I thought I'd start a new thread to ask this so I wouldn't clutter up Jerry's thread.
Anyways, I just bought a set of 4 Altimax Arctics for my '86 CRX. They are studdable. Where I live in southern Idaho, we don't get a massive amount of snow. We had maybe 12"-15" in total last winter. However, being high desert, the sun melts the snow during the day and it refreezes at night. My commute is about 20 miles each way. 3-4 miles is in town, 35mph max. The rest is desolate 65mph highway. Last year, it was so icy on the highway portion that you literally couldn't stand on the pavement without falling. It was downright treacherous.
I'm thinking about getting the Altimax's studded. I understand the tradeoff that comes with studs. Dry and wet traction is reduced but ice traction is increased. I'm not worried about the increased noise. The CRX is a rattly, droney, drafty E36 M3box.
Driving the Wrangler last winter was OK. It has 33x12.50 Goodyear Duratracs on it. They were great in snow but with the wide tires and short wheelbase it was a real handful on the ice.
So, what say you, GRM brain trust? Are studs worth it in my case?
I don't think you can stud a tire that's been driven on.
I ran Firestone Winterforce tires in both studded and non-studded. The improvement with studs was about a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10. The Winterforce isn't all that awesome to begin with. Ice is more of an issue where I live, than snow is.
For the next set of winters, I bought Michelin X-Ice radials, which were better than the studded Winterforce tires ~ever~ were.
I guess that I should of specified that these are brand new tires that will be mounted on brand new steel winter wheels. I'll swap them on in place of the stock 14" Si wheels that have the crappiest no-name Korean tires you can imagine mounted on them.
Seattlites who lived in the city, but ocassionally skied would take an AWD Subaru and stud it up.
Don't be like them.
I'm a big proponent of snow tires (especially the Altimax Artic) but I've NEVER heard anybody have high praise of studded tires on paved roads.
Fueled by Caffeine wrote:
Seattlites who lived in the city, but ocassionally skied would take an AWD Subaru and stud it up.
Don't be like them.
And as a result, the roads in Seattle would have what looked like wagon ruts in them from the wear of folks driving studded tires for the entire season.
Hated that-- driving in water filled ruts in the rain was no fun, and then when they'd need to repave the roads about every four years, the traffic would get even worse.
I'm suprised studs are still legal in some places. can't use them in Michigan anymore.
They're legal in CA and NV in winter. I don't particularly care for having studded tires although they would occasionally come in handy on the last couple of miles to the office.
I swear the plow drivers in that village take a lot of pride in "clearing" the roads in such a way that maximum ice cover is guaranteed.
Blizzaks are the best ice tire I've ever used. Where I used to live in PA I'd get a lot of the slush/ice cycle and they were awesome for a year or two.. Then they'd really only be good in the snow, but it was worth the cost.
chains dude.. quick on/off chains.
I would NOT do studs. Unless you were driving full time on hard packed snow/ice. And even then I'm not sure it's worth the hours of work to stud them.
SkinnyG wrote:
For the next set of winters, I bought Michelin X-Ice radials, which were better than the studded Winterforce tires ~ever~ were.
I've never driven with studded tires, but I'll strongly second how much the X-Ice tires kick ass.
You need a special pneumatic gun thingy to drive the studs in. You push these fingers in, then pull the trigger and it simultaneously opens the fingers to open up the stud hole, then rams the stud in. We had various lewdly juvenile names for the stud installer.
It's tedious with the tool and possibly impossible without the tool.
