Demystify winter tires

[Rand]

I thought I would pitch in here.
(prices are relative to my tire size)
The WS-60 is the best all around snow and ice tire. - 85$ each +shipping

Its also R- rated .. thats lower than Q rating.. in other words on the highway its going to feel like rolling on marshmallows.

The new ws-60 IS better than the ws-50 but not amazingly better.

The continential extremecontact run about 70$ they are new for this year. I purchased these. They are T-rated. They are kinda mushy at 60degrees but at 35F they are similar to normal T-rated tires. Part of the reason is the big soft tread blocks will squirm more regardless of the tire speed rating.

The continentals ultimately were what I picked because of the combination of only slighty worse than the ws-60 and better handling.

The X-ice Xi2 from michelin is susposed to be very similar to the continentials and possibly better wearing it runs about 90$(in my size)

If you havent ever had studded snow tires dont get them.. you will have a good chance of being very unhappy with them. As they are an extreme trade off for bad winter conditions with little to no improvement over modern studless tires like the blizzack ws-60 etc.

I was looking at the new dunlop GS-3 but was told they are still slightly behind the others in ice traction(and the contis were 3$cheaper)

If I were you I'd buy either continential extremewintercontacts
or the michelin xice xi2 so you dont lose all handling.

they are 95% of the blizzacks with better handling for those days its 30 and dry out etc.

 

[Rand]

Shameless link to the thread I started about my winter tires.

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1616517#Post1616517


Edit:

I just wanted to add..
I've run dunlop M3 performance snow tires,
2 sets of studded snow tires.
1 set of unstudded goodyear snow tires
... and just got the current continentials

out of them all the continentials are the most "regular tirelike" for normal driving. Even the dunlop performance
snows I didnt like very much.
Tirerack says they are very good in winter/ice I will find out soon.

As far as studded traction. last year my GF with her 2004 ford focus was backing down my driveway (not very steep)
and stepped on the brakes and slid 3ft sideways into my house
(from about 2mph)
for good ice traction studded tires MUST be studded.

they will still be better than all-seasons all around.. unstudded.

IMHO, I wouldnt buy studded snows unless you lived in alaska, maine, etc where the snow sits all year and doesnt really melt. As studded snows are moderately horrid on dry/wet pavement.

Also as the tire wears studded snows drop of the most in performance.

one final thing to consider, even my performance snow dunlops were extremely better than my all-seasons.

If you dont have a spare set of rims consider ordering

tires + rims from tire rack and they will give you free road-force balancing and the steel rims are about 47-50$each

Also makes it easier to wintersize your tires

 

[Rand]

sigh only 10min to edit a post?

As far as studded traction. last year my GF with her 2004 ford focus was backing down my driveway (not very steep

her car has the unstudded goodyear snow tires.
They only had 3000miles on them too.

The car is a tank on snow but shes slid off the road a couple times on ice(doing her job)

 

[rpn453]

Originally Posted By: Rand
The new ws-60 IS better than the ws-50 but not amazingly better.

If you havent ever had studded snow tires dont get them.. you will have a good chance of being very unhappy with them. As they are an extreme trade off for bad winter conditions with little to no improvement over modern studless tires like the blizzack ws-60 etc.


What testing is this based on? Have you seen the extensive Swedish tire test, where the studded tires dominated and the WS-50 not only received a 0/5 rating but was also marked as "farligt" (dangerous) for its poor performance on dry pavement? It did not match even the worst studded tire in the test in ice braking, and took 58% longer to stop on ice than the best.

http://wwwc.aftonbladet.se/bil/0310/18/dacktest.pdf

The studded tires did very well on the wet pavement test and on the dry pavement collision avoidance test.

 

[rpn453]

Originally Posted By: Rand
As far as studded traction. last year my GF with her 2004 ford focus was backing down my driveway (not very steep

her car has the unstudded goodyear snow tires.
They only had 3000miles on them too.

The car is a tank on snow but shes slid off the road a couple times on ice(doing her job)


My neighbour seems to agree with you there. I talked to him a couple nights ago about his non-studded Nordics and he said he was surprised that they didn't seem much, if any, better on ice than his all-seasons. He has no other experience with winter tires, so I just figured he was expecting too much out of a non-studded tire.

 

[rpn453]

Rand,
What brands/models of studded tires have you used?

 

[UG_Passat]

Originally Posted By: Craig in Canada
Originally Posted By: UG_Passat

I've had Nokian Hakapeliitta RSI, which the sipes do run deeper than others.


Was this on a Passat? How was stability at speed (ie. Interstates 60-80mph)? My Alpins went really floaty above 60mph and I don't want a repeat of that.



Oddly enough these were more stable at speeds than the Pirelli P6 4-seasons that came on the car & in the corners. So, they were fine doing 60-80 mph on the highway.

 

[CrazyMike]

Actually the R rating for speed is higher Rand, 106mph compared to 99mph for the Q. I hated the ws-50's, there was such a push to improve the tread life of the original blizzaks, the ws-15's, they melted on pavement and were squirmy, but had much better traction when it counted. I swapped in my 15's on a Taurus for the 50's, changed them back a week later, I just took it easy on the dry stuff Definitely a weaker tire for traction.

