Winter tires for MY03 Impreza wagon

You can't go wrong with Blizzaks.

However, I bought Goodyear Ultragrip Ice tires last winter (Ottawa), and they were fantastic. Excellent traction, barely worn after 1 season, not loud, sidewalls not too squishy (for a winter tire)...

I would recommend the UltraGrip Ice to anyone... Just make sure you get the Ice version. I believe there is a non Ice version that is not quite as good...

R.

proulx snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (jf) wrote in news:26d2ec3a.0309110526.5e9ba0d1 @posting.google.com:

These tires look interesting and made it through Winnipeg's winter:

Hello JF

I am in the same situation (Montreal, first winter...) and looked at Kuhmo L'Zen Stud (rated as best by Consumer Reports and cheap...) and Nokian WR (Nokian has a great reputation and they are said to be good for all seasons...).

I'll give the Nokian a try in a few weeks (not changing tires every season sounds very, very nice) and see how it goes.

Nicolas

How soon are the roads you drive going to be plowed and how much of your driving will really be on snow and ice? I drive the Chicago suburbs and only infrequently drive on snow and ice. For that reason I steered away (pun intended :) from blizzaks since they are really hard core snow/ice tires. From what I've heard, they are probably the best for those conditions, but they can be a little squishy on dry pavement and tend to wear fast. I chose Yokohama Guardex 600 for our GTI and was pretty happy with those. They still felt squishy on dry pavement, but our was unstoppable in the snow that we got here (up to about 8" at a time.) For the few times we actually needed them, they did the job. (I usually wait for the first smow to put them on and on the factory tires, the GTI likes to ski!)

My Blizzaks lasted for three winters. I think there are various models for various conditions (snow, ice, etc.). If you drive them hard on the pavement, they will wear pretty quick...but I was happy with them. They'd be very appropriate if you're in a climate where the snow sticks around.

JF, I put Michelin Arctic Alpins on my Legacy last winter. OK on ice, not the best for snow, so maybe not a great choice for Montreal. My son had Blizzaks on his Jetta. Good tires, but with his driving, the front ones were only good for 1 winter! When I buy new snows, I'm just going to put Canadian Tire Nordic Ice Tracs on them. Less money and were pretty good tires on my van. Brian

I have Michelin Arctic Alpins too.

They are not a serious snow tire as their performance has also been balanced for dry winter pavement.

CW

Cooper also makes very nice _snow_ tires. Here in Wisconsin, I don't worry so much about ice, the DPW uses about a 2:1 ratio of salt:snow depth, but I regularly get out before the plows (on purpose ! )

Anything with nice square lugs will claw the snow pack like nobody's business. Cooper Wintermaster, Hakkepellitta 10, and others with a similar tread.

For just general riding in melting slop ... any all season tire will do.

jw milwaukee

The problem with Blizzaks is that they grip on ice really well for the first while, mostly due to about 2% of the tread being air bubbles, but that only goes down about half of the tread depth, or the tires would be too squirmy.

For something longer lasting, good options are Yokohama Guardex, Nokian Hakka Q, Nokian WR (which they call an all-weather tire).

However, those are all expensive, so I bought some Nordic Icetrac's from Canadian Tire (made by Michelin) for $75 in 16" for my WRX. If you can wait until January, they always go on sale 25% off. I've done 1.5 winters on them now, they'll probably need replacing in another 1.5. While my original plan was to get cheap tires because I was buying rims at the same time, but replace them with one of the tires above, I've pretty much decided that I'll buy the same ones again.

Keep in mind that the roads around here (Ottawa, Montreal, pretty much all of eastern NA) are plowed pretty quickly, and salted, so you end up spending most of your time driving on dry or wet pavement, and relatively little in deep snow, so real snow tires, like Hakka 1's, Vredestein's, or CT Wintertracs are probably not the ideal tire.

Andy.