Ultra, a studless winter tire designed for the most extreme winter weather. The WinterCommand Ultra utilizes Goodyear’s CryoGrip tread compound, which is designed to stay flexible and conform to the road for excellent winter traction. The WinterCommand Ultra is then molded into a directional V-shaped tread pattern that features active block cuts, 3D sipes, and hydro-dynamic grooves, all working as a system to evacuate water and slush from the tire’s contact patch and slice through standing snow and slush. That’s enough for an outstanding SimpleScore of 9.9 for traction. With those tread elements, the Goodyear WinterCommand Ultra offers the same kind of control, cornering, steering response, and braking performance you’d expect with a premium all-season tire for a SimpleScore of 9.9 in handling. While the Goodyear WinterCommand Ultra is durable and boasts a longevity score of 8.5, it’s important to remember that it’s a winter tire and unsuitable for year-round driving. The softer, stickier tread compound of winter tires wears prematurely when temperatures are above 45 degrees F, and tire manufacturers advise switching back to all-season tires for warmer weather. Not surprisingly, the Goodyear Winter Command Ultra is Three Peak Mountain Snowflake rated for severe winter service. The overall composite SimpleScore for the Goodyear Winter Command Ultra is 9.2.

5. Bridgestone Potenza Sport A/S - Best UHP All-Season Tire

Here’s another excellent tire that delivers the inspiring cornering ability, braking performance, steering response, and road manners of a UHP tire with year-round traction: the Potenza Sport A/S from Bridgestone. The Potenza Sport A/S is designed with Bridgestone’s PeakLife Polymer rubber compound and a 50,000 mile warranty, garnering a SimpleScore of 8.9 for longevity. A reinforced shoulder and sidewall that resist deformation during hard cornering and a solid rib design give the Potenza Sport A/S handling properties that put it in the UHP category, earning a solid SimpleScore of 9.5. Year-round grip comes from open shoulders with slots for water evacuation, full-depth 3D sipes and biting edges, and circumferential and lateral grooves, all of which allowed us to award the tire a 9.5 in traction. The Potenza Sport A/S is quiet, refined, and nimble, making it a great candidate for sedans and crossovers that use 225/50R18 tires.

Buy 225/50R18 Size Tires Online

Here at SimpleTire, we know that the tire-buying process can be frustrating and a little overwhelming, with the huge number of tire choices on the market at every price point and the number of features and warranty packages to sort out. With these tire size guides, we hope to make that process more friction-free for you and give you the information you need to decide when to replace your tires.