two sets of tires or one set of dedicated snow tires?

Hi everybody, here's one to debate a little.

I have a 2000 Forester with 182K miles+ and soon need to replace the Goodyear Triple Treds I've been using.

Would I be better off running something like Blizzaks year round and replacing them often, or would it be wiser to maintain two sets of tires: summer, and winter?

It seems to me, that I would be just as far ahead to just frequently buy new Blizzaks or equivalent.

TIA for comments. tim

Reply to
Tim Conway
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You do NOT want to run Blizzaks year round unless you want to buy at leat one set of tires a year.After one summer of driving they will be totally useless as a winter tire - and at their best they are pretty useless as a summer tire. All wrong tread and compound.

The ONLY sensible thing to do is either run all-seasons rear round and be running a compromise virtually all year, or have 2 sets of rims, with dedicated ice/snow tires for the winter and touring or rain tires for the rest of the year - depending on where you live (assuming you DO need snow tires)

A Forester with GOOD all season tires will get around better than a 2 wheel drive car with dedicated seasonal tires.

Reply to
clare

Thanks everybody. Due to expenses, I'll probably go the one good set of all season route. Any good comparisons to the Goodyear Triple Treds? tim

Reply to
Tim Conway

No personal experience, but the Nokian WR or WRG2 are highly rated - and if they are anything like Nokian's Hakkapeliita Snows, you won't be disappointed. The WR and WRG2 are rated as "adequate" in snow, and very good in both wet and dry. The Assurance TripleTread gets a good rating too.

I'm running Goodyear Eagles on my PT Cruiser as my 3 season tires, with Dunlop Graspics for the winter - and the Eagles are by far the best tire I've ever owned for wet traction and dry traction on hot pavement. They grip like they have claws. FAR better than the Tiger Paw Touring tires I threw away with 75% tread left. Those things felt like I was on ball bearings any time I touched the accellerator or brakes - and it's NOT a Turbo!!! Looking at the tread, I'll bet they'd be pretty reasonable in slop as well - but not likely terribly good in deep dry-ish snow. The Graspics have been GREAT - on Daughter's Neon, Wife's Mistyque, my TransSport, My PT Cruiser, and Daughter's new Honda.

Had Blizzaks on Daughter's Colt 200 and they compare very favourably - with the Graspics retaining the edge after 2 or more seasons.

Reply to
clare

Nokian thoughtfully omitted Hakkapeliita from the WR and WRG2 model names. I bet they are highly rated by people who have snowless winter.

there are a lot of eagle models in goodyear lineup: and they are hardly all the same

It still amazes me that people jump to conclusion on traction looking at the tread pattern in this day and age of highly specialized tire compounds (and winter slicks)

Loss leader tire manufacturers are preying on this feature of the tire buying populace like there is no tomorrow.

I assure you even bald tires grip very differently even in mud let alone on ice and snow depending on the tire model (tire compound used).

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The is CURRERNTLY only ONE Eagle GT (did I omit the GT in the last post? I'm sure I specified it in my first post) - and it is better than the perevious Eagle GT and Eagle GT1 tires.

There is a LOT you can tell looking at a tread - like can it clear itself or will it pack full - that you learn from years in the business. Traction on wet surfaces and ice are harder to tell bey looking - unless you look REAL close at the micro-sipes etc.

Except when bald, there is no tread compound left.

Reply to
clare

Ok, I'll have to inject more specifics. I have Nokian Hakka i3 175 70 13 tire mounted on my rear wheel driver (mono wheel driver, no LSD) (i3 is a summer ultra high performance tire, not sold in the united states)

I have Continental ContiProContact in 235 45 17 on my torsen center diff equipped four ringed A4

It takes a while to get Hakka i3 lose traction. I had my rwd beater nearly lying on the rear axle in a rut full of water with clay at the bottom, It takes no effort to get A4 stuck with contiprocontact on level wet grass covered clay field.

ContiProContact tire has marginally more agressive treat pattern. It does not good in my softroading sesstion despite awdf (torsen) helping.

Now neither i3 nor contiprocontact are meant for any offroad stints. But i3 somehow does it better and i attribute that to the compound that grips MUCH better in wet. Alphalt or not.

This is all subjective of course. ContiProContact is the highway all season tire and all it's good for is to wear slowly unless you subject it to scorching heat of a sunbelt summer, i guess it's not fair to compare it to UHP tire. But given offroading context and your claim of tread importance I had to give it a shot.

I do not own a high speed camera and glass covered test facility to record the tire performance. I could not care less how the tread pattern looks like. It ain't the 70s anymore. It's important only to the engineers who design the tire and marketers who prep the ground for the salesfolk,.

tell that to the lucky few who tried winter slicks

Reply to
AD

Tires DESIGNED to have no tread and "bald" tires that used to have tread are different things, totally - and a "winter slick" might be fantastic on ice, but would be totally useless in loose or wet snow.

Reply to
clare

My point is that max and extreme(semislick) performance (and even UHPs such as i3, about 3-4 mil of tread left) age more gracefully than highway all seasons retaining more traction at their end of life than highway all seasons had when new and broken in (ContiProContact, about 7 mil of tread left)

I haven't driven winter slicks in snow but I somehow have a feeling the usefullness would heavily depend on the driveline setup with all 4 wheels driven on sti making the setup not so useless.

now on to the subject why the women in southern urop look like crap in their late 30s/early 40s while the age of consent is not dissimilar from that in other parts of the world shortening their useful "track" life :^)

invoking freud with his, of course false, theories :)

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