Best Tires for Hyundai Sonata: Our Recommendations & Reviews

South Korean carmaker Hyundai is bent on competing with the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord with the all-new 2020 Sonata. The first-generation Sonata was introduced in 1985 but the second-gen model was the first Sonata to arrive in North America. Now entering its seventh generation, the Sonata is banking on its refined good looks and blazing array of tech to stand out from the usual midsize family sedan.

The Sonata has always been a great car. Fitted with a proper set of tires, the Sonata is a comfortable and quiet cruiser. But if you push it, it has the agility of a sports sedan, but you need the right set of tires to do the job. In this article, we’ll be talking about the best tires for Hyundai Sonata. As a bonus, we’ll be taking a deeper look into the many types of Sonata tires and why choosing the best one is crucial.

What are the best tires for Hyundai Sonata?

In our experience, the Hyundai Sonata is at its best if fitted with a premium set of touring tires. Most import and domestic vehicles are fitted with standard OEM touring tires from the factory, and there’s a reason for this: Touring tires are cheaper than performance tires, and that’s basically it. However, touring tires are also more comfortable on the highway. Not exactly meant for sporty driving, touring tires shed less rubber on the road and are designed for longevity. If your Hyundai Sonata is a mile-muncher, touring tires are an economical option.

But then again, there are options. Hybrid tires are all the rage these days, and it’s easy to understand why. Hybrid tires are essentially two tires in one. For example, you may find a grand touring tire that offers sportier handling, or maybe a sporty tire with touring characteristics. And with many brands vying for your attention (and money), choosing the best Hyundai Sonata tires is bewildering, to say the least. And that’s why we’re here to help.

All-season vs. Summer tires: Are summer tires worth it?

If you’re talking about the Hyundai Sonata, the answer is a resounding NO. Summer tires are meant for sporty coupes, fast sedans, or sports cars in general. In terms of dry grip, summer tires are the best for high-performance driving and/or racing applications. But there are drawbacks. Summer tires are not great for wet roads or all-season driving, not to mention the added cost over a basic set of touring tires.

Unless you have the much-anticipated Hyundai Sonata N (which probably won’t arrive until 2022), there’s no reason to consider summer tires.

Best Tires for Hyundai Sonata 2024

Michelin Primacy Tour A/S

Michelin Primacy Tour AS

The Michelin brand is a trusted name in the world of tires. If you’re searching for a tire that delivers miles upon miles of comfort and road silence, the Michelin Primacy Tour A/S is a sterling choice for the Sonata. The new Primacy Tour A/S is a grand touring all-season tire that prioritizes comfort and all-season traction.

Michelin’s Primacy Tour A/S is gifted with an asymmetric tread design. Michelin claims the Primacy Tour A/S has the quietest tread design among similarly-rated tires, and that’s saying a lot. What’s more, the Primacy Tour A/S offers up to 17-percent better snow traction than other Michelin touring tires.

The tread design was tuned with Michelin’s Piano Noise Reduction Tuning technology by utilizing canceling shoulder grooves and block chamfers. But with wider outboard shoulder blocks and sweeping grooves, it also offers excellent traction and grip in all-weather driving. And if you’re expecting a Michelin tire to break the bank, the Primacy Touring A/S will beg to reconsider. Starting at $115 each, it’s also good value for money.

Pros

  • Premium grand touring comfort
  • Excellent handling on wet and dry roads
  • Good for light snow
  • Longer wear
  • Fabulous price

Cons

  • Not much

Goodyear Assurance ComforTred Touring

Goodyear Assurance ComforTred Touring

Goodyear is quick to point out the Assurance ComforTred Touring is the brand’s best tire in terms of ride comfort and all-weather handling. It’s a bit more costly than the Michelin, but it has a ton of features to make it one of the best all season tires for Hyundai Sonata.

The Goodyear Assurance ComforTred Touring is engineered with a special comfort layer in the tread. According to Goodyear, it offers 20-percent better cushioning than standard touring tires. It also has ComfortEdge sidewalls that perfectly merge the attributes of a performance tire and touring tire.

Featuring an asymmetrical tread design with wider circumferential grooves, this tire is well-equipped to handle changing road and weather conditions. Admittedly, the Goodyear Assurance ComforTred Touring is a bit pricey at around $160 each, but it’s hard to ignore when it comes to comfort, ride silence, and all-season handling.

