Snow tires and steel rims

Rooky Heard asks :

I've come to the conclusion that there are no great overall winter tires. Tires that are good on ice are lowsy in snow and vice versa.

Ice tires have a tight pattern of slits in the rubber (called sipes). Snow tires have an open block pattern to get down through snow and shed it easily. An ice tire will just float on snow and slide all over the place, and a snow tire won't have much grip on ice and will slide all over the place as well.

You can turn a snow tire into an ice tire while keeping the snow capability by adding studs, but hardly anyone can stand them and they're not allowed in a lot of places.

Seems to me the best would be an open block pattern with lots of sipes. The Nokian 2 looks to be like this (I've only seen pictures) except that it's not available without studs.

I currently use Nokian 1's, a snow tire, with studs, but I'm not sure that I'd go with studs again. They're kind of embarrassing when the road is clear and dry. But then I wouldn't want to be on ice without them...

I've used the Canadian Tire Ice Track tires, and they're a good compromise; quiet, good on snow and ice. Any brand of snow or ice tire will be much better than driving on all season tires, but some are quite noisy, and others, like the Michelin Alpin, are good on ice (lots of rubber contact), but poor in snow and slush due to a very closed tread (little open space to grip snow).

check out the yokohama geolander designed for this time of vehicle

i can say my wife loves them on everything except dry pavement, but there they are no worse than any others

snipped-for-privacy@canada.com

Read a report on studs once. The report suggested that under certain circumstances studs acted like ice skates and can be very dangerous. Ask anyone who mysteriously went out of control despite the fact that they had studs on their tires.

Ron

check your operators manual. It will specify the wheel size for your Outback. The other option is to inspect your wheels on your car. Somewhere the size will be stamped on the wheel and will look like 15X6JJ. If you buy rims with the same size designation, they should work...just as long as they aren't bent. As for snow tires, I second Ed's comment regarding the Canadian Tire snows. Regards, Brian

the offset of a wheel is very important, if this is not right as well as diameter and width then your tires can end up rubbing or doing damage Subaru have a very large offset, the outback wheels are an offset of 45

snipped-for-privacy@canada.com

Hakka Q's have a relatively open block tread design with mucho siping. The biggest compromise is dry road cornering. A little on the squishy side.

Stu

Paul Pedersen wrote:

Your best bet for rims from a junkyard is to pull them from a '95-'99 legacy based Subaru. I believe the impreza/forrester offset is similar, so those would likely be okay as well.

Stu

Rooky Heard wrote:

Another vote for CT Icetrac's. I've had them on my WRX for the last 2 winters, should be good for at least one more. If you're quick, they're on sale $10 off / tire this week (and probably next week too).

Andy

compromise;