Studded tires, Nokian has the formula to make them work, no where near as bad as studded tires usually are on dry pavement. Completely untraditional, with long lasting studs too.

 

[Rand]

R above Q whoops.

Tirerack testing.

Also notice what they said was bad in your report

DRY BRAKING.

yes you dont want to run ws-60's on the autobahn.



I used cooperwinter master+(studded) for 4 seasons on my 400hp 1994 t-bird. I liked them. I did tear up my driveway
I swear idle on that car was 50hp very touchy. M112 supercharged 4.6L

firestone winterforce for 1 year on 1992 taurus. Very noisy, studs wore in extremely fast and ice traction wasnt that great.

the non-studded Goodyear ultra-grip are on my GF's focus, Car has tremendous traction on anything except ice.

Dunflop M3 sports' on my 2007 Focus. (3 winters)
Didnt balance well from new. 3rd year (20k miles) was pushing it. It was hard to get through the 6-10" rut snow on my street.
Ice traction also started to suffer.

Continential extremewintercontact (now)
Most regular/carlike tire, decent noise/handling ton of grip. Amazing amount of sipes. Tested behind ws-60 and about same as michelin xice xi-2 in ice rink testing by tirerack.

I wasnt recommending the blizzacks. I recommended the michelin xice xi2 or the continentals I have.

NE ohio here.. lots of ice, lake effect snow etc but half the days the pavement is dry.. I wanted to preserve a certain minimum amount of handling.

I dont drive on high speed highways in europe conditions so I dont think their ratings are the best place to look to buy tires. I have seen them also but I'm not 100% in agreement.

The nokian winter tires that people like also cost about 200-300$ each here.. I got my tires with rims, roadforce balanced and shipped to my door for 500$.
Nokians would have been at least 500$ more.

If more handling is wanted, you need to stepup to a h-rated performance snow tire.

But these contis are very good, nothing close to marshmallow and I am happy with them.

I'd like to hear more reports from people who have actually driven on different winter tires. What car they had, driving style etc.

 

[CrazyMike]

Good info, thanks Rand. To clarify, I wasn't assuming you were recommending Blizzaks, I was just sharing my dislike for the 2nd gen and newers. I do however have great interest in European testing, if they test the brand name standards that we use a great deal here, and then wipe their brown-eye with them, I want to know what they're using, and how to get it! The conditions are far more similar than we'd think, plowed roads with snow drifts and cross winds. I don't know the last time I ran pilons indoors on perfectly smooth ice.

 

[rpn453]

Originally Posted By: Rand
Tirerack testing.

Also notice what they said was bad in your report

DRY BRAKING.


Dry braking? Where is that tested?

Dry traction is the least of my concerns during winter driving. I've never had a situation, during any season, where I needed better dry traction than what I had. I've certainly exceeded the limits of dry traction at times, but never due to anything more than intentional aggressive driving.

Tirerack is a great resource, and I wish Tirerack would do some more testing on studded tires. They sell better studded tires than the Firestone Winterforce: the General Altimax Arctic, the Pirelli Winter Carving, and the Goodyear Ultra Grip. I'd like to see them test those against some non-studded tires, on both wet and dry ice. I'd also like to see them compare the same tires both studded and non-studded, as I haven't seen anyone do that yet.

The only winter tire for which I have enough experience using to provide a valid review is the studded Cooper Weathermaster ST/2. I've had those for a few years now. I probably have 15k miles on them and the studs are still good with plenty of tread remaining. They're reasonably quiet, they handle well on dry pavement, they're great in deep snow, and traction has always been predictable at the limit. I've never been at a loss for traction yet with these tires, and I enjoy driving aggressively, especially in bad weather. I try to baby them (as in, drive like a normal person) on dry pavement to preserve the tread and studs, but I'm not always capable of restraining myself as much as I should. I also never exceed the speed limit on the highway with these tires except when passing.

 

[y_p_w]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: Joe1

Do "studdable" tires require studs to be effective?

Not really. I asked a similar question a few months back when I was considering the Arctic.

Quote:
Are snow tires useless when the tread depth wears below 50%?

Maybe not totally useless, but their effectiveness diminishes significantly below that level. You may still be able to use them during other seasons though.

I know that tread depth helps channel water, but in my experience snow essentially just packs itself in the grooves. I've been doing a little bit of reading, and supposedly the snow that packs itself in the grooves is supposed to release and then give the tire depth the chance to "bite" again. I thought that to some degree the tire compounds are designed to hold onto snow a bit because snow is somewhat effective at providing snow traction.

As for studs - there's been opinion that they can decrease dry pavement performance and they certainly can cause accelerated wear to pavement.

