Help me pick a snow tire

In reply to irish44j:

True... I had W965's on the truck. I've had WS50's on the TDI.

Snow traction isn't much concern to me. I've gone through deep, fresh snow in the TDI on all-seasons. Pretty much any tire with decent tread depth will get you through deep snow if you have a clue (and you have a car where you can turn the traction control OFF). Ice traction is what matters to me. Much of the time I'm driving home after the roads have been plowed, or the snow has been driven on by 1000's of cars and has been packed down into sleets of ice. We've also had a number of freak ice storms that drop a 1/2" of ice onto the roads - often will little warning and the local DOT's aren't ready.

Again - it's not he "going" bit that I'm concerned about. It's the "stopping and turning". These are situations where a good ice tire comes into its own.

Looks like you are very limited by size. It would appear no General or nokian in your size. Otherwise I can't recommend the Altimx arctic enough.

That said, even a mediocre snow tire will be worlds better than all-seasons.

edit-Look for Gislaved. It is a Scandinavian brand, and they have 2 tires in your size. IIRC, both them and general are owned by conti and their old NordFrost was the basis for the Altimax arctic.

had a few different kinds of Blizzaks over the years. All have been awesome for ice/deep snow.

+1 to whomever was saying they suck the rest of the year, though. I eventually left a decent set on my Jetta when I was going to sell it. 1 summer wore them down from 75% tread left to near bald.

General in 185/60/15. Should fit, and only $61 on tire rack.

Thanks for all the responses guys! I think I'll go see what sizes the general comes in and compare prices with the blizzack. It sounds like both will be good options.

Looks like the general will be $100 cheaper than the Blizzack, which is great. But I noticed that it is a studable snow tire. Will it be as good as everyone here is claiming without the studs? We are not going to run a studded tire.

I've found that the narrowest tire you can run often works best in anything other than mud and waist-deep snow. I have 165SR15 all seasons (esentially an 80 profile tire) on my Volvo Amazons and I've plowed through 8" of snow with them, no problem.

Ice, like someone else said, is the big question mark. I've gone into a 4 wheel skid at like 3 mph on black ice. But when the coefficient of friction of the ground is essentially zero, unless you've got something grippy like studs I don't know that any tire is going to help a whole lot.

Also, with a high-profile tire, the odds of rim damage due to hitting curbs and stuff is going to be a lot lower. Walmart sells a Nexen 165SR15 mounted, balanced, and the whole shebang for under $75 each. I run 4 on my Amazon, and I've been pleasantly surprised by them in wet and dry.

Just for kicks.

In our ice racing series the WS Blizzaks proved superior to the Nokian Haks.

In reply to iceracer:

Just for scientific research, new or three-seasons-old?

CrashDummy wrote: Looks like the general will be $100 cheaper than the Blizzack, which is great. But I noticed that it is a studable snow tire. Will it be as good as everyone here is claiming without the studs? We are not going to run a studded tire.

On ice, the general won't be very good without studs.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/testDisplay.jsp?ttid=123

That isn't to say it won't be better than all-seasons, but at the end of the day, as many have stated, ICE is the real problem. I would gladly trade any other surface traction for more ice traction 100% of the time.

I liked my General Altimax Arctic set I had on my civic. Actually tried to get it stuck a few times in snow that was up to the bottom of the car and it would dig down and pull itself out. Good times.

On proper black ice nothing short of studs is really going to make the car anything approaching sure footed. My experience with the generals is they'll damn near climb a wall of glossed over hardpack snow though(and aren't unusable on straight up ice), without studs.

My endorsement comes from using them in THE worst winter on record, in a city that can't afford to plow anything but the state roads and highways(Detroit). My street also flooded (and froze) due to a broken water main, and remained that way until spring.

No mention of Dunlop Graspics? I had some of those on the Rolla and I thought they were pretty good.

I wouldn't worry about the stud issue. They work fine without them, and I've even had to run them over the summer on my wife's car once.

RealMiniDriver wrote: In reply to iceracer: Just for scientific research, new or three-seas was stored.

depends on which is new and how well the tree year old was stored.

