Thanks for everyone's comments.

Nankang: $50 each shipped
Yokos: $56 each + $12 each shipping.

Quite a difference. Plus I want the pizza cutter tires. I'll let everyone know how they do in the rain.

I have Nankang 165/45/R14 (I think?) on my 210 on Z 6 spokes that look great and ride fine. Don't have many miles on them though..

I'm running the Yokohama A539 on Yellow and really like them for daily driver tires. For low cost winter tires I would lean towards the Yokohama Y372. Past experience has shown me that the cheap off brand tires usually have crappy wet traction. All the different Yokohamas I've owned over the years have always had good or great wet traction.

Getting the Yokohama Y732 for $56.00 seems like a no brainer and winter in Seattle calls for tires with great wet traction...

i used nankangs and they were terrible in the wet so i would hate to see them in the snow/ice

I don't know if you can get them over there, but when I bought my coupe and needed to transfer it into my name (which requires a certificate of roadworthiness over here) I needed dirt cheap tyres to put on there as I wasn't close to the brake upgrade and 13in rims going on.

I bought a set of hero tyres - which are essentially el cheapo chinese made ones, and they were dirt cheap - I can't recall how much, but cheaper than any alternative by about $15 per tyre. I planned to leave them on for a few months tops, but was so surprised at the grip level (in the dry at least. they are 'ok' in the wet, but there's not a big warning when they are on the edge and about to let go, I tested them on some multilane empty roundabouts in the wet in the middle of the night near where I live) Driven 'normally' I just can't fault them, I've put about 20,000km on them so far, and based on this (and I've pushed them about 25% of the total drive time on average) I think I might get around 50,000-60,000km out of them, probably more if I drove it normally all the time.

http://www.chapelcornertyres.com.au/hero.html

http://www.chapelcornertyres.com.au/files/DataHR558.pdf

are the ones. I didn't actually buy them from there (I got em from Bob Jane in Essendon)

I've done some semi regular runs out of melbourne averaging 120-130km/h (must've been in NT, when i did that, where it is legal) and they have no trouble whatsoever with those sort of sustained speeds. I _do_ run them around the peak listed pressure for max loads - 36psi or so. They are definitely better at 36 in the wet than 26 (yes I tried a few presssures just to see) which makes sense, but I tried it anyway. I'd frankly be tempted to try even higher pressures but I think it'd start to wear out hte centre of the tread sooner than the rest.

Yes, thanks.

Dont quote me cause I only sell tyres for a living, but in my opinion, the yokos, falkens or hankooks are the pick, nankangs are getting to be a better brand but are still a budget option I used to run them on my ute daily driver in a 15" and they gripped pretty well in the wet, you'll get good wear out of the hurcules but slightly less grip, with the opposite true for the yokos.
Only use V rubber for tubes so can't really comment on them.
Hope that helps a bit

i like 165/70 SR12 Yokohama Y372 $56

after i just got some 215 60 r16 a spec yokohams for the family car- comfort and handling for a road car is perfect.

Sorry I didn't mean I am looking to buy snow/ice/winter tires.

Just plain street tires, rather than performance tires.

dont know- we dont use winter tyres here in australia