Snow Tires for '22 Honda Odyssey: NE Ohio

docwyte said:

Having gone to school in Cleveland and living in the lake effect band, you want the best snow tires there are.  Hakkapellita's, hands down.  After that the blizzaks but be aware that once the "special" layer has worn off the blizzaks they're no better than a regular all season tire and will look like they have plenty of tread/life left in them.

The inner layer of compound on the Blizzaks is still a snow tire compound, but they lose a lot of their ice grip once the magic goo outer compound is gone.  So yes, they do drop off earlier in their tread life than most other snow tires.  Although you don't want to run a snow tire down as far tread-wise as you would with an all season or summer tire anyway. 

I do not think Bridgestone uses the special layer of rubber anymore, sadly.

docwyte said:

After that the blizzaks but be aware that once the "special" layer has worn off the blizzaks they're no better than a regular all season tire

Heartily disagree with that statement, which I've heard from several sources over the years. In my experience in Detroit winters, Blizzaks at 4/32" are better than no-seasons at 8/32". 

The last I asked, two years ago, Discount Tire still stored your winter tires for you if you want to fo that route.

My last set of winter tires was for my Evo back when I was commuting in the DC Metro Area. I ended up not buying any more as I needed something that could handle 65 MPH for 45 minutes on dry cold highway then handle ice and snow "enough" to get down the rather steep entry road to work in piles of snow. I think it was the predecessor to the current continental ExtremeContact DWS. Treated them like snow tires, as in only used them during the cold season. Were noticeably better in snow but able to handle freeway speeds without getting overheated or squirmy. 

I don't know Cleveland area but I assume it isn't like Ottawa, there they just leave the snow and ice alone and mandate winter tires. I assume Cleveland tries to plow and mostly you have dry pavement and normal freeway speeds. So focus on stock level speed rating and load rating for your minivan. 

Nothing will beat some Hakks or Blizzacks on deep snow or even smooth ice but they don't survive freeway speed or mild major road cornering well. 

We run the Michelin X-ice snow tires on our family hauler '14 Ody.    Stock size 235/60R18's

I found the the older X5 BMW wheels fit our bolt pattern with a slightly different offset (more wider overall).  No rubbing anywhere.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

I do not think Bridgestone uses the special layer of rubber anymore, sadly.

The LM series Blizzaks don't get the special ice compound on the outer 50 - 60% of the tread depth, but the WS series (and I think the DM series as well) do based on their advertising.  My WS-80s still have 2 sets of wear bars (the "end of special compound" ones and the legal tread depth ones).  They've definitely updated the compound over time, so I'm not sure what's different between the current "multicell" compound and the original one. 

I've been thinking about this lately and wanted to follow up. I put a set of crossclimate 2s on my new to me Tiguan just after this thread was last updated. They're now approaching 5k miles I think and thanks to Ohio have seen a pretty full range of conditions, from -10* and 6+" of snow to 80* and dry. I have to give a disclaimer that this is my first SUV and I put the tires on on like day three of ownership. So maybe I just don't know what I'm missing, but I really like these tires so far. They work well in the dry, well enough that I've never felt inclined to turn off stability control because the limit of the tire grip seems to be well into the rollover risk range. Ride quality is plenty good, I would say steering feedback is actually pretty decent considering the vehicle. And just like my experience with dws06+ on other cars they work and feel basically exactly the same regardless of ambient temperature. There's maybe a bit of extra road noise but nothing unbearable. Fuel mileage impact seems minimal but again I don't really have a direct reference point so hard to say for sure. But on mostly level ground with maybe a bit of tail wind I can meet or beat the rated highway fuel mileage at 70-75mph. Wet grip is decent but the breakaway is a bit sudden, that's about the only thing I would improve if I could. Hydroplane resistance seems good though. They seem basically unstoppable in snow, I did some experimentation in my neighborhood in like 4-6" of snow and could barely tell the difference between traction control on and off. Ice traction isn't great but nothing other than ice oriented winter tires are really good at that. All in all absolutely zero regrets and if I keep this thing long enough to kill this set of tires I'd have a hard time replacing them with anything else.