Shoulder Season: Vredestein Quatrac Pro + on the Fiesta ST

As I write this yap-session, we in Northern-Utah have exited the scenic and beautiful part of autumn, and are quickly descending into the “everything is brown and depressing” part of the season. Morning temperatures hover between high 30s and mid 40s, and climb up to high 60s and low 70s in the late afternoon. Let’s call it like it is, it’s a shoulder season. Too cold in the mornings to make me feel good about running my Continental Extreme Contact Sport 02 summer tires, and too warm in the afternoon to feel good about running my Bridgestone Blizzaks. Well, I have a spare set of Fifteen52 Integrale wheels that I tried to sell, and I have a niche to fill. What’s a car enthusiast supposed to do? The answer, comes from The Netherlands.

Over the last few years from the consumer side of things, Vredestein kind of came out of nowhere. From a public consciousness zero, to sponsoring a variety of prolific automotive podcasts such as The Smoking Tire, Everyday Driver Car Debate, Spike’s Car Radio, and most importantly The Carmudgeon Show with Jason Camissa and Derek Tam-Scott. Hearing Jason Camissa being generally regarded most as a journalist that genuinely takes no shit, I take to heart if he talks about something being great. Maybe I’m just a sucker for good marketing, but I decided to hop on TireRack.com (not yet a sponsor), and order myself a set of the Vredestein Quatrac Pro+ Grand Touring All-Season tires to be delivered to my home.

It was a journey; but collecting the new tires from home, and my old set of Integrales wheels from Justin’s detailing shop, Chaos Theory Utah where the wheels were professionally cleaned for sale 3 months ago, I took my new setup to the only people with a tire machine I really trust. The Wheelshop in Ogden, Utah. Through them, the Integrales were powder coated gold in 2021, and they’ve been the only shop to not mess these wheels up in that time. I’d love to give the wheels a new lease on life with a new powder coat, but for now they will just maintain their character and be a little scruffy. No sense in them being perfect when they will show brake dust instantly. Calling them difficult to clean is an understatement. Once I started to let that part of me go, it became so much more liberating to own and drive on these fickle wheels.

The Vredestein Quatrac Pro+ is a tire positioned and sold as a Grand Touring All-Season Tire, but also passes the Triple-Peak qualification, which means it is winter capable, and can handle some snow. Even over the past few years in which we’ve been breaking snow-fall records, I never found myself truly plowing myself more than once or maybe twice per season. I live on a hillside, so the ability to crawl and dig on cold icy ground is higher on the priority list than blasting through the backcountry like in a Jeep advertisement. If I check the weather and see a forecast that we are getting massively dumped on, I still have my Blizzaks.

After owning these round, golden nuggets for a few years, I started to grow tired of the never-ending harsh ride quality that comes from 17” wheels on the Fiesta ST platform. I later learned that these wheels are around 30 lbs each. While looking great, that’s chunky for something in which the wheel diameter still starts with a “1”. Using logic, I figured going down an inch in diameter and adding a little more sidewall on the tire will aid in that regard. So, in 2024 I snagged a set of Konig Dekagrams with a 16” diameter and the updated Continental Extreme Contact Sport 02 tire. These are quite grippy, and are fantastic at evacuating water when the road gets soggy. These Konig Dekagram wheels are also 15 lbs each. Cutting the rotational mass at each corner in half is an incredible difference with not just steering feel, but also in-gear acceleration and an overall eagerness in the car.

Side note: Don’t be that person that drives on winter tires year-round. Have some standards for yourself.

In order to fully understand where the car is at now, we must inform ourselves with where it came from. A little disclaimer here looking at the table, the tire sizing on the Dekagrams is not what I should have gone with. I did some bad math, and the poor little 205 millimeter tires are stretching more than I’d like on the 8 inch wide rim, and at this point I’m assuming that is why I still get shock transferred through the wheels and into my spine.

The Dedicated “Summer Fun Setup”:
-Konig Dekagram in 16” x 8”

-Weight: 15 lbs each

-205/45/16 Continental Extreme Contact Sport 02 Tires 

The “Shoulder Season Setup”: 

-Fifteen52 Integrale in 17” x 7.5”

-Weight: 30 lbs each 

-215/45/17 Vredestein Quatrac Pro+ Tires

Yes, the wheel weight and also diameter are going up, but the width of the tire is going up and therefore, the sidewall is going up slightly too, seeing as they are both 45-series tires.

It’s the middle of October 2025, and I’ve put my first 250 miles on the new setup. My main initial impression is that of a significant personality change in the car. The car is less eager to jump from a light, in-gear acceleration is slower, but my ass is telling me that the quality of the ride has improved by at least 20% over the previous setup, and continues to surprise me with what is, and what is not transferred through the wheel. The Fiesta’s springs are still tight, so the big ones are still there. But the vibe has shifted, and that’s exactly what I was hoping for. If I just put brand new Continentals on the Dekagrams, the improvement would have been around 7-10%. So in “car-guy math” I’ve over doubled the ride quality, and therefore made a wise purchase. 

The whole point of this experiment is to find something that will make my day-to-day life better, and that will last me some time. Since getting into my Fiesta ST over 5 years ago, I’ve run through quite a few wheel and tire combinations. More than I’d like to mention publicly. And in an ideal world, I’d like something that serves a comfortable daily-duty, that I can depend on in colder weather and deal with some snow. When push truly comes to shove, I have a set of perfectly adequate Bridgestone Blizzak WS90s to plow through snow and take any I throw at them.

The only thing that I’m not loving so far is rubbing. As it turns out, an art major and former film student is not the greatest mathematician in the world, and these are just a bit large. The aggressive screech coming from the front end pronounces itself when I hit a rounded dip, or huck the car into a hairpin corner at real speed. But the front end is still responsive. Much more so than with the Blizzak WS90s I’ve had on these same wheels in the past. Oh, and speed bumps are still a non-issue. I still hit them at 20 mph and have zero rubbing or contact issues of any kind. In my book, that’s still a win.

There is certainly going to be some risk in what I’m doing with my setup, but I’m truly stoked to take on whatever the elements throw at me this coming season. I’ve never had the pleasure of trying out Triple-Peak Tires, and I’m trying to be reasonable with this long-term experiment. I’ll be sure to circle back on my findings either the middle of the 2025/2026 winter season, or after Winter and Spring and I wish to put the Summer Fun Setup back on. Only time will tell what my true verdict is on these tires and bringing my old wheels back to life, and when that time comes, I’ll let you know.