Awhile back I was asking about 4WD for getting around on the snowy streets here in CO.
I have the 93 Corolla wagon with front wheel drive.
Someone suggested just getting good snow tires and that it might work as well as a 4WD, that the newer snow tire designs are pretty good.
I'm from Florida originally and haven't gotten into snow tires since moving out here, for years, because they didn't used to be that good years ago.
Well I asked Costco about some and they suggested Michelin X-Ice, which for my car wound up costing around $416 with tax and installation and everything.
Well let me tell you, these things are GREAT!
I may have mentioned a kind of steep hill outside the house here. No more problems with it!
These things get us around, pronto, when everyone else is slipping and sliding with their regular tires.
Thanks guys! I really appreciate the good advice here!
Yep, the advice here is good and when it is not it gets jumped on so one can tell the difference. Are you planning on using those snow tires in the summer too? I would be curious in how they would behave in the heat. Tomes
Take heed, off-topic whiners (I don't mean you, Ms. Houston)...
When you *ask* for advice, you get it, as this lady's post proves.
So, instead of complaining about the off-topic banter here (granted, there is *way* too much of that), *ask your questions*, and they will be very skillfully answered.
Winter tires are a softer compound than summer tires and wear a LOT faster. You can usually run winter tire in the summer if you're prepared to buy a new set every winter. Some states/municipalities don't allow winter tires all year long, esp if they are studded.
In Mass they can be installed Nov 1 and have to be removed by April 15 (studded tires, that is...)
I guess because I'm out in the middle of East Overshoe at 3AM, I bought snows for the first time in years this year (well, I had some on the AWD Tercel, too...)
THANK GOD!!! Almost ALL of our snowstorms have come after midnight, have been at least 3-4" and the towns on my route don't plow until about 6AM (when I'm home checking the insides of my eyelids for leaks...)
I STILL managed to get stuck with the Mazda a couple times, esp on the dirt roads where it turns to ice. When I got the Subaru, the singer in my band gave me 4 almost NRW studded snows. They are cheap and don't grip well on ice (or snow, either, really...) but I haven't been stuck yet and can get to where I need to be even in ice.
I just had a feeling this was going to be a bad year and that I really should have snows...
BTW, I got Hankook iPike snows for the Mazda. I should have waited and spent the $$$ for the tires for the Suby, because even on the Mazda these thing make it through like a tank!!! They were $52 each, and as long as I didn't have to make any funny moves they would just keep going.
Okay, what kind of rims does the car have? Because it makes Much More Sense to have a seperate set of rims for the snow tires - that way you can switch back and forth as needed without paying for the labor (again!) and waiting in the long line you find at the tire shop every time the weather turns with the 50,000 other snow-tire lemmings.
(This is for old-style cars, or the passive, ABS Sensor based tire pressure monitoring that just counts the rotation pulses to sense a low tire. People with radio sender in-the-rim based Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems on your cars, that's going to seriously complicate things...)
Just takes a good floor jack, a spot in the corner of the garage to stack the other set of tires, and a bit of elbow grease. You can buy an electric impact wrench to make it easier getting the lug nuts off.
And yes, even girls can do it, car maintenance ain't Rocket Science
- just make your monthly manicure appointment AFTER you do the work, just in case you break one. And if you wear disposable nitrile gloves while you work the grease won't get rubbed in so deep.
You can switch the snow tires off early in March when it looks like the snow stopped, and back on in April for a week when you get a last gasp blast of Winter coming through. Without waiting too long and grinding all that expensive winter rubber off on warm dry roads.
And every time you mount and dismount tires to and from the rims you risk ripping the bead seal surfaces and wrecking the tire. (Or cause an annoying chronic slow leak.) Best to mount it once, and leave it on the rim until worn out.
If you put the snows on your factory alloy rims and took the "summer" tires home, start shopping around for another set of rims now
- especially for another set of alloy rims you will find much better prices when you are not in a hurry and need to buy them /right now/.
Ask at regional wrecking yards, and at all the regional Toyota dealers and tire shops. Leave a note on their bulletin board with need, name, and number, and don't expect a call for weeks or more.
People will slide into a curb and wreck one alloy rim and change all four with aftermarket (sometimes cheaper than buying one new factory alloy - they want a LOT!), leaving three good used factory alloys. Then the tire shop owner remembers your note, and calls.
Or a car will have a fire and get junked with four perfectly good rims. (Good tires are a bonus.) The wrecking yard gets more reselling them to you as used rims than as scrap metal.
Or find some inexpensive steel rims for the snow tires, and switch them over next spring. That way you'll be ready.
(NOTE: Different length and seat shape lug nuts are required for mounting steel and alloy rims. You might need to spend $10 on a set.)
Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. I just have not put on snows for so long now here in NJ where the all seasons seems to be OK enough for me. It seems like a real pain to be switching them twice a year... Tomes
I don't know why, but I was expecting a lot of snow this year. i guessed correctly...
One year I bought some snow tires for the Hachiroku...the only winter it ever saw. It is RWD, so I got two tires and put them on the rear.
Yeah...and after the first snowstorm, I went back and got two more for the front. It was like trying to steer an oil tanker...
