Shopping for Winter Tires

winter!).

Tirerack

Ken

Ahh, was just there today, and is actually the site i used to find my Dunlop's, but I didnt see anything specifically geared towards winter tires..... then again, i didnt look very hard ;)

ill check thru it again

thanx

boy im dumb.... just saw the link for winter tires

heh heh heh

Try the

Tire Rack has a large section of user opinions on the tires, and they're pretty useful. People actually say the conditions they use the tires in.

I've had Bridgestone Blizzak's for several years now. In Wisconsin winters, they've been great. And they are wearing very well. A much longer opinion of them is in the 94 modifications section on my website.

Lane [ l a n e @ p a i r . c o m ]

Wal-Mart sells good cheap winter tires, I know a guy driving his for 3 years (and during the summer), but cheap comes at a price, high-school kids servicing your car - your call.

I was hesitant to change my tire size from OEM 175/70R14 (and it's the only tire size listed on my door-sticker) to something like 185/65R14 (only 0.7% difference in size

I installed the Blizzak on my wife's Focus wagon and was impressed with the handling in deap snow and stopping ability on ice or packed snow compared to the Michelin (on different cars off course but still). One note though, the Blizzak is even more sensitive to temperature than other winter tires, including the Michelin Artic Alpin so install late and remove early.

Never tried the Nokian myself but heard lots of good things about it and want to try it.

One note about changing tire size, you need to adjust the tire pressure to optimize the contact patch for your application (conservative vs agressive driving style). I have yet to find a good website that explain how to do so. Guys I know that up-size their tires do a trial and error thing. If you go to a 175/70R14, the OEM tire pressure at 30psi front, 26psi rear.

How did you like the Dunlops? SP Sport A2?

Let us know what you choose.

Frank

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback, prolly gonna hit a few stores this weekend and compare prices and see what I can learn through that. As for my Dunlops, yup, they're the SP Sport A2s, and I love em. Stick to the road very well, let me take turns at fairly high speeds without complaining or squealing, fairly quiet and ride well at high speeds (170 km/h). The only complaint is that they are utterly useless in the winter, then again that could be due to the weight of the car as opposed to the tires.... but I didnt feel too safe last year

Wurm

The SPs were OK but I wore 'em out in a hurry.

I have Pirellis now which stick the same as the Dunlops, but will last 3 times longer.

Ah, interesting. Ive put about 30k KM on my Dunlops so far (ok, I have 2 that have about 3k on em, replaced from a recent accident but anyway) and they still stick well and havent started squealing at all, even before the accident when they were all the same age. Here's a question tho, how long should I expect them to last, I mean, apart from doing the quarter test every couple of weeks, what is the average lifespan of a "good" set of tires taking into account that I'm fairly hard on my car.

Also, which Pirelli's are you using now specifically?, im always interested in this stuff for future replacements :)

Wurm

I only got like 26k out of them and they were BALD........

If they don't squeal - that means you're not driving it hard enough :)

I'm using the Pirelli P400......

I have about the same mileage as the Dunlops when they were shot and I still have 3/4 life left in 'em :)

I happened into this thread a bit late, but thought I'd give it a whirl...

How serious of winter driving are we talking? Here in coastal Alaska we live in the black ice center of the universe. And when it snows, we measure it in feet instead of inches...ah, enuff hot air!

Last winter, I put some plain old studded General 195/65R15's on all four wheels of our '96 SW2. We were still sliding around as the car is so light, so I put 150 lbs of sand bags in the back and the floor of the back seat. That set 'er down pretty good and kept it on the road. We lived in Juneau, Alaska last winter, and believe it or not there are four lane hiways there.

One big difference between 14" and 15" wheels is that you can't put chains or cable chains on the 15" wheels because there is not enough clearance. This is sometimes an issue out west when crossing mountain passes (Rockies, Cascades).

My $.02.

Stephen

hahahahahah, as much as I wished it were, a stock Saturn is not a sports car ;-), but I figure if I can take a good sharp on-ramp at 90(kmh) without squealing or skidding, im happy.

holy crap, if they are comparable driving quality ill definetly look into those for my next tires

I was pretty shocked myself :)

They're definitly lasting a long time. No more getting new tires every year like I used to. :)