Snow tire thread......dammit.

Oh I didn't want to go here this early, but here goes......

I just ordered my new snow tires from "Tire rack". Firestone Winterforce studded, 195/60R/15 for my Cobalt. After shipping, I'm at $407.00 for 4 new ones. I still need to fork out $50 or so for mount/balance locally, so figure $460.00 and I'm good. Here's the interesting part....
I could get the same or better deal from a local Firestone shop, the same one I'll have mount and balance the new tires. But, when they have installed studs in previous sets of tires for me, they shed the studs within a year at the very most. The "Tire-rack" tires never shed the studs. Never. So I stay with "Tire rack" for the time being.

So who else is gearing up for the season? What tires are you thinking of running and on what?

 

Don't remind me .
Was icy this AM. Studs on the wife's car soon.
10 million duck & geese can't be wrong, they left for a warmer climate

 

Run Toyo GO-2's on both cars. Studs are illegal here in Ontario but legal in Quebec. You get a small discount on car insurance if you run winter tires. the GO-2's are excellent on icy roads due to the walnut shell compound but are soft and burn off quickly if you run them excessively on hot dry roads.

 

Keeping the regular Fortera's on my Durango. First winter with this beast, and it's AWD so it should be fine. My Mountaineer was fine with the same tires last year, and last year was a winter for the ages in NW OH.

Gonna start winter with the regular tires on the wifey's Town and Country minivan. We've always put Blizzaks on her car in the past, and loved them. Both the salesman and the service manager at the dealership have the same van as us, and they think the regular tires do fine. I'll give it a shot. We don't get nearly as much snow as many of you do, so we'll see how horrible the stock Kumho's do in the snow. I'm fully expecting to do a mid winter swap out.

 

When I was driving my Acura I had Michelin X-Ice XI3s that I would pt on at Turkey day. Those things have got me home from work in driving snowstorms as if the road was dry. Now that Ive got the Tacoma I ditched the craptastic oem tires for a set of Nokian Rotivva's - All Terrains with the snowflake rating. I plan to run them year round.

My Dad has always run Blizzaks on his work trucks, no complaints there.

 

Got cooper discoverer at/3's on the old rust bucket. 2000 ram 2500 diesel. Fair tire for most of the year but only so so in winter. At $200 a tire before mount and balance I doubt I'll get them again. Not likely the dodge part of the truck will outlast these tires, the cummins still has another million miles left in her. Just shy of 292,000 miles on the clock.

 

I had the Cooper HTs put back on about 1.5 years ago and have run those since, but they're in need of a change. Mechanic can keep 'em.
I have a set of Nokian ATs that I'll have put on soon, then just run those until they wear out. I should be able to get another couple years out of those.
Ran me $60 mounted & balanced last time, and I think the Nokians were about 500 for 4 back in '09.

 

We have a fairly steep hill to climb on our dead end street. I've been running snow tires all year for the past two years. A little more noisy, but we get up the hill in our grand caravan.

 

I run dedicated summers on the subaru WRX in the summer and dedicated winters interest winter. Have beenrunning nonstudd General Altimax Artic. But haveread really good things about the new Blizzak W80

 

I had Blizzaks on a WRX and it was complete POO compared to my Jetta with studded tires. They did ok on snow, but that glare/black ice we get (often get some rain in winter), the Blizzaks were useless.

 

In the tire rack comparison tests Ive read often Blizzaks got rated higher for deep snow and Michelin X-Ice better for ice.

Of course nothing beats studs on ice so not surprised your experience Nate....

 

Agree with both of your statements, but I'm not running studs, and won't in SE Michigan. What I need is a tire that handles cold temps and snow, and ANY winter tires is better at cold and snow than ANY all season. So it makes it pretty easy to choose to have winters, in addition the real key is don't over drive your tires/car.

 

agree & same here, Im not even sure if studs are legal here.

 

Michelin MTX-M/S on the Honda Ridgeline. Great all season tire that are not cheap but got me 75K miles on the first set and never let me down in a snow storm-no matter how bad. I am at 112K now and tread is still great going into winter

 

I use to run Blizzaks on my front wheel drive vehicles. Great ice tire but you get 1 maybe 2 winters out of them at best and once the tread is 75 percent worn the traction drops fast.

I have had 4 wheel drive since 2000 and have not used them since.

 

I bought a set of Blizzaks last year and had them mounted on a set of boneyard steel wheels. As mentioned, they're great in the snow but not so good on ice. My DD is a Chevy Cruze, so I'm not exactly putting huge power on the ground. They beat the heck out of the Goodyear Fuelmax tires that came on it stock.

 

Well, for me even the worst tire is adequate during ice storms. I don't go out, I'm "challenged" as they say. So I just stay home until the roads are treated. I'll have a cup of hot soup and sit by the fire leaving the traveling to the younger crowd still caught up in the rat race

 

I'm not so taken by studs in tires. What I look for is a tire that does not have a solid center tread rib and the rest of the tire is very well siped. Good siping..the very narrow cuts in the treads..are what make the tire bite on ice. The non solid center tread rib helps the tire to clean snow out of the lugs and continue to bite for traction instead of turning into a snow slick. But all this is just my opinion.