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Usually there is plenty of information available by searching the forums regarding tires....but not that much usable data regarding winter/snow tires. Most of what I found are those that live in the actual true snow belt where A/S tires will not be a great option. I live in Kansas City which gets snow and ice, but I would say that 90% of the winter season, we are driving on either dry or wet roads. We get usually less than 10 (probably closer to 4-5) snow events per season and usually 2-3 days after a major event, the roads are usually back to dry/wet pavement. Also keep in mind that since we are on the edge of the snow belt, that means ice...not always in freezing rain, but more common just from the freeze/thaw cycle of the snow that was pushed to the side already. I work from home and my wife is a teacher, so when it is really bad out...neither of us have any reason to leave the house. I am more concerned about taking the kid to daycare and/or my wife driving home from work when the intersections start to freeze back over.
What I don't want is to buy a winter tire that has kick ass ice handling, but absolutely horrible dry/wet handling. For example, using data from TireRack, the Blizzak WS-80 is probably one of the worst winter tires I could choose for my specific use case.
Now in the snow and ice, the MXM4 is pretty pitiful....but since most of our driving here won't be on snow and ice, I would be increasing my stopping distances roughly 16% on more days than I would be improving them. I owned a set of Nokian (no idea the specific model) tires on a previous car that made that car go through snow/ice like it was just wet pavement.....BUT....it was scary as hell to drive on dry or wet pavement. It was squishy and the ABS hit constantly in the rain. Since then, I have always just stuck to my A/S tires.
Looking through the TR test data, from what I can tell, the best handling winter tire in dry/wet conditions would be the Pirelli Winter Sottozero 3. Comparing to just the DWS06, the Pirelli takes a 3% hit in dry/wet, but picks up 16-30% in snow/ice stopping.
So what am I looking for? Better feedback from those that live on the edges of the snow belt. What has your experiences been? I just picked up a 2nd set of used rims for winter.
- Enhanced Winter Traction with the least amount of dry/wet compromise
- I am not an aggressive driver these days (put it this way...I like my Primacy MXM4 overall)
I have narrowed down most of my tires of interest to the following:
- Bridgestone Blizzak WS80 (it is easy to get online and locally)
- Pirelli Winter Sottozero 3
- Michelin Premier A/S (again...I like my MXM4...and am "assuming" these will be similar)
- Continental ExtremeContact DWS06 (can't ignore these considering how well liked these are)
I was looking at the Pirelli Cinturato P7 AS+ as well, but I don't think it brings anything to the table that isn't covered by the DWS06 or the Premier A/S. It does seem to have traded a bit of dry/wet for improved snow/ice.
Winter rims purchased and delivered. Winter tires purchased, delivered. Everything mounted, balanced, and ready to go. Now just waiting for the weather to actually be cold enough to justify putting these on my car. Probably won't go on the car until after Turkey day.
Great purchase man. Just make sure to watch your pressures if you do any interstate driving in semi-warmer temps, snow tires are so soft that if the pressure is even a little high or low they will wear super quickly as the temps rise.
Winter rims purchased and delivered. Winter tires purchased, delivered. Everything mounted, balanced, and ready to go. Now just waiting for the weather to actually be cold enough to justify putting these on my car. Probably won't go on the car until after Turkey day.
Damn, those are some sweet looking winter beater rims!!
Great purchase man. Just make sure to watch your pressures if you do any interstate driving in semi-warmer temps, snow tires are so soft that if the pressure is even a little high or low they will wear super quickly as the temps rise.
For sure one of my concerns since our temps just swing all over the place. During the winter months, my wife prefers to drive her car due to remote start so I doubt mine will see too much highway use until spring.
Originally Posted by nfnsquared
Damn, those are some sweet looking winter beater rims!!
That they are. Cleaned up nicely and as you stated, not perfect, but tires hold air and balanced out just fine. As long as they clear my Brembos (no reason they shouldn't), I will be a happy camper.
I am thinking of finishing my oem wheels (7.5 wide) and putting a 215/50 on them. Do you guys think those will fit good? Or should I find a 17x7 for a better fit. Just having a hard time finding a wheel that will clear Brembo's.
Winter weather finally made its way to KC in the past few weeks and I got around to putting the winter tires on a coupe weeks ago and have some initial impressions. Keep in mind the only snow tires I have to compare to were back in 2003 on a completely different class of vehicle. I work from home and my wife is a teacher so we rarely have to actually drive when it sucks out. However we now have a kid as well as a stupidly steep north facing driveway which all have combined to me needing better tires to get through winter assuming I wanted my car to make it back into the garage. We have always just relied upon standard A/S tires on our cars to get us around which "usually" works out good enough.
Driving Style
- acceleration slightly aggressive (don't dump the clutch, but no issue running up near redline through the first two gears)
- cornering, grandpa speeds usually
- current main tire are Michelin MXM4 and I am very pleased with them
Dry Weather Driving
- feels no different than the MXM4 that came off the car
- slight high pitch tread noise can be heard
- I can accelerate pretty much as aggressive as I could with the MXM4
- cornering feel is similar
- highway stability is similar
- so far I have only driven maybe 50-60 miles in dry, cold weather
Snow/Ice Driving
- have only driven a few miles around town
- driveway is a sheet of ice
- slid down the driveway which was expected (wife's Terrain did the same)
- I managed to make it back up the driveway with a lot less fuss than last year with the MXM4 (more snow, a lot less ice last year)
- on packed snow, car felt very stable
- didn't drive on much actual ice other than the driveway
So my number of miles is still very low and my expectations may be off a bit. I'm sure if I had brand new MXM4 on here, I would be just as wow'd with the snow handling since I am comparing brand new winter tires with 35k+ mile MXM4 from last year. My biggest concern overall was how well they handled on dry and/or wet pavement since my previous experiences were so bad. I can easily confirm these do not have that issue.
10-18-2016, 04:39 PM