Pros

  • Excellent ride comfort
  • Silent and serene cruising at any speed
  • All-weather grip
  • Sporty tread design

Cons

  • Pricey but worth it

Yokohama Avid Ascend GT

Yokohama Avid Ascend GT

When talking about tires for Hyundai Sonata, the Yokohama name deserves attention. The Avid Ascend GT is a grand touring all-season tire that won’t break the bank. It has a bevy of features that will give both the Michelin and Goodyear a serious run for the money, and it does it at less than $135 each.

Best of all, the Yokohama Avid Ascend GT is branded with the BluEarth symbol. Constructed from ecologically-sourced and sustainable materials, the Avid Ascend GT is the next-generation touring tire for the environmentally conscious driver. Yokohama utilized its patented TriBLEND tread compound with low-Tg polymers and an increased blend of silica for all-weather traction and grip.

It has a sporty asymmetrical tread design with adaptive shoulder blocks and optimized tread pitch variations. What this means is a quiet and comfortable ride without penalizing handling and steering feel. The inside shoulder of the tire is equipped has open notches to assist in water evacuation when driving over snowy or wet roads.

Pros

  • Comfortable ride
  • Less tire roar
  • Excellent all-season handling
  • Good for light snow
  • Longer wear
  • Affordable price

Cons

  • Not much

Continental Pure Contact LS

Continental PureContact LS

The Continental Pure Contact LS is a luxury sport performance tire with Eco+ Technology. This tire is engineered to deliver an extremely silent ride with a bit of sporty handling thrown in the mix. Continental utilized a high-tech, temperature-activated tread compound with +Silane additives to improve grip, tire wear, and fuel economy in all-weather driving.

The Continental Pure Contact LS has an asymmetrical tread pattern with stable tread blocks and a wider center rib. This improves the lateral grip of the tire while improving high-speed stability and handling. Also, this tire is equipped with Comfort Ride Technology, which consists of an additional underlay beneath the treads to absorb vibrations and deliver a smooth, pleasant ride.

Featuring siped shoulders and intermediate tread blocks, the Continental Pure Contact LS is also good for light snow and winter driving. Starting at around $138 each, it won’t be listed as the best tire for Hyundai Sonata without a reason, right? It offers a premium driving experience without burning a hole in your pocket.

Pros

  • Superior comfort and ride silence
  • Longer wear
  • Excellent handling
  • All-weather traction and grip
  • Friendly price

Cons

  • Not much

Bridgestone Turanza Quiettrack

Bridgestone Turanza QuietTrack

The Turanza Quiettrack is Bridgestone’s premier all-season grand touring tire for passenger cars and luxury sedans. If you want year-round traction, a smooth ride, longer wear, and sporty handling in an all-season tire, the Bridgestone Turanza Quiettrack is a sterling choice – if not for the price. Starting at around $170 each, this tire is not the cheapest in this list. However, it’s one of the best tires for Hyundai Sonata for providing a unique blend of sporty handling and luxurious ride comfort.

Featuring an asymmetrical tread design with Bridgestone’s innovative QuietTrack technology, it has non-chamfered shoulder slots, in-groove quiet tracks, and an optimized pitch sequencing to cancel out road noise and excess vibrations. It even has interlocking grooves that create additional biting edges over wet, snowy, or slippery pavement.

With a rounded contact patch and critically-designed shoulder slots, the Bridgestone Turanza Quiettrack is designed to last. It may be among the most expensive tires in this list, but it’s also among the most talented in premium all-season driving.

Pros

  • All-season driving comfort
  • Silent ride
  • Longer wear
  • Sporty handling
  • All-weather traction and grip
  • Good for light snow

Cons

  • Pricey but worth it

Pirelli Cinturato P7 All Season Plus

Pirelli Cinturato P7 All Season Plus

The new Pirelli Cinturato P7 All Season Plus is a multifaceted all-season tire for grand touring applications. As such, it offers better comfort, lesser noise, and better braking in the wet. The low rolling resistance tread compound can also improve fuel economy by as much as 4-percent.

