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Which winter tire to choose?

Do you drive more in snow, or on cold dry roads? Generally I always say if you're out in the sticks where plows don't visit too quickly or often, go with the studless winters, if your near the city and drive more on cold dry roads (in the case where I live, bleached white asphalt from all the feckin salt) go with the performance winters.

As for which brand, only newer winters I have any experience with is the Blizzak LM-25's I run (older version of Bridgestones performance winters) and have no complaints with them, they work great and are holding out pretty well after two winters so far.
 
Cold dry roads, slush roads, snow once in a while. The snow belt is 1 hour north of me and 1 hour south of me, I'm in the area where most stuff get's melted by our lake.
 
Either the Blizzak or Michelin. I've had both, and they are each great. I'd probably lean toward the Michelin X-Ice.
 
Jumpem said:
Either the Blizzak or Michelin. I've had both, and they are each great. I'd probably lean toward the Michelin X-Ice.
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From what I remember the Blizzaks are more 'sport' and the X-Ice are for more wintery conditions. I have the X-Ice2 myself and they seemed to work fine last winter but our conditions are mild compared to Toronto.
 
I had the Blizzaks on my car for one winter and loved them. I live up here in anchorage Alaska, so they made a big difference from all-season type tires. They're pretty good about clearing roads up here after a snowfall, but not once did I get stuck in my driveway on my way to work as compared to the all-seasons. I don't even bother switching over when winter is over.

Buddy had both the X-ices and Blizzaks, and he hasn't noticed a difference. Go with the ones that are cheapest if you have to decide between these two brands.
 
Blizzak is noisy, a bit squirmy on clear roads, but beastly in snow.

X-Ice are a little more civilized, quieter, better behaved in clear, but lower tread depth hurts a little bit on snow.

As a third option, the Conti EWC are supposed to be pretty good, unfortunately they're OOS in my size.
 
I have the Dunlop's on my s6 or the year old version...great tire and still goes quite well in the dry. Last year was the snowiest winter I can remember and I had no problem passing any suv on the road.
 
DVad3r said:
Hey guys, which winter tires would you recommend?
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The answer is "yes." :awe:

Seriously though, just going with snow tires over all-seasons for actual snowy conditions is probably 100x more important than which snow tires you end up with.
 
Zap said:
The answer is "yes." :awe:

Seriously though, just going with snow tires over all-seasons for actual snowy conditions is probably 100x more important than which snow tires you end up with.
Click to expand...

Correct answer. Any snow tire you can afford. I have always had great luck with even a cheap snow tire like winter force or now on my WRX gereral altimacs (sp?). A solid snow tire and being careful will get you through the winter.
 
I dunno. When I bought my aveo, which was already 4 years old at the time - it had pirelli all season tires on it. I didn't buy any tires that winter. The pirellis were actually really good! They wore out and I replaced them with bridgestone potenzas for the summer and some hankook winters for the following winter. Admittedly the hankook's were cheap ($400 mounted/balanced), the used all season pirellis the car came with were way better than the brand new winter hankooks (which are OK).

I've driven through our quebec winters with bald tires and never again... scary shit!

a guy I know has the general altimax arctic on his jetta and is very happy with them. heard good things about x-ice tires as well. I'm not so sure about the "any winter tire is better than any all season tire" idea, but I'm sure it'll often end up being true just the same.
 
You must of had a defective set of snow tires then. I have driven 20+ winters in northern minnesota. Never found any all season that could touch a snow tire. I can spot the cars/trucks with all seasons easily. Those are the cars that get halfway up our street and have to turn around and go back down the way they came when it snows lol.

I never spent more than 100 dollars per tire on my snow tires and never had an issue.
 
zCypher said:
I dunno. When I bought my aveo, which was already 4 years old at the time - it had pirelli all season tires on it. I didn't buy any tires that winter. The pirellis were actually really good! They wore out and I replaced them with bridgestone potenzas for the summer and some hankook winters for the following winter. Admittedly the hankook's were cheap ($400 mounted/balanced), the used all season pirellis the car came with were way better than the brand new winter hankooks (which are OK).

I've driven through our quebec winters with bald tires and never again... scary shit!

a guy I know has the general altimax arctic on his jetta and is very happy with them. heard good things about x-ice tires as well. I'm not so sure about the "any winter tire is better than any all season tire" idea, but I'm sure it'll often end up being true just the same.
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That's really quite strange. I've never heard anyone else say something like that.

I've driven all seasons and snows in winter, and I'll never try to get through a winter on all seasons.
 
I had Firestone Winterforce tires on my Forester and the damn thing was a tank. I have nothing bad to say about them. black2na had/has General Altimax Arctics on a FWD car and IIRC he likes those as well.
 
Zap said:
The answer is "yes." :awe:
Seriously though, just going with snow tires over all-seasons for actual snowy conditions is probably 100x more important than which snow tires you end up with.
Click to expand...
+1 On my RWD in IA/MN, it makes a HUGE difference.
 
I've used the Firestone Winterforce tires on my RWD pick-up truck for the past 8 seasons and they've performed very well. But like others have said, you'll probably be fine with any one of those you choose.
 
zCypher said:
I dunno. When I bought my aveo, which was already 4 years old at the time - it had pirelli all season tires on it. I didn't buy any tires that winter. The pirellis were actually really good! They wore out and I replaced them with bridgestone potenzas for the summer and some hankook winters for the following winter. Admittedly the hankook's were cheap ($400 mounted/balanced), the used all season pirellis the car came with were way better than the brand new winter hankooks (which are OK).

I've driven through our quebec winters with bald tires and never again... scary shit!

a guy I know has the general altimax arctic on his jetta and is very happy with them. heard good things about x-ice tires as well. I'm not so sure about the "any winter tire is better than any all season tire" idea, but I'm sure it'll often end up being true just the same.
Click to expand...

Wow, strange that a winter tire wouldn't perform as good as an all season in your case.

I've only driven on all seasons for the past 5 winters, no problems aside from getting stuck twice in a parking lot with an incline lol.

My dad has driven almost 22 winters on all seasons and no problems as well, both our cars are FWD.
 
Altimax Arctic. They are by far the best winter tire I have ever used. I had WS-70's on one of my cars last year and they are not even close to as good as the Altimax.
Good dry road composure, good deep snow composure.. They are just awesome tires.
 
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