Hankook W404 snow lires on an LS400 short review

I put a set of these snow tires on my wife's 1992 LS400 in 205-65x15 a few weeks ago, just in time for the snows of Michigan to come calling.

She had been using a set of 225-60x15 BFG Touring T/A's (all season tires) that were about 1/2 worn and these were getting to be quite thrilling in snow.

The car has, of course, traction control. Here are first impressions with the tires (set of four).

They are just a little bit squirrelly on dry pavement. You get the feeling through the steering wheel that minute oscillations are constantly occurring and you are constantly making very small steering corrections. I think this is because of the numerous sipes cut into the thread blocks. These are meant to grab snow for traction, but make the thread blocks a bit unstable in the dry. The ride on dry pavement is not cushy like it was with the oem Goodyear GA's, but certainly good enough (except for the wiggliness already mentioned).

On light to heavy snow the tires are great, however. My wife described them as a revelation compared to the BFG all-seasons on which she had spun quite a few times. I drove the car to church this evening with some 4-6" of snow on the ground and she's right. You can break them loose, but they don't slip much and lock up as soon as you back off the gas. No thrilling moments. Good cornering grip, too.

A nice snow tire at $300 for a set of four, mounted, at Discount Tire. Don't know if they are as good as Blizaaks, but can't imagine those can be much better and they cost a lot more.

George Litwinski

"It?s good to want things."

S. Barr (philosopher, poet, humorist, chemist, Visual Basic.Net programmer)

Reply to
GRL
Loading thread data ...

Uh, that would be "on a LS400", not "on an LS400". Typo. Sorry.

- GRL

Reply to
GRL

no, you were correct the first time. "On an El Ess Four Hundred".

Reply to
Elmo P. Shagnasty

This could be the wheel angles being different due to the different size of the wheels. Check your angles and get rid of the "squirrel effect."

Reply to
Jyrki Alakuijala

You know, you're right. Did not look right as "an".

- GRL

Reply to
GRL

I don't think so. The wheels are the same type and the tire width difference is very minor.

- GRL

Reply to
GRL

This is Turtle.

I really can't speak about the Hankook and Yohohoma [ both the same ] car tires but they do make a good 18 wheeler front driver tires 24 in for traction in bad weather. They really do a good job on the front driver tires for a smooth ride. On the back set of 8 you really can't say.

Now as them being good on cars i could not say but if they were as good on cars as they are on 18 wheelers. I would say they would be good. We would get about

90k miles out of a set of them and still have 4 thousandths thread still on them. This is pretty good if you carry around a 38 ton payload around all the time.

I just thought about it and i think I have a set on something I drive now but i will have to check to see. I think they are on the old 91 LS-400 I have out back. If they are on there they must be ok for i don't remember having any tire trouble in the past.

TURTLE

Reply to
TURTLE

This is Turtle.

Width of the tire makes no difference but highth of tire does. The highth even changes from one brand to the other but can be ever so small.

Here is a off the wall one here but I had a truck years ago that had the squirrel cage effect and I had some nuts loose on the wheels. You might look to see.

TURTLE

Reply to
TURTLE

We know. We saw your name in the header.

Reply to
Elmo P. Shagnasty

This is Turtle.

Why Thank you for explaining that to me. Now how can I help you ?

TURTLE

Reply to
TURTLE

We know. We saw your name in the header.

Reply to
Elmo P. Shagnasty

This is Turtle.

Why Thank you again.

TURTLE

Reply to
TURTLE

We KNOW. We saw your name in the header.

Reply to
Elmo P. Shagnasty

Reply to
Buckshop LeFunk

Listen Elmo, Turtle is a knowledgeable and helpful contributor to this news group, which is a damn sight more than I can say about you.

Reply to
Oldun

This is Turtle.

So what?

Reply to
Elmo P. Shagnasty

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.