Equipped with an asymmetrical tread design molded from a low oil and high silica tread compound, the Cinturato P7 perfectly blends dry handling with superior wet braking. It has a continuous outboard shoulder with multiple inboard tread blocks to deliver improved high-speed stability and a whisper-quiet ride.

The all-new Pirelli Cinturato P7 All Season Plus is perfectly suited for year-round driving in changing weather conditions, including light snow. It starts at around $140 each and remains an excellent choice for the Hyundai Sonata.

Pros

  • Sustainable construction
  • Exhilarating all-weather performance
  • Silent and comfortable ride
  • Longer wear
  • Better fuel economy

Cons

  • It’s a bit pricey

Goodyear Assurance WeatherReady

Goodyear Assurance WeatherReady

If you want the ultimate in all-season and all-weather driving, Goodyear’s Assurance WeatherReady is literally ready for anything. This is Goodyear's best tire for all-weather traction and is equipped with superior features to handle just about everything Mother Nature can throw at it. Best of all, the Goodyear Assurance WeatherReady is severe snow certified to offer advanced capabilities over snowy, icy, or wet roads.

Goodyear blended a careful mix of soybean oil in the tread compound. This allows the rubber to remain pliable in freezing temperatures. The Assurance WeatherReady also has evolving traction grooves with Tredlock Technology. The former transitions from deep grooves to wider grooves as the tire wears out, which means you still get excellent grip even as the tire ages.

Meanwhile, TredLock consists of a set of grooves that either locks together when cornering to offer better handling or open wider to create more biting edges when driving over wet or snowy pavement. The Goodyear Assurance WeatherReady offers the best of both worlds: great handling and comfort in the dry and relentless traction in the wet.

Pros

  • Superior all-weather traction
  • Severe snow certified
  • Sporty handling
  • Comfortable and quiet ride
  • Great tread life

Cons

  • It’s pricey

Best Budget Tires for Hyundai Sonata

Kumho Ecsta LX Platinum

Kumho Ecsta LX Platinum

Kumho is an OEM tire brand for most import and domestic manufacturers, most particularly Hyundai and Kia vehicles. And since Kumho is a South Korean tire brand, it remains a sterling choice for the Hyundai Sonata. The Ecsta LX Platinum is Kumho’s all-season grand touring tire that offers great styling, a comfortable ride, exceptional road silence, and sporty handling. And it does it all at less than $90 each.

The Kumho Ecsta Platinum is equipped with a radial asymmetrical tread design. It also has three arrays of siping on the tread face to improve year-round traction in all-season and all-weather driving. The outboard shoulders have intermediate block sipes to improve lateral grip and snow traction. The middle blocks have straight sipes with a waffle design for better dry traction and handling.

Drawbacks? The Kumho Ecsta LX Platinum is not great on snow, but it does offer solid grip over wet roads. But for less than $90 each, this tire is hard to ignore. If you’re running on a tight budget, consider the Kumho Ecsta LX Platinum as a new set of Sonata tires.

Pros

  • Sporty handling
  • Premium comfort
  • Silent ride
  • Longer wear

Cons

  • Mediocre on snow

Hankook Kinergy ST

Hankook Kinergy ST

The Hankook Kinergy ST is a standard touring tire at a great low price. Standard touring tires are less sporty than grand touring tires, but you get longer wear and enhance comfort in return. Not all Sonata owners are sporty drivers, and the Hankook Kinergy ST is perfect if all you need is a decent set of touring tires.

But then again, the Kinergy ST is costlier than the Kumho Ecsta LX Platinum despite having similar attributes. But the Hankook Kinergy ST is constructed from an abrasion-resistant all-season tread compound to offer longer wear. It has a symmetrical tread pattern with optimized pitch sequencing to deliver a quieter ride. However, it does a hint of sportiness with a coupled center rib for better stability, so that’s a good thing to have as well.

The Hankook Kinergy ST starts at around $105 each. It’s not the cheapest value tire in this list, but it delivers superior comfort and lasting all-season performance.

Pros

  • Comfortable and quiet ride
  • Longer wear
  • Good handling on dry and wet pavement
  • Dependable all-weather traction

Cons

  • Mediocre on snowy roads

Vredestein Quatrac 5

Vredestein Quatrac 5

The Vredestein Quatrac 5 is a premium all-season grand touring tire with a friendly price. It doesn’t carry a prestige name brand, but it’s actually a decent set of tires that offers excellent comfort, longer wear, and less tire noise. Best of all, the Quatrac 5 is rated for severe snow duty with the three-peak mountain snowflake (3PMSF) symbol.

