Snow Tires, best compromise between MPG and grip

Very nice. How were you able to get such a good deal? I'm still trying to decide between tires & wheels or tires-only, but this price definitely would make the choice a bit easier.

 

I shopped around for the best price on the wheels & tires. I then went down to America's Tire & they beat the prices. I also got a $100 rebate for buying 4 tires & another $100 rebate for buying 4 wheels. Michelin also had a $70 rebate at the time. You just have to be creative & look around & America's Tire/Discount Tire will beat any price!

 

Most areas even those that get a fair amount of snow have clear pavement for many days during the winter. Roads are cleared & cars wear down to the pavement. Studs will do plenty of damage & have been said to do the most damage by far to road surfaces. On top of that when tou have studs on & the roads are clear of snow & ice you have much less traction than studdless winter tires. And don't worry, you will be able to find the new generation of winter tires as they are becoming many times more popular than studs. Many places have banned studs because of the damage they do to roads & with the newer tires available.

 

I plow gravel roads, we pack the first couple storms to build a base, so the plows do not dig up the gravel. We try to keep that base intact until spring. The majority of townships in my state have no paved roads, only gravel. Our town has one paved road, though we do not plow down to pavement. Towns with a much higher tax revenue tend to have more paved roads and they plow down to pavement, then spread salt, so they have bare pavement between storms. We see both. The bottom edge of most blades is hardened steel, when used on pavement they get worn down every season and must be replaced. I have observed a lot of pavement damage from the plows in towns that scrap pavement. I understand that the reasoning for outlawing studs is that they damage pavement. I think another big part of the picture is that those areas simply do not get much snow, or they rarely get low temps.

Of my Dw's commute about half is Federal Interstate so it is kept clean. Maybe a third of the rest is city driving where the pavement is kept clean. For her driving a slight majority is on clean pavement, and she avoids crossing water entirely. When I drive it is the other way around. So in my mind, I think of winter driving as mostly on pack and on frozen ponds / rivers.

 

I ran Continental Extreme WinterContacts for the past three seasons and just purchased a set of Yokohama IG20s for this winter. I ran the IG20s on a Crown Vic and a Passat previously and know they are quite good in inclement weather. The Contis were good, however, I didn't feel they had the deeper snow traction the IG20s did, so I'm going back to those. I'll let you know if I was right in a few months.

As far as studded snow tires not causing road damage, all one has to do is drive westbound on I-70 from Denver to experience the issue. Your car becomes a slot car as your tires fall into the grooves carved in the road from studded snow tires.

 

I put the General Altimax Arctic on my sister's Focus last year and she didn't have any complaints.

 

I have Bridgestone Blizzak WS70 studdless tires 205x55x16 in my MY2012 Prius. They are made for nordic countries. They are not very good at dry or at wet tarmac. About 80 % of drivers use studded tires in Finland in winter (novenber to april) and the rest use studdless. If you need best performance at ice and snow, you need wintertires made for nordic countries, studdless or studded. Studded are the best at ice. The best brands are Nokian, Michelin, Continental, Bridgestone and Goodyear. Dont buy wintertires made in China, Korea or Taiwan!

Markku

 

Great topic! We bought our Prius in Dec. 2010 and actually had it delivered with snow tires on it, Hankook iPike which I had heard great things about. We've run them for 2 winters and they are really excellent in the snow but even though visible wear is minimal (regular rotations) they have become very loud.

So this fall I'm moving the iPike's to our secondary car ('96 Accord which conveniently has the same size tire) and am getting a new set for the Prius. I wanted to go with a less aggressive tread this time and am about to pull the trigger on the Michelin X-Ice Xi3. Great review and LLR as well so that will be a nice bonus as we try to minimize our usual winter-mpg-drop.

Seems people really liked the previous versions of the X-Ice, in fact, I ran the X1's on my Protege5 way back in the day. Anyone have first hand experience with the Xi3?

Michelin X-Ice Xi3

 

Is that deal still going on? Where did you buy those? What about TPMS?

 

I bought them from America's Tire/Discount Tire when they had the $100 rebate for 4 tires, another $100 rebate for 4 wheels & a $70 rebate from Michelin. They were just running it again & they had a closeout deal on the tires too. I just live with the light on during the winter months without the TPMS, no big deal really. Not worth the money to deal with another set. Even the dealer said to do it this way.

 

Cool, thanks for the info!

 

Can you please share with us where you did your reserch? I need 2 sets of winter tires and I want to get access to this same price! I know that discount tire will price match, but where did you get the pricing to prove to them the better deal so that you force them to price match?

Thanks, -J

 

The tires were on closeout at Tirerack. They also had the wheels for a good price & the guy at America's Tire beat them both with a great package deal even before the rebates.

 

I am still thinking about why you would compromise grip (safety) for mileage. Winter mileage sucks, and is going to suck regardless of your tires. I have used studded tires for 40 years, and will continue to until they are outlawed, if they ever are. I also sipe my tires, both summer and winter. I know there is a lot of discussion about studs, but having put 50,000 miles a year on my work vehicles for 30 years, I won't be using anything else.

 

Who are you talking to? I hate studs as the traction on a dry or wet road is much worse then a new studless winter tire and they are very noisy on pavement. The only benefit a studded tire offers is on ice but even there the new studless winter tires perform great. You also never sipe a new studless winter tire as they are sipped from the factory. If you look at one they have thousands of computer designed sipes already. Winter tires have improved a lot in 30 years, you need to check them out. You can see them in this pic.