Kia Rio Tires

Introduced as a five-door wagon or four-door sedan in 1999, the Kia Rio was the least expensive new car in the United States. Early models of the Rio were derided for poor build quality and a mediocre driving experience, but the Rio has come a long way since then. Later generations of the Rio are more refined, with the wagon dropped and replaced by a five-door hatchback. The latest iteration of the Rio was introduced in 2016 and is available with a choice of 4-cyl engines for a stingy 41 mpg on the highway, as well as a complete set of up-to-date features like driver assistance and upscale audio setups. The Rio is available in LX or SX trim levels.

Here at SimpleTire, our team has reviewed the catalog and picked out some of the best tire choices for your Kia Rio, including premium all-weather, all-season, and winter tires. We then went through the listings with our SimpleScore system and determined a numerical score for each tire's traction, longevity, and handling categories. Ready? Let’s go in for a closer look:

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

We’re going to get this list going with the Pirelli P4 Persist AS Plus. For decades, drivers have loved Pirelli tires for their dedication to engineering, quality, and value. It’s a pretty tall set of expectations, but the P4 Persist AS Plus maintains the Pirelli heritage of performance and innovation. It’s a tire you can rely on to deliver the long wear, refined ride, responsive handling, and low noise that are along the lines of a Grand Touring tire, along with versatile year-round traction. The Pirelli P4 Persist AS Plus saves on fuel costs over the tire's life with its low rolling resistance engineering. Highway stability, handling, and tread wear are all excellent thanks to the reinforced shoulders, designed for the rigidity and reduced tread deformation that a performance-oriented tire needs as it stands up to the hard lateral forces of cornering. The P4 Persist AS Plus avoids hydroplaning and enhances wet-weather performance with circumferential grooves that channel water away from the tire’s contact patch, and its angled lateral grooves work to engage 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 on-center stability and excellent road manners, as well as a steering response that’s nimble and immediate. Tread life is another strong point 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. Bridgestone Weatherpeak - Best All-Weather tire

Next is a great all-weather tire choice for your Kia Rio, the Weatherpeak from Bridgestone. If you’ve ever had to deal with hard winter weather, you’ve probably already found out that many all-season tires are just not designed for those conditions and can’t reliably get you through anything more than a light dusting of snow on the roads. All-weather tires are designed with a lot in common with their all-season tire counterparts but with more emphasis on traction in winter conditions. With that taken in mind, Bridgestone engineers designed the Weatherpeak’s tread to multiply traction and surface area with a dense pattern of sipes, the hair-thin slits that provide hundreds of extra biting edges, giving drivers the extra leg up in winter grip that they need. The 3D design of these full-depth sipes is an innovation; it’s just intuitive that most tread features are less effective as a tire wears, but the Weatherpeak continues to boost your winter traction even as the miles go by and tread depth gets thinner.

Along with sipes and grooves, the Weatherpeak incorporates “snow vices” that trap and retain snow in their grooves to generate snow-to-snow friction. It probably isn’t a surprise that the Bridgestone Weatherpeak has the Three Peak Mountain Snowflake certification for severe winter service; on the test track and in the real world, tests have shown a real advantage in braking, with winter braking distances that are as much as 30 feet shorter than the competition’s tires. With that all in mind, we gave the Bridgestone Weatherpeak a SimpleScore of 9.7 for traction. Steering response and cornering are also admirable; the Weatherpeak’s SimpleScore of 9.5 for handling comes from its rubber formulation and tread features. Road manners, steering response, and cornering ability are also top-notch with this tire, even as the weather turns bad Bridgestone backs the Weatherpeak with a 70,000 mile limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty, the kind of warranty coverage that’s enough to inspire a SimpleScore of 9.8 for longevity.

3. Nokian Nordman 9 - Best Winter Tire

You’d expect any tire manufacturer based in Finland to have some expertise in developing tires to get through the rigors of rough Scandinavian winters, and you’d be correct. If you live in a part of the country where you have to get through rough winter conditions, think about the Nokian Nordman 9 – Nokian is a Finnish company. They know all about winter tire design and the kind of traction and control winter tires need. And yes, if you were wondering, Nokian and Nokia (the phone company) are part of the same group. The Nordman 9 SUV is designed to help you navigate winter weather and the roughest kind of snow and slush that comes with it. The Nordman 9’s rubber compound is designed to stay flexible to deliver the grip you need in sub-freezing conditions. At the surface of the Nordman 9’s winter tread, traction gets a big boost: a network of deep grooves and strategically placed sipes add hundreds of biting edges that dig in and chew their way through snow and slush. The Nordman 9 is pre-drilled for studs, with holes strategically placed to give you the traction you need on slick, icy roads while helping to keep road noise down. NOTE: studded tires are not legal in all states and are restricted to certain months of the year in states where they are legal – check your state laws to be sure. The Nordman 9’s breakdown of SimpleScore ratings is 9.9 for traction, 9.0 for handling, 9.0 for longevity, and an overall composite score of 9.2.

These are all great tire options for the Kia Rio, but we’re not done yet. Here are a couple more to think about:

4. Firestone WeatherGrip - Great All-Weather Tire

Here’s another all-weather tire with the Three Peak Mountain Snowflake certification: the WeatherGrip from Firestone. Firestone loaded up this tire with features like their Hydro-Grip Technology Package that includes a fat, rounded contact patch, chamfered shoulder blocks, full-depth grooves, and open shoulder slots that all work as a system to give an edge in grip and performance. Winter traction comes from Firestone’s Snow Traction Claw Technology, a pattern of snow vices on the intermediate ribs, high-density zigzag sipes, and interlocking grooves; we give this tire a SimpleScore of 8.6 for traction. TInternally, the Firestone WeatherGrip features a single-ply nylon casing capped by a steel belt package and nylon reinforcement layer. The Firestone WeatherGrip is covered by a 65,000 mile warranty, and we give it a SimpleScore of 9.2 in the longevity category. Braking performance, cornering, and steering response are confident, neutral, and predictable for a SimpleScore of 8.5 for handling.

5. Kumho Solus TA51A - Great All-Season Tire

Let’s close this list with the TA51A from Kumho, an all-season tire for sedans, minivans, and crossovers that offers premium-level features, quality, and performance at an appreciably lower price point. The Solus TA51A is designed to resist hydroplaning on wet roads with lateral and circumferential grooves and a combination of 3D chamfered tread blocks and 3D interlocking sipes that work together to boost traction in wet or wintry conditions. The Solus TA51A’s advanced tread compound infuses silica additives and multi-functionalized polymers for great wet or dry weather traction and long, even wear. The Solus TA51A is designed for low noise, too, with ribs in the tread that cancel resonant frequencies and noise, breaking up and dispersing sound waves to keep highway vibrations to a minimum. Kumho backs the Solus TA51A with a 75,000 mile or 65,000 mile manufacturer’s treadwear warranty, depending on tire size.

With an average SimpleScore of 9, the Solus TA51a offers excellent longevity (9.6) and traction (9.0) plus great handling (8.5).

Order Kia Rio Tires Online

Buying tires online can be stressful, but it doesn't need to be. SimpleTire offers a simple approach to finding the best tires for you and your Kia Rio. Select your Kia Rio below, then tell us more about the year and trim level to determine your tire size. From there, we'll show you tires that fit your vehicle and are the best match based on performance characteristics, but you can also look for the best value tires, tires that are on sale or part of a promo, have the most extended tread life, and much more