In reply to iceracer: Also, were both street driven ?

iceracer wrote:

RealMiniDriver wrote: In reply to iceracer: Just for scientific research, new or three-seas was stored.

depends on which is new and how well the tree year old was stored.

I've driven on new-through-3yo Blizzs and new-through-3yo Hakks, both stored indoors, in the same place. New and second season, I thought they were very evenly matched. The third season, though, I thought the Hakks still had plenty of bite, where the Blizzs semed only marginally better than A/S tires.

Your thoughts?

Hakka R2 is god tier.

If you are on a budget nothing beats the Altimax Artic.

Don't be afraid to bend the sizes a little bit. Taller is generally better for the winter, up until you can't clear your chassis/fenders.

Dr. Hess wrote: No mention of Dunlop Graspics? I had some of those on the Rolla and I thought they were pretty good.

I've had those. Not bad. Better than Blizzaks in the dry and rain, but didn't have quite the same "suspend the laws of physics" feeling on ice.

I know it's not an available choice for that size, but my vote goes to the Conti ExtremeWinterContact. Had them on my Miata and they were fantastic. I'll be buying another set for my new Miata.

I had the X-ICEs on my Civic and they were also good tires.

RealMiniDriver wrote:

iceracer wrote:

RealMiniDriver wrote: In reply to iceracer: Just for scientific research, new or three-seas was stored.

depends on which is new and how well the tree year old was stored.

I've driven on new-through-3yo Blizzs and new-through-3yo Hakks, both stored indoors, in the same place. New and second season, I thought they were very evenly matched. The third season, though, I thought the Hakks still had plenty of bite, where the Blizzs semed only marginally better than A/S tires. Your thoughts?

It is really hard to make a comparison. When we first started the Street Legal class, any snow tire as allowed. Those running WS Blizzaks were doing the winning. I won the first race on a couple year old WS15's. they had been street driven prior to the race. Then Bridgestone came on board as a sponsor ith award money at the end of the season. Nec. to run four WS Blizzaks. Then it became the thing to have the newest model and not street driven.
I quit racing 6 yrs. ago and I still have the last set of WS 60's that I run on my street car every winter. I store them in cellar where it is, dark and cool. I durometerd them the other day, Still about 45. So, I guess with out controlled testing, I guess it would be an individual case. My 7 year old tyres worked great in VT's ice storm last Dec.

forgot to add: Mine have lots of tread depth left. so that would have to be part of a comparison.

This next season for our Street Legal class will be interesting. We have opened up the tire choice to any with the "mountain /snowflake" symbol.

The issue with the Blizzaks is once the super sticky layer is worn off, they're just an all season tire.

irish44j wrote: I love these snow tire threads where people just use the name "Blizzaks" to describe a tire. There are around a dozen Bridgestone tires that use the Blizzak name, and they range all over the place in terms of what they do and what they are. Something like the BLizzak WS70/WS80 are studless snow and ice tires that are mostly used only when there is snow on the ground, as they are a very soft compound with very soft sidewalls and aren't great tires for dry pavement. At the other end you have things like the Blizzak LM25 and LM32, which are winter performance tires that are great in snow and ice (but not quite as good as the WS-series), but have stiffer sidewalls, fit lower-profile sizes, and and have harder compounds so they can be driven at high speeds on dry pavement and essentially feel like all-seasons. I've used both series and they are night and day difference.

This is true of many winter tires, there are also multiple different types of the Yoko Ice Guards, Michelin X-Ice, Toyo, etc. Maybe not as many variants as the Blizzaks.

The Winterforce, Altimax Arctic, Goodyear Nordics (I don't know if they sell them down there - they are sold at Canadian Tire up here) have been static for a number of years now and are easier to rate. I have owned a set of them all, as well as, some Asian knock-offs.

This winter I have to decide between a set of 16" Winterforce and a set of 15" Toyo's that aren't quite the right size (195/60/15 instead of 195/65/15). I am leaning toward the Toyo's.

You need to focus on what the majority of conditions you drive in are and but a tire that fits those needs the best. For me that's snow. I would imagine for many people in the US it might be ice, or a mix of both.

In my experience a tire that has larger voids will tend to better in snow and a tire with smaller voids will tend to be better on ice. YMMV.