Winter, All Season or AWD?

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Originally Posted By: bullwinkle
Winter tires, manual transmission, FWD. As long as the snow stays under a foot-then it's time for 4WD and all terrains (rare around here).

All-terrains are the all-seasons of the truck world. Tread design is fine but it doesn't make up for the fact that the rubber compound is still completely wrong for cold/wet/snowy/icy streets.
 
Originally Posted By: Char Baby
Love Motormouth Canada. Have you watch Zack's wrist watch reviews(watchtime.com)?


No I hadn't... I will check that out.
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Originally Posted By: Bottom_Feeder
Originally Posted By: bullwinkle
Winter tires, manual transmission, FWD. As long as the snow stays under a foot-then it's time for 4WD and all terrains (rare around here).

All-terrains are the all-seasons of the truck world. Tread design is fine but it doesn't make up for the fact that the rubber compound is still completely wrong for cold/wet/snowy/icy streets.


My dad let the Toyota dealership talk him into the lift kit and knobby tires for his previous FJ Cruiser. His commute to work was all ~30MPH and only a few miles away, but he complained about how bad the traction was in any amount of snow, and even worse with ice.

I'm sure they'd work OK with FEET of snow, but I'd still take a set of dedicated winter tires.
 
I drive a ton of miles for work in sometimes heavy snow, icy roads and really cold conditions. I can tell you without a doubt that the Michelin X-Ice winter tires I have are far better than the all-seasons that are snow rated.
 
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There's also the All Weather tires. The GY Assurance Weatherready is one of them. Kind of slots btwn the all season and winter tires.
 
... both? My subaru has snow tires.

Call me a bad driver. Fine.

Also mud tires are horrid in the snow. If they are wide enough they will work in deeper snow okay. But anything slippery or hard packed is an absolute NO. My Jeep sits the winter out.


Originally Posted By: bullwinkle
Winter tires, manual transmission, FWD.


That's been my secret to successful winter travel. I never had to deal with too much unplowed snow with the Focus, but there were a few storms here where we had 2+ feet of the powdery stuff and I was up to the headlights in my old Taurus with snow tires. Of course, if it was heavy snow, I wouldn't have been able to move
 
Originally Posted By: Bottom_Feeder
Originally Posted By: bullwinkle
Winter tires, manual transmission, FWD. As long as the snow stays under a foot-then it's time for 4WD and all terrains (rare around here).

All-terrains are the all-seasons of the truck world. Tread design is fine but it doesn't make up for the fact that the rubber compound is still completely wrong for cold/wet/snowy/icy streets.


Tell that to nokian. their AT tire is an all-weather tire.
 
FWD + good studless ice & snow tires beats the pants off AWD on all-season tires.

AWD is great for keeping you moving in the snow but it won't help you stop. All cars have all wheel brakes. The only way to improve traction on challenging surfaces is to have the right tires.

The aforementioned all-weather tires are indeed a middle ground, I've used the Nokians in the past from the NRW through to the WR G3. They're good, but suffer most on the toughest surfaces, namely hard packed snow and ice. Car and Driver did a recent roundup, the ranks of all-weather tires have swelled recently.

https://blog.caranddriver.com/all-weather-tires-explained-merging-all-seasons-and-winter-tires/
 
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Originally Posted By: UG_Passat
Originally Posted By: Bottom_Feeder
Originally Posted By: bullwinkle
Winter tires, manual transmission, FWD. As long as the snow stays under a foot-then it's time for 4WD and all terrains (rare around here).

All-terrains are the all-seasons of the truck world. Tread design is fine but it doesn't make up for the fact that the rubber compound is still completely wrong for cold/wet/snowy/icy streets.

Tell that to nokian. their AT tire is an all-weather tire.

Right. Because Nokian specializes in winter tires. Your point is?
 
Originally Posted By: Bottom_Feeder
Originally Posted By: UG_Passat
Originally Posted By: Bottom_Feeder
Originally Posted By: bullwinkle
Winter tires, manual transmission, FWD. As long as the snow stays under a foot-then it's time for 4WD and all terrains (rare around here).

All-terrains are the all-seasons of the truck world. Tread design is fine but it doesn't make up for the fact that the rubber compound is still completely wrong for cold/wet/snowy/icy streets.

Tell that to nokian. their AT tire is an all-weather tire.

Right. Because Nokian specializes in winter tires. Your point is?


Maybe your generalization has an exception to it.
 
during my early working years in Pa it was snow-winter tyres on the rear of my older RWD cars + xtra lbs in the trunk, i went decently especially if i had a positraction rear!! in 2001 was driving even farther than usual, sometimes 200 miles DAILY, enter a frugal 1.8T VW jetta FWD, i ran 4 mich snow tyres + worries were over, regularly passing my 4 wd + awd buddies with all season BUT winter tyres!!! retired now so i can just stay at home avoiding the ill equipped clowns that can slide into you!!! winter tyres should be LAW in many snowy states IMO!!!
 
Originally Posted By: BrocLuno
TreadWrights for me. Ground glass in the tread rubber will grip snow, ice, anything that is not tied down
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Retreads? Uh, nope.
 
Common sense rules.

Common sense means using all-seasons at least, keeping reasonable distance/speed and no sudden or abrupt stopping, turning or accelerating no matter what is happening in front of you.

Winter tires, snow tires and AWD is just icing on the cake from above. Winter tires though can mask lack of common sense(above).
 
Winter tires (Hakka R2 SUVs now) and AWD for me. I never want to say I didn't go skiing because it snowed.
Daughter has AWD and all seasons with nice winter ratings (RT43 T rated) since she generally doesn't have to drive in storms as a student.
Wife has FWD with all seasons and calls me when she gets stuck on our big hill, roughly once a year. One time she couldn't even get out of our driveway for a doctor's appointment she refused to cancel during a storm and nearly got stuck across it before I finally took her.
 
Forester is wearing Nokian WRG2's, "Four Season" jobs w/ the winter emblem on the sidewalls. Tread depth probably getting to point I need to consider replacements to experience optimal snow and slush traction, but going to try to get at least one more winter out of them. They have been on the car since October 2011 and have approx 34,000 miles on them.
 
Oh man, at first I thought the post said the tires were on since this past October. Since I first saw the post under Active Topics and the rest of the post was cut off. I think 35k is the tread life in those.
 
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