So...lesson learned. Since FWD are driven, duh, by the front wheels, and you CAN'T STEER THE REAR WHEELS (at least, not with the 626 I have...it doesn't have RWS...) I got four right off the bat. Plus, knowing I would be in the middle of East Cupcake at that time in the morning, it made more sense than to try to flirt with disaster...
I had actually erased my second sentence, then put it back in, believe it or not. Hey, if this is the post I'm remembering, I did suggest better tires for snow. And since I know so little about the mechanics of cars & can answer so few car questions, decided may as well take credit when it's actually due! ;-P
We have had basically no snow here in NJ this year so far. I just don't think I will ever do the snow tire thing. The Prius is pretty bad in the snow tho with those OEM tires. Tomes
About the only way I can get stuck with these, would be to drive into a foot of snow off the side of the road, or something. I've never experienced anything like this on snow before.
The guy at Costco told me that they have an employee who lives in the mountains here and uses them, that's how he knew they were this good.
Yes, this car of ours may be front wheel drive, but it brakes with all
4, and I can tell the difference with these X-Ice. Amazing.
Other people can be spinning around in front of us ( we actually saw it happen one night on a neighborhood back street ) and we just drive right through past them.
It must be the "Global Warming" ( Al Gore TM ) or something, but we've been getting pretty good snows here for the last couple of years, in the Denver area.
Sometimes it seems like we're up to our ears in Global Warming...er, I mean snow. :-)
Hey, it happens. Steel rims are cheap, Car maker-specific alloy rims are the ones you scream when you find out how much they cost to replace new. $400, $500, $600... Each. Yeah, ouch!
Ahh, but even if you never need to change a tire for real you really should be /able/ to do it, and should have actually /practiced/ doing it once or twice (with someone there to show you how) - that way if you get stuck somewhere you know you can. You are NOT helpless.
Put a few pairs of nitrile rubber gloves, a few clean hand rags, and a bandana for your hair in a Ziploc and stash them with your jack and wrench kit in the back of the car. You might even get a set of Tyvek painter's overalls, in case you are dressed nicely.
And put a 6'x10' chunk of heavy plastic sheeting in there too, to kneel on while sliding the jack under and working with the lug nuts - the flat tire always happens in the muddiest spot you can find. With no cell coverage, or you call for a tow and they say three hours wait.
Twenty to thirty minutes of honest work changing a tire sure beats the hell out of wasting a few hours playing "Damsel in Distress"...
I know you can do it - My mom not only did her own car repairs when needed, in the early 50's she was half partner in a garage and out driving the extra tow truck when things got busy - the National Auto Club contract said they had to handle service calls within an hour. If it got really busy and there was a truck available but no driver, she went. In a Bullocks Wilshire hot-pink overcoat...
And this was an all-manual, chains and boom and bumper-pad recovery wrecker with a manual transmission, and power nothing save for the PTO main winch, not the cushy all-Hydraulic all-Power trucks of today. Lady had a certified pair of Big Brass Ones hidden in there.
There were a few Chauvinists out there who were almost ready to turn away any help from "a girl!" before common sense took hold - and the rational brain told the pig part to shut the up.
Trust me, I've waited in the hours-long lines at Costco when they run the "Buy 4 tires, get $60 off" deals - and that's in So Cal, where we "don't do Snow".
But I can guarantee that the "Take off the snow tires, put on the regular tires" lines are going to be worse, because more people need to do it, and they all want to do it in a two week period when the weather changes. Get there at 6 AM to "beat the crowd" for a 10 AM Tire Center opening, and find out that 10 people got in line ahead of you starting at 5 AM. There goes the entire day...
Yes, we do have a deep 2-car garage - and my folks have parked a car in it exactly ONCE, the day before Escrow closed. That was 1971.
Since then, it's been the "working from home" area for Dad and Mom the salespeople (now retired and mom gone), and then for me the electrician. I'm lucky to keep clear aisles to get to the tools and supplies, let alone enough room to actually (Gasp!) park a car.
Generic steel rims are $35 each brand new, plain black.
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You might do a bit better if you look around, get "take-offs" from the tire shop when another Corolla owner gives them the steel wheels to buy new alloys, or get a set at the wrecking yard.
No problem. Why make mistakes yourself, when we who have already learned (sometimes the hard way...) can save you most of the grief?
I knmow, and I have changed my own tires before, but it's a miserable job with this Corolla. The standard jack is VERY hard to use and the jack handle has to be used to unscrew the wheel lugs. Very difficult for me.
Me? Nah, I'm in Colorado and am always informal. ( except for funerals )
My work doesn't even require anything formal.
It's not that, it's the darn jack and iron that goes with it.
I wish I could find something a LOT better, that would fit in the spare tire well and wouldn't break my budget.
I'd agree, but not with this flimsy hard-to-use stock jack.
Are you listening Toyota?
I love your cars but your stock jacks ( '93 anyway ) are too hard for me.
Of course, you're misunderstanding my motives.
Or I could just do it on April 1st, I suppose, and beat the rush.
Yeah, who uses their garage for much besides a storage shed? LOL!
Can't find them there, but I'd get them locally anyway.
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