need advice on snow tires

"Mike Klein" wrote

The car's handling will be more predictable having all 4 tires the same. As it is, winter driving can be tricky. Do you really want the additional 'excitement' of having the front of the car behave much differently from the back?

Nokian WR. Dunlop M3.

Cheers,

Pete

Plus your wife will need the front traction to both steer and stop! Definitely get 4 winter tires, preferably mounted on cheaper wheels to both save your good wheels and to make the twice a year changeover that much easier.

I just mounted the Dunlop M3 (V rated) tires on my 328i - very good handling in both dry and wet conditions (no snow yet!), although they are a bit noisy above 50 mph on certain road surfaces. You might check out

for a great deal of helpful info.

Tom

You need four. It's nice to be able to stop as well as start :-)

Goodyear ultragrip if you don't see heavy snow all the time. They're also great in heavy rain and don't screw up the dry road handling too much. I've tried a few brands and like these the most.

For really heavy duty snow use I'm told Bridgestone Blizzaks are best, but I'm also told they handle badly in normal conditions.

I have Blizzaks on a FWD car (SAAB) and they do not seem too bad in the dry. I have Michelin Arctic Alpins on my 325i and those work well in the slop and handle well in the dry too, but would be overkill for only

4-5 times snowfall a year. I also just put Michelin X-Ice on a different SAAB and those seem as good as the Alpins.

All 4 - and it's good if they are on dedicated wheels.. I'm running 17" stock wheels in the summer with 245/40/17's on them (Dunlops) and 15" wheels and snows in the winter (forget the exact size, but probably

225/60/15's) - the narrower higher tire is better in the snow - less of a wedge is created in front of it in loose snow.

If you go to someplace like

- you'll get some recommendations. My 525i with 4 snows will outperform SUV's with "all-season" tires in most any condition.

I have had good luck in the past with Pirelli P210 "SportSnow" and am currently running Yokohama's.

admin-- seriously... dont make claims that are total bs. sorry but your 525 with 4 snow tires is not going to outperform any suv except maybe an escalade with dubs and slicks. Even if you claimed an IX you would be hard pressed to outperform much. rwd is never going to be anywhere close to parttime 4wd, let alone full time (like Land Rover and Cruisers). Sorry but that was the biggest load of crap Ive heard in a while. As to tires, most any winter tire will perform about the same, just get them siped and if your snow is bad you may want to consider studs. Also, adding a few bags of salt or pea gravel to the back of the car wont hurt. Best bet is just to assume that the bimmer is the sled that it is and dont drive it when there is snow on the roads. Its usually only a matter of a few hours before the side streets are cleared. (at least here in Utah)

"Corey Shuman" wrote

Corey, there's a lot of bs in your posting, too. Let me just enumerate.

1st, any car with snowtires will CORNER and BRAKE better than anything with all-seasons. Since a RWD with snows will accelerate about as well as an awd/4wd car with all-seasons, it's quite obvious that his assertion is correct, which means that your paragraph above is bs. 2nd bs paragraph. Any "good" snow tire will already have sipes. If it doesn't, it's arguably not a snow tire. Snow tires constructed with cold-weather compounds perform better than those with normal compounds. Tires such as Blizzaks perform as well as studded snow tires - if you don't believe me look at

Only non-bs paragraph.

Now you are slicing the baloney.

A good set of snow tires on a rwd car with traction control, near 50/50 balance and decent ground clearance for the amount of snow on the ground will do very well on snow. My wife has been driving an LS400 through twelve mid-Michigan winters on all-seasons and she has only had trouble when the snow got above the car's ground clearance. same thing will happen with an SUV, except the SUB will have more ground clearance. I put snow tires on the car last winter and it became even better than a fresh set of all-seasons (naturally).

Buy good snow tires that are no wider than they need to be and you will not have trouble with your 5-series with traction control through moderate snow falls.

- nopcbs

Floyd, floyd, Listen to yourself, we are talking about driving in snow, a rwd will not outperform awd or 4wd, even if it has spikes on the tires!! There is no pull, only push. think about this!! regardless of how well the tire bites, it still is only capable of pushing the car, not grabbing up front to turn the vehicle. Its really pretty simple. Second.. If you want to believe the studded tire report, thats fine, but its "BS" a you put it, anything less than studs on ice (which is what packed snow will become) will slip all over, I dont care if it has a Jesus Juice anti slip compound sprayed on it.

GRL-- you are high as well, see my comments above, your 50/50 balance may be a good arguement if you were talking about 4wd, but the closest bmw has come to 50/50 is the MCoupe which is not 4wd so the 50/50 doesnt matter in the snow. And ground clearance shouldnt have a thing to do with it, if your Lexus has trouble when the snow is above the ground clearance level than you must have a pretty poor SUV. I can blast through snow that goes over tire height in my rovers. (but if I stop Im screwed.)

Not trying to start a flame war here.. I love my bimmers as much as the next guy but comparing BMW handling to any decent SUV in snow is just ludicrous...

Dont pretend the bimmer is something it isnt, thats what has spawn all of these 2wd "SUVs" that are "speedy". An SUV isnt a sports car and vice versa... you may get by in the snow but you wont out perform any real (AWD or 4WD) suv. Its called reality.

