Yeah, it's late, but it's still snowing here in the great Northeast,so I'm still riding on my snow tires.
At the beginning of the winter I wanted some Bridgstone Blizzaks. Tire Rack had them for $57. The local tire store said he could match that. Well, he did, but with Hankook iPike snows instead. That was OK, I had seen them on cars last year and they looked pretty good.
I put them on my Mazda 626 and they were pretty impressive, until you got on ice. I did not have them studded, and the roads in this area turned to glare ice under certain situations, and they couldn't handle it at all. But, in any kind of snow or just plain rain, they are great. There is no stopping the car; it drives like it's on tank tracks.
When I put the Subaru on the road, I was going to get a set of Pacemark or Wintermark snow tires (they are the same tire). You can get them studded for around $50. Aggressive looking tread, and a good price.
Well, I did get them , but not from a store. The singer in my band had a set of 13" Pacemarks from his GFs Protege, maybe 5,000 miles on them before someone wrecked her car (by sliding into it in a snow storm...) SCORE! Free tires!
Yeah. At least they're studded. It's the only thing that saves them. That and being on a AWD car. In Front Wheel Drive, they slip and plow and can't get out of their own way. They are pretty good on ice, but again that's with the AWD turned on. And I did managed to get stuck with them twice, but that was just as much my fault as the tires. But I had $30 All Season radials that did better in FWD...
So, next year, I will keep the iPikes for tha Mazda, and probably get another set for the Subaru, if it doesn't rust out before November. Either that or I'll get the '97 Legacy waggin running and put some on that.
And a note: we had about 3" of snow here yeasterday, followed by about
1/4" of rain. Very early this morning, coming down a hill in AWD at ~30 MPH, I passed some guy in a Honda trying to go up the hill. I could tell by the 19" wheels that he probably didn't have snow tires and was sitting in one spot, not stuck, but spinning his wheels in one place trying to get up the hill. You could see by his tracks he had gone from one side of the road to the other trying to get up the hill, he almost spun a couple times, but wouldn't give up.For GOD'S SAKE, MAN! We've had over 5 feet of snow this year! How dumb can you be???! BUY SOME SNOW TIRES!!!