Winter tires saved the day

I think that fact alone differentiates the tire chain practice. I live in the second snowiest state in the US. Yes, more than Alaska. And in our region on average, we get more than 100 inches of snow accumulation. But unless I am driving on an unplowed private road or go up on mountain roads where sudden unexpected snowfall is possible, the road is usually plowed and salted/sanded within hours of snowfall. Yeah, the chain would not work for us on most of the public roads.

 

It changes in a much shorter distance than that. The snow in western Washington and Oregon is usually different than the snow on their east sides.

 

Population density also makes a difference. Low density rural areas often don't have the resources or budgets to get as much of the road network plowed or sanded that quickly, so locals have much more opportunity or need to drive on un- or less-groomed roads.

 

Well, at least that theory does not hold for our state. Maine is 38th on the ranking of population density of the states. Just above Oregon (39) but well below Washington (25). I certainly live in a low-density rural area. Yet, our town is very good at plowing and salting/sanding the road on every snow that falls.

 

I'm an immigrant to Washington. My roots, and most of my tire chain experiences, are from Idaho and Montana, which make Maine look like high density.

 

What are your thoughts on studded tires as opposed to chains in these conditions?

 

There are lots of great posts here!

Personally, I use all seasons in the non-snowy months and dedicated winter tires in the snowy months.

Also, one of the reasons we got the Avalon is that the manual says it's ok to put tire chains on the front. I always carry around a set of tire chains and use them more liberally than most people. I wouldn't mind having an AWD vehicle, but aside from climbing a slick driveway or two (not mine) I put chains on my AWD in the same places I'd put them on a 2WD.

Chains are much better. I got studded tires now, but I feel that the Blizzaks I've had in the past may have actually been even better than these studded tires (Firestone Winterforce 2). If the tire has holes for studs expect it to not do good on ice without the studs.

 

I have been happy with Michelline X-ice snow tires on our cars, Gen3, PP, and Pathfinder got them and they were all good. For our new Escape PHEV, I wanted Michiline X-ice, but it was substantially more expensive than other brands. I ended up buying a set of Bridgestone Blizzak Ws90. I have had them on our Escape for a bit over a month now, but have had the chance to drive on ice, snow, slush, rain, and dry pavement on both in town and highway. I absolutely love this tire. It is responsive, and has very good traction on snow/ice/slush but is very quiet and comfortable on dry pavement. Of course, I have not had other snow tires on this car, so I can't do a direct comparison. But so far I am happy with the decision to switch to Blizzak. The only thing I have to wonder about Blizzak is the tread-life. I have read some reviews of Blizzak not lasting very long. X-ice was excellent in that measure. But chances are that I will be trading in the car before the end of the warranty period for the car, so I don't think I will be seeing the end of the tread-life on the Blizzak in three winter seasons or less.

As for the studded tires, my very first snow tires were studded. Yes, it does give a very good grip on the icy road, but that was about the only good thing about studded tires. It was very noisy, uncomfortable tires on dry pavement. It lowers mpg a quite bit, and on soft deep snow or slush and regular rain, they were no match to quality studless tires like X-ice or Blizzak in my experience. The fact that studs cost extra on top of the tires, they are also quite a bit more expensive than studless tires. And by law in our state, we can't use them out of the season, so they have to be changed outside of winter seasons. I don't think I will ever buy studded snow tires again unless we move to a lake cabin or somewhere I drive on the ice regularly.

 

Although "not quite as good" as a snow tire, I will continue to plug the Michelin CrossClimate 2's for those who can't/won't do a dedicated snow tire set.

We have them on our Hyundai Sonata and I have been driving it much more in the snow this year. And I've been very, very impressed with the CrossClimate 2's. No...not as good as the a top of the line snow tire....but very, very good for winter driving.

 

I actually thought about putting All-Weather tires on our Escape PHEV in lieu of getting a set of dedicated snow tires. CrossClimate was one of the options. But in the end, I decided not to get All-Weather tires. For one thing, I bought the car at the end of Nov. If I get new All-Weather tires, I would be wasting the OEM tires that came with the car. Also, most All-Weather tires are very expensive, especially for the size of the wheel the car came with (19"). It was actually cheaper to buy a set of used 17" wheels and fit them with dedicated 17" snow tires. So, that's what I ended up doing.

 

Yeah...I can't believe how expensive tires are once you get up into the 19"+ wheel size range. While the CrossClimate 2's were not cheap for our Sonata, they were reasonable...at least from Costco.

 

As I've indicated before, I have used All weather tires for many years (Nokian WR series, I will conside the Michelin CC2 next time) and they have provided the needed winter traction for my Prii. The OE all season tires were far from satisfactory in many ways including poor snow/ice traction. Good winter tires (Nokia Hakkapeliitta (preferred), Xice, or Blizzak) and good all season tires are great except for when bad weather is an early season surprise.

JeffD

 

Winter Day Saves the Tires

Today was one of those days where we just went home once the flakes started flying, and canceled the afternoon stuff, just stayed in and enjoyed the show.

 

I do belive that a really good all season tire is as good, if not better, than a cheap winter tire.

Another thing to keep in mind, there are no miraculous tires. Engineering Explained did an episode that they put "the best winter tire" on a Subaru and found that on snow pack it still stopped the vehicle in 6 times the distance the best summer tire could stop the same vehicle on pavement. And these were not road legal winter tires with really long studs.

 

Isaac, All season tires are nowhere as good as good Winter tires. You want additional traction to avoid getting stuck in snow. You do have to slow down for safety in Winter conditions, I found that All Weather tires are significantly better than All Season tires for traction (if not as good as a Winter tire) as my FWD Prius could get up my driveway in harsh conditions with the Nokian WRs whereas it couldn't with the OE Toyo tires.

JeffD

 

What's an "all-weather" tire and what's the difference with an "all-season" tire?

All I know is I don't feel much difference between my General Atlimax all-season tires and my studded Firestone Winterforce tires. But I've had Blizzaks before and will go back to them as they felt much better than both. But I would never buy Firestone Winterforce tires ever again, because, as I've said, I don't feel they add any more traction than the General Altimaxes.

And I say that after driving 4 winters using both at times and have permanent snow pack I drive on every winter.

 

We had an unusually mild and snowless December. It was a snow drought up until last week. Then, we just had a second of back-to-back-to-back, three storms on Monday that dumped a foot of snow. The first one was last Friday with snow and ice. Now, the third in the sequence is coming tonight with a forecast of 6-12" of snow. Yet, the road is now completely dry. No snow on the pavement. I don't think I am going out tomorrow, but should be fine to drive even without snow tires by Friday.