She has been warned about the hazards of salt. She still wants the ability to drive her car.
She has been warned about the hazards of salt. She still wants the ability to drive her car.
Back to this question:
Beer Baron wrote: How bad would it be on snow tires to do a cross-country trip on them that is 90% non-snow (or even fairly warm)? I bet we could talk her parents into buying a set of wheels and tires and install them before leaving on our California to Ohio road trip. We're planning to travel south and go across on hwy 10 or 40 instead of through the mountains on 80. We wouldn't have to worry about potentially getting stuck half a day south of Columbus. Summer wheels and tires could get shipped with the rest of our stuff.
One cross-country road trip won't be that hard on snow tires. I bought a set of Michelin X-Ice II's in fall 2009 to run on my beater Saturn from Thanksgiving to Spring Break. After 4.5 winters, they still have about half their tread left, and that's mostly city driving with starts/stops/turns, not easy interstate cruising.
And you don't really NEED snow tires in Columbus, but it certainly makes winter driving stress-free and easy.
What Blue said. I have been thankful of my snow tires over the last few days but with a good set of AS tires you should be OK.
By the way, how is the job going?
Job is going very well. Really enjoying it.
Regarding tires, we're just going to do the road trip on the summer tires it has now, and be careful once we get north of like Nashville. Then I'll either find some tires on craigslist here, or we'll order some through tire rack.
You do NOT want to drive the RX-8 with summer tires in the winter. Even without snow there's always wet and cold conditions in Columbus and summer tires on any car much less an RWD one are a sure fire recipe for spins and slides. All seasons are mostly okay but if you've already got a set of summer tires it wouldn't make sense to also have a set of all seasons.
Always get another set of wheels; it's close to a hundred bucks to get the tires re-mounted. A couple years of that twice a year and you've thrown away more money than a set of used wheels would have cost.
Winter tires on an RWD car make it totally great. My wife drive a GS300 with snow tires and they make her car totally predictable and easy to handle for her. Better than an FWD beater with all seasons, for sure.
There's a set of Lexus IS wheels with snow tires on them up right now:
http://columbus.craigslist.org/pts/4303110588.html
right size, offset, and bolt pattern but sadly the bore size is wrong; the Lexus bores are around 60.1mm and looks like the RX8 is 67.1 so you'd have to get them machined. I would hold out for the right thing. What I did was find a set of just tires used and a set of wheels used and got them mounted. All in I was under $500 and they're awesome.
My car (GS430 so still RWD) I just run all seasons. It's okay but nowhere near as confidence inspiring as the snow tires. Yes, you don't need snow tires, but if driving a nice car year round? Well, as Keith says, it's a lot cheaper and more satisfying to pay for a set of good snow tires than it is to pay for new fenders.
I second the summer tires on RX8 = bad in the winter.
I had an RX8. It would barely move while on all seasons. That car sucked in the snow. Until I put winter tires on it. Then it was AWESOME!
Rob R.
The question now is not whether or not it will get snow tires. The question is whether it will get them before it leaves California, or as soon as it arrives in Columbus.
It will have snowtires in Columbus. It just probably won't have them for the road trip.
I found a set of wheels and tires. 10/32 tread left, right size, offset, bore and everything. They're just 235/45/17 instead of 225/50/17... bfd. I'm hoping to go pick them up tomorrow.
I am sure the road trip will be fine.
The 235s sound great. Narrower is better for snow tires but 10mm difference won't cause any issues.
nocones wrote: Go with option more complicated. I have a set of 17" sparaco DS1's with ~50% tread nokians that came off a RX-8 and have Mazda TPMS sensors in them. She can pick them up from my house on the way from California in east central IL (off I74 champaign) for say $375. Available immediately.. Also fit WRX.
Thats the ticket laddie.
dculberson wrote: I am sure the road trip will be fine. The 235s sound great. Narrower is better for snow tires but 10mm difference won't cause any issues.
That's kind of what I figured. Also the offset, bore, and everything would make them workable on the S2000, if we decided to use that. Although, I'd prefer we use the RX8. Both are actually nice low-mileage examples. I forgot her car only has like 17k on it (mine only has a bit under 40k).
nocones wrote: Go with option more complicated. I have a set of 17" sparaco DS1's with ~50% tread nokians that came off a RX-8 and have Mazda TPMS sensors in them. She can pick them up from my house on the way from California in east central IL (off I74 champaign) for say $375. Available immediately.
That would be great, but we probably won't be heading through there. Even if we were, there is no spare room to lug around another set of wheels.
You need to be careful with 17" rims on the RX-8. I picked up a set that barely clear the brake calipers. I had to clearance the calipers with an angle grinder. With newer brake pads they started rubbing again until the rim "self machined" a bit.
Snrub wrote: You need to be careful with 17" rims on the RX-8. I picked up a set that barely clear the brake calipers. I had to clearance the calipers with an angle grinder. With newer brake pads they started rubbing again until the rim "self machined" a bit.
I am aware of that concern. The wheels I'm looking at are the same ones Tire Rack recommends for a 17" snow package for the car, so I figure they've done the work to be sure they will clear. Although... I'm still thinking it might be worth a bit of extra money to have the security of buying directly from Tire Rack and knowing we can return/exchange anything if it turns out there is a problem for some reason.
^ I suppose that makes sense. I suspect the reason my rims rub is there sort of a narrower ring of material at the front of the rim. This decreases the diameter a bit. It might be hard to make this judgement without physically looking at a rim and/or measuring. Alternatively you can probably pick up a used set of 18" rims for not a lot of money (my second set of summer tires are from a Mazdaspeed3) and 18" tires aren't always significantly more expensive than 17", but it obviously varies greatly depending on the brand/model.
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