 

[Craig in Canada]

Originally Posted By: y_p_w

I know that tread depth helps channel water, but in my experience snow essentially just packs itself in the grooves. I've been doing a little bit of reading, and supposedly the snow that packs itself in the grooves is supposed to release and then give the tire depth the chance to "bite" again. I thought that to some degree the tire compounds are designed to hold onto snow a bit because snow is somewhat effective at providing snow traction.

As for studs - there's been opinion that they can decrease dry pavement performance and they certainly can cause accelerated wear to pavement.


I think that the sipe depth is involved in the equation to eject snow from the sipes. If they can't "flap" when the tire leave the road they don't release the snow pack properly.

At temperatures above -10C, I can't say that I've ever found any amount of snow stuck on the tires working to enhance traction. Things are probably different below -10C, though, as it seems to be a different world in terms of driving traction.

It's worth noting that there are different degrees of development in stud technology. I'm not so sure that the new Hakkapeliitta 7 stud technology (you have to go to the euro www.nokiantyres.com to see this tire) is in the same league as the cheapest studded tire sold by Tirerack, for instance.

 

[UG_Passat]

the hakka 7's are a new generation of the eco-stud.

on the 4/5, the eco-studs are rectangular, with a corner pointed in the direction of rotation. this provides more bite than a traditional pin stud.

 

[Craig in Canada]

Originally Posted By: UG_Passat
the hakka 7's are a new generation of the eco-stud.

on the 4/5, the eco-studs are rectangular, with a corner pointed in the direction of rotation. this provides more bite than a traditional pin stud.


Yes, but I believe that the mounting, in particular, may be key to low noise and low wear in the dry. All of the European snow tire tests didn't seem to show a penalty for studs in the dry either, at least for the brands they reviewed.

Someone, somewhere once said that "studs compromise dry traction" and this keeps getting repeated (kind of like "0W is too thin"). My assertion is that this statement can't be applied universally to every tire equipped with studs due to different levels of technological advancement, if it can be said at all of any tire sold today.

 

[UG_Passat]

The Hakka 7 have improved over the Hakka 5 in the mounting of studs relative to the tread design (relative to how the hakka 5 improved on the Hakka 4), ie cushioning the stud; as well as improvements in the eco stud,ie improved stud support

The cushioning of the mounted stud, is probably where you'll see the NVH improvements.

Dry traction penalty? I can't comment. I've never ran studded tires before, mainly because, where I live & where I like to play, it's not needed

 

[Rand]

Originally Posted By: CrazyMike
Good info, thanks Rand. To clarify, I wasn't assuming you were recommending Blizzaks, I was just sharing my dislike for the 2nd gen and newers. I do however have great interest in European testing, if they test the brand name standards that we use a great deal here, and then wipe their brown-eye with them, I want to know what they're using, and how to get it! The conditions are far more similar than we'd think, plowed roads with snow drifts and cross winds. I don't know the last time I ran pilons indoors on perfectly smooth ice.



they were running 1 studded tire and 3 unstudded so the ice was rutted. from the studs.

I find that test interesting because where I live we have alot of ungraded(?) turns that are off level.

so you make a left turn through an intersection where the passenger side of car is lower than driver.

Makes it interesting when we get crazy icestorms or black ice.

if you dont make the turn there is generally a big steel traffic light pole waiting for your car 1-2ft off the road.

 

[SubLGT]

Originally Posted By: rpn453
......I wish Tirerack would do some more testing on studded tires. They sell better studded tires than the Firestone Winterforce: the General Altimax Arctic, the Pirelli Winter Carving, and the Goodyear Ultra Grip. I'd like to see them test those against some non-studded tires, on both wet and dry ice.............


Tirerack is not going to do that, as it would only hurt sales of the non-studded tires that comprise the bulk of their winter tire sales.

For instance, the Michelin Xi2 is an excellent non-studded tire, but it is not the equal of the Nokian Hakka7 on ice, where the Hakka outbrakes the Michelin Xi2 by 42 feet (from 30 km/hr). The Michelin Primacy Alpin required 87 more feet to stop than the Hakka7! This revealing data would not fit in with Tireracks marketing mantra that non-studded tires outperform studded tires.

In the 2009 Scandinavian tire test, the Michelin Xi2 had the best ice braking performance of the 8 non-studded tires tested, but even so it could not outbrake any of the 14 studded tires on ice, not even the lowly studded Nankang tire.

With regards to braking on wet pavement, the Michelin Xi2 required 37.2m to come to a stop on wet pavement from 80 km/hr whereas the studded Hakka7 required 37.4m

In that test, 13 of the studded tires outbraked 6 of the non-studded tires on wet pavement. Goodbye to the myth that studded tires suck when there is no ice.

The shortest wet braking distance went to the non-studded Michelin Primacy Alpin, at 27.8m, but it had the longest braking distance on ice of all the tires tested (75.5m).

http://www.naf.no/Forbrukertester/Dekk/Dekktester/Vinterdekktest-2009/

 

[Rand]

is there an english link for that I'm not Scandinavian.

 

[SubLGT]

Originally Posted By: Rand
is there an english link for that I'm not Scandinavian.


none that I know of.