Hello.
I live in the north east and last winter was a rough one without snow tires on my Mustang 2001 - 225/55 R16. I want to know what tires you may recommend in terms of snow tires. Your suggestions are welcomed.
Thanks, lewis
Bridgestone Blizzak and Michelin Artic-Alpin are both very good brands. I've heard good things about Pirelli's SnowSport series as well.
Here they are at TireRack:
I would highly recommend getting 4 winter tires and 4 plain steel wheels. TireRack has a winter tire & wheel combo that'll fit your Stang. It comes with Blizzaks for $444 and steel wheels for another $184, plus shipping of course.
The nice part is that they mount and balance the tires before shipping, and so all you have to do is swap the wheels twice a year.
Since you've survived at least one winter in a Mustang, you probably don't need me to tell you that you might want to add a 50 pound bag of kitty litter (doubles as an emergency traction aid) to the trunk as well as to keep your gas tank full. Weight over the back axle is your friend! :)
I've run the Michelins on all 4s and I can't say anything but good things about them. They made my cammed up '88 GT go quite well in the snow. It still takes the cautions of driving an RWD car in the snow, but traction was much improved. Instead of sand or kitty litter, I just left the MTX 12's in the hatch. ;-)
Put 'em on all 4... you want to turn and stop as well, don't you? The spare set of wheels is a great idea as well... look around at junkyards or at neighborhood tire shops. Big chains usually won't carry them, but if you go to a Joe Mechanic tire shop, they usually keep some wheels lying around.
Skinny tires are typically best... I don't know that I'd go much under 195 for a car that size, but physics dictates that a narrow tire will dig into snow better. A wide tire helps traction in dry weather by distributing the weight over a more broad surface and the load on each square inch of tire is decreased. This works against you in the snow, causing the car to be more likely to sit on top of the snow insetad of want to dig in. Ask someone who knows more about this kind of thing than me (or your average tire salesman) and see what they recommend. Get a few opinions and see what they say.
JS
Hey, how about "tall" snow tires for the 17" Bullitt rims? Does any such thing exist? Can "taller" tires be swapped on without interference problems? I guess what makes more sense is to just swap on regular 16" rims and then get inexpensive typical snow tires... but of course the car then looks kinda goofy. As for swapping all four wheels two times a year... well, in some parts of the north east, you can have snow on the ground almost all season, or you can get a few big snowstorms in a row but the rest of the time the ground is dry, or you can go almost all winter with zero snow. I'd rather leave my stock tires and rims on all year long, and then be able to just pop on two rear snow tires/rims if and when a bad storm comes... this is easier than changing 4 wheels and then having the "snow" tires on all winter season long even if there is not much snow. In the past I used to do this... swap on snow tires in the beginning of the winter and leave them on all winter... well, most of the time there was no snow on the ground... after doing a lot of higher speed highway driving which is what I do most, I blew out both of the snow tires on the highway... snow tires are not designed for dry high speed use... I'm sure that newer super expensive "snow" tires would have held up a lot better, but even so, I'd prefer to keep the regular tires on the car until the big storms arrive... then changing just two rear wheels is easy enough. In a perfect world, I could get an extra pair of Bullitt rims with some taller "snow" tires mounted on them, assuming there is enough clearance under the wheel wells. Since the Stang does not have too much ground clearance, a little extra clearance would help. But.. I think I will need 16" rims. Hey.... are there any Ford
15" rims that will fit the Stang well? While this would look bad, some super tall "skinny" snow tires would fit well on 15" rims, and would probably allow for more wheel "height" inside the well. A fatter tire will interfere with the well quicker.You want to keep the outside tire diameter the same as factory. You might be able to find factory 15" wheels cheap and mount snow tires on them in the factory size. There might be a brake clearance issue with 15" plain steel wheels, I'm not sure but there might even be one with the V6 15" wheels. You want to swap all four if your going to do it because you need to be able to turn too, and don't forget that 80% of braking is done by the front tires.
Hi Lewis,
I spent 2 winters in Minneapolis and put Blizzaks on my '93 GT, and they worked well. Sold them when we escaped to Atlanta.
Andy
I've got a v6 with stock 'stang wheels that I want to trade for 17" wheels.
What brand and model of tire are you using now? Would a more aggressive all season tire work? If not:
First off, you might want to go to a narrower tire like a 205. And if you are going to buy snow tires you have to chose between tire designed in several places.
Bridgestone -- Japan Firestone (part of Bridgestone)-- either Japan or Akron Goodyear --Akron, OH (out of the lake effect snow) Michelin -- France Continental -- Germany Nokian -- Finland
Guess which one has the harshest winters. :)
It depends on how often you'll actually be driving on snow/ice.
I live north of Toronto and have used 4 Bridgestone Blizzak WS-50's on my stang for he last 6 years and they are very good in the snow/icey conditions. I tried an all season goodyear eagle before that and they were way too slippery for me.
I like the Bliazzaks so much that I'm probably gonna put 4 more on my new Mercedes C320 this winter.
Cheers Keith
-- TTFN Keith & Chris B
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