Constructed from a silica-infused tread compound, the Vredestein Quatrac 5 is equipped with an aggressive asymmetrical tread design. The inside shoulder and inboard rib are equipped with wider circumferential grooves with lateral notches to offer stable traction over wet or snowy roads. Meanwhile, the treads are littered with high-density winter-focused zigzag sipes to offer sterling performance over snow or wet roads.

Starting at around $118 each, the Vredestein Quatrac 5 is a bit costly for a budget tire. But if you live in colder climates, this tire is top-notch.

Pros

  • Surprisingly good for the price
  • Great for severe snow duty
  • Excellent handling and grip in the dry
  • Comfortable and silent ride
  • Longer wear

Cons

  • Not much

BFGoodrich Advantage T/A Sport

BFGoodrich Advantage T/A Sport

The BFGoodrich Advantage T/A Sport is a grand touring all-season tire, which means it offers sportier handling without penalizing ride comfort. Right off the bat, it has a sportier symmetrical tread design with a continuous center rib. Constructed using an all-season tread compound, the optimized tire footprint allows it to deliver advanced levels of grip on dry and wet pavement.

It also has 3D active sipes that offer numerous biting edges on the contact patch. This allows the tire to perfectly grip the road in changing weather conditions, including light snow. But the best thing about this tire is the sporty design. It looks like a high-performance tire with the attributes of a touring tire. And for us, that makes it a winner.

Pros

  • Aggressive design
  • Confident handling
  • Smooth ride comfort
  • Good for light snow
  • Excellent wear characteristics

Cons

  • More tire noise than usual

General Altimax RT43

General Altimax RT43​

The General Altimax RT43 (RT stands for Road Touring) is a grand touring tire for all-season driving. It combines year-round traction and grip along with premium levels of comfort and refinement. Constructed from a twin cushion silica and low-density tread compound, this tire is specifically engineered to reduce road vibrations and deliver a comfortable, smooth ride.

And despite this, it still manages to deliver an exhilarating driving experience. Equipped with a symmetrical tread design with independent treads blocks and a continuous center rib, it offers sporty handling without sacrificing ride comfort and road silence. The General Altimax RT43 starts at around $120 each and remains one of the best value tires for the Hyundai Sonata.

Pros

  • Sporty looks
  • Grand touring comfort
  • Advanced handling and stability
  • Longer wear
  • Good for light snow

Cons

  • It’s a bit pricey for a value tire

Laufenn G Fit AS

Laufenn G FIT A/S

We’re ending this best tires for Hyundai Sonata list with the absolute cheapest tire we tested so far. The Laufenn G Fit AS may not be as popular or well-known as Bridgestones, Michelins, Goodyears, or Pirellis, but it remains a decent grand touring all-season tire with a comfortable ride and stable year-round handling. It starts at less than $85 each, but it performs like a more expensive set of rubber.

Laufenn utilized a carbon-infused all-season tread compound for the G Fit AS. This enables the tire to offer stable grip and handling without affecting the tread life. It has a symmetrical tread design with an optimized five variable pitch design to deliver a quiet ride despite the sportier handling. the tire also has chamfered groove edges and tie bars that physically connect the shoulder blocks to promote a smoother and quieter ride.

Drawbacks? Laufenn is marketing the G Fit AS to sporty drivers, but it’s not intended for aggressive driving. You can think of it as a touring tire with a sporting DNA. And at less than $85 each, this tire is a steal.

Pros

  • Decent handling
  • All-weather traction and grip
  • Comfortable and quiet ride
  • Longer wear

Cons

  • Not great on snow

Conclusion

As proven by our list of best tires for Hyundai Sonata, tires may come in the same round shape but are worlds apart in terms of performance, styling, and value. When shopping for Sonata tires, stay away from summer tires or high-performance rubber unless your Sonata is tuned for racing or any other high-performance application.

Grand Touring tires are the best choice for your Hyundai Sonata. All-season touring tires are also an excellent option, but the grand touring variety is more ideal for a more enjoyable and involving driving experience.