iadr wrote: Oh, and someone mentioned Nordic. That's a Canadian Tire "Goodyear" that isn't made in a Goodyear plant... and is junk.
Back in the day, for the price, when studded, they were not bad. Great forward and braking traction. I won quite a few rallyx events on them.
Their price (even when on sale) has come up enough that they are no longer competitive compared to other better tires.
General Altimax Artics ordered from (GRM advertiser) TireRack.com. ETA Tuesday.
Just got my new Arctic Altimaxes mounted on the winter rims today. Probably throw them on the car around Thanksgiving or so, barring a forecast for an earlier storm.
In reply to iadr:
By Nordic I mean North Europe, Nokian tire and the like. The General/Gislaved will blow any house special out of the water.
Just installed Altimax's on the Probe GT today.... bring on the snow!
iceracer wrote: The fastest I have had my old WS60 Blizzaks was 92mph. On ice. checked by radar.
I took Wintersport M3s up to 135mph, and averaged well over 110mph for a four-hour drive on the Autobahn, in a rented Audi A4 Avant.
Needless to say, I didn't realize that the car still had its winter tires on it (required on the Autobahn in winter, but that season had ended a month earlier), until I pulled over at a rest stop 4 hours later and looked down and was like....."whoa, that could have been bad" lol
In reply to irish44j:
Those are actually H (130mph) rated, so you were fine.
Leafy wrote: What kind of crappy snow tire doesnt let you do at least 80mph? Driving 55mph on the highway on a dry day is a sure fire way to cause an accident in these parts. And snow tires certainly improve braking over all seasons, thats kind of the whole point of running them. If you just wanted improved acceleration and turning over a normal car on all seasons then you could actually trust subaru and audi's marketing.
I think you did not understand my comment on braking performance.
Yes winter tires will have better grip during braking than an all season.
My comment was more related to what others have commented on regarding the clearing of the tread/sipes when accelerating and cornering provides an improvement of lets call it an L amount of improvement. While under braking it provides a K amount of improvement. With L>K. Just trying to caution someone new to winter tires that there is that difference. Years of non studded class ice racing seat time gave me this knowledge.
Regarding the speed, Yes I have ice raced cars and made it up to very high speeds with winter tires. BUT they do balloon out at those speeds and DO reduce grip if you are on dry or wet pavement (not snow or ice). I experienced it when I ground down my first set of blizzaks driving on them back from an ice race at the 70MPH speed limit. The center tread was gone and I didn't understand why until I researched it some.
Kenny_McCormic wrote: In reply to irish44j: Those are actually H (130mph) rated, so you were fine.
Yes if you plan to do a lot of highway driving, pay close attention to the speed rating. Some big name brand winter tires have Q (100Mph) rated versions and H or S rated versions. While the Q rated ones don't immediately explode when you cross to 101 MPH they definitely deform at speeds lower than 100MPH. Why did I use Q rated winter tires? Better for the ice racing I was doing thats why! 
I got a killer deal on a set of practically new steelies and some Blizzak WS70's for my Mazda on Craigslist. This will be winter #3 for these.
They make the car feel like a wallowing marshmallow, but they ride comfy over all the frost heaves and pothole-riddled New England roads. They have worn ok, but I may need to replace them after this season. They help out a ton in the snow and make my car as winter capable if not better than my WRX with Conti ExtremeContact DWS tires was.
"real" snow tires with any decent amt. of tread will pretty much always be better than AS's … even some as good as Conti Extreme Contact DWS … Conti's are still all season (or as I've always called them .. no season)
In reply to wbjones:
Having used DWS and real snow tires on our 2 main vehicles the last 4 years, I'd say the DWS are about 1/2- way between A//S and true snowflake* approved snow tires. They're much better than A/S, but snows are much better than the DWS.
If it's a vehicle you're not going to drive on unplowed roads and/or in more than a couple of inches of snow, they're a really good compromise.
I have run my WS60 Blizzaks at 75 mph for hours and lots of miles. No undo problems of any kind.
My guess is that the DWS could actually get a snowflake, but they still don't even have half the winter traction of the ExtremeWinterContacts on my Sienna. The rear end of the minivan get squirrelly when I leave the DWSes on too long.
iceracer wrote: I have run my WS60 Blizzaks at 75 mph for hours and lots of miles. No undo problems of any kind.
I guess it is YMMV!
I just ordered up a set of Altimax Arctics for the S2000 (went a little smaller than stock AP2 sizes, 205/50/17 front and 225/45/17 rear) and Conti DWS for the Mazda3. I have pretty new performance all seasons on the S2000 (Federal something or other) but I really don't want to risk it with that car, and I'm not allowed to miss work so erring on the side of caution seems prudent. I'll try to report back once we see some of the white stuff here.
The stock Mazda3 tires really do suck, we made it through 2 winters in Pittsburgh with it but have had to reroute to avoid steeper hills quite a few times. My wife isn't super comfortable with it in those dicier situations either, but I think better tires and a flatter city (Milwaukee) should be enough to get her through the winter safe and happy. I thought about snows for that car too, but I really don't think its necessary for a modern FWD car in a flat, grid-road city.
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