"Corey Shuman" wrote

You are wrong. Any vehicle - rwd, fwd, awd - that has snow tires (real snow tires like Blizzaks, or studded, etc.) will out-perform any vehicle with only all-season tires. It may not climb hills or accelerate as well, but in every other category of vehicle performance, it will beat the all-season-shod vehicle.

FloydR

admin is quite right. I'd far rather drive a decent handling two wheel car fitted with snow tyres than a SUV in most winter conditions except very deep snow. On icy roads, or ploughed snowed roads, or even lightly snowed roads, the better handling and brakes of a car on snow tyres are far more advantageous than a lumbering, rolling, heavy SUV. I live in the French alps and drive a Mercedes C-Class on Michelin snow tyres and it is far more wieldy than SUVs. With the traction control, I have never got stuck once and have very rarely had to use chains. On the other hand, I have passed any number of SUVs in the ditch fitted with either no snow tyres (usually Dutch or UK plated) or "all season tyres", because they have fallen off the corner because of the weight and high centre of gravity of their vehicle.

A SUV fitted with winter tyres does have better ultimate traction in deep snow than a car - but that is the only time four wheel drive is an advantage. For me, that is greatly outweighed by all the disadvantages of a SUV in other conditions. In any case, most SUV drivers seem to get lulled into a false sense of security and don't fit winter tyres...

You mistakenly imagine that only traction matters when driving on snow. How about cornering and stopping?

Modern cars with traction control and snow tyres have amazing traction in snow, more than adequate for all conditions except when snow is deeper than groundclearance. There small disadvantage in these conditions is vastly outweighed by their greatly superior cornering and handling in most snow and ice conditions.

Corey - might I offer that you do the same? I *have* gone up hills passing SUV's with all-season tires. I have stopped my 5-touring when SUV's were sliding around on their roofs.

BTDT - and if you can't out-drive a FWD in ANY weahter with a good RWD you just don't know how to drive. I learned how to drive on RWD about 40 years ago, haven't driven anything else except a few rare brain-farts when I got a FWD (never lasted long - the first time they did a 360 on me in snow was the last time..)

I'll repeat it - a good RWD (a BMW with ASC for instance) with good SNOW tires - will outhandle an SUV with all-seasons in snow. Also on ice and in the rain.

okay, whatever, just dont try and flag me down to pull you out of a snow bank when you slide off the road with you GOOD snow tires.. its just a ridiculous arguement. All this thread is showing is who has actually driven a 4wd and who hasnt.. note-- I never said anything about front wheel drive. I mentioned ALL WHEEL DRIVE (AWD) and FOUR WHEEL DRIVE (4wd) both of which will out perform your snow tires every day, Like I said at the top, unless you are driving a escalade on "dubs" with slicks on them.

Im not sure that you guys have a whole lot of experience driving in snow or you would concede what Im talking about, you going up hill is about momentum or condition, your stopping is about condition as well, you have to have a surface that will provide friction to stop, any compound of tires and ice will not produce a stop.

-as a side note, Im curious as to how you get a fwd to spin a 360 without serious effort-- the physics are totally against it, maybe you were mistakenly driving a rwd, which will easily spin a 360 because it is "pushing" instead of "pulling" (like I state above)

Im not trying to trash on the bimmers ability here, I love brand and if the roads are wet or dry I would rather drive them. But if you are on ice and snow they just dont compete with awd or 4wd, no matter how much you waste on tires.

Ric- I'll agree with part of your arguement, for the most part SUV drivers are lulled int a false sense of security, and they dont really know how to drive what they have. All I would ask is this.. have you tried a real SUV, ie a Range Rover, Discovery, Grand Cherokee, Mercedes G-Class, Land Cruiser, etc.. with all seasons in the snow. I think for the most part the answer is no, or you would see what my arguement is...

On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 21:04:36 -0800, "Floyd Rogers" waffled on about something:

I don't know about the rest of you, but the only thing I'm interested in when it snows is staying warm and getting from A to B in one piece!

Save performance for the summer! I'd rather get up/down the slopes and round the corners in one piece!

Not to mention if it does go all horribly wrong, I know which I'd rather go hitting lamp posts and other car drivers (ones doing performance test probably) in... A saloon car or a Land Rover... Hmmm.... Landy Please!

Oh, and the Landy will get itself out of a ditch nicely too. Yet to see a winch on a Beemer!... Or a night heater come to think of it...!

Dodgy.

On 1 Dec 2005 09:03:37 -0800, "Corey Shuman" waffled on about something:

Pssst.... I'm with you on this one cos I know what my "real" 4x4 can do with it's all season tyres...

I did hit a bump half way through, someone said it felt like an E46. :o)

Dodgy

De-lurker for the moment - If you put the clowns usually driving SUVs (I laugh at them in the ditch as I drive up over the passes just east of Seattle in my plain Jane primitive 4 wheel drive Jeep Cherokee), it's laughable to think that a rear wheel drive vehicle with snow tires will out perform a 4 wheel drive vehicle in the snow. I used to have an Audi quattro and it would give my Jeep a run for its money no doubt - that is until the snow really piled up and the Audi got high centered. Now, I have and love an '05 330Ci. But when the white stuff falls and the idiots in Seattle start slipping around or I'm off to the mountains to go skiing, it's time for fire up the Jeep and leave the bimmer at home.

my 2 cents worth - Jon

Im sure that with some good snow tires the average 5 series could make it through that mud and probably take a solid 90 degree turn without slipping too... ;)