Snowtires....YAY!

I've never understood folks who attempt to drive in heavy snow - or ice - with "all season" tires.

What I find cute is I'm carefully plodding along on my studded Goodyear Nordic winter tires, and some idiot in a pickup blasts by me. The first curve in the road, he's in the ditch and frantically waving for help. TFB, no sympathy from me

 

What tires did you have previously?

 

Uh-oh!

Hey folks,

I find the various threads about snow tires especially galling, since the guy who sold me my Prius (just last week), assured me that I wouldn't need them on this car.

Before owning a four-wheel-drive Matrix--which did NOT need snow tires, even in the increasingly rare snowstorms here in southern New England--I drove front-wheel-drive cars (a Ford Taurus wagon--sorry, Earth--and a Nissan Stanza wagon) with all-season radials. Both handled just fine, even on ski trips.

We had our first ice/snow of the season yesterday, and my Prius handled the slippery roads very well. But as a former Maineac now living in Massachusetts, I don't want to start driving like another one of those "Mass-holes" who can't handle ice and snow on the roadways.

Does this mean that I'm going to have to buy some good snow tires, on top of buying my wonderful Prius? My guess is yes.

--Joe

 

Around here, the ones upside down in a ditch or median are the awd and 4wd crowd who blow past you in a whiteout, on "all season" tires

It's a pet peeve of mine that folks driving awd and 4wd vehicles think they don't "need" winter tires, because they can accelerate just fine. A 4wd or awd vehicle cannot corner or - more importantly - STOP any faster than a 2wd vehicle. Especially on "all season" tires

I have winter tires on my FJ, but this may shock you: I *never* drive in 4wd in winter conditions. My FJ with winter tires - in 2wd - doesn't even compare to a moron running "all season" in 4wd or awd.

Last snowstorm we had, I was able to quickly stop my Prius to avoid t-boning an idiot 4wd that slid through a red light. My Prius has studded tires and even with the Brake Assist, came to a quick stop on polished ice.

The idiot 4wd spun around and hit a light pole. In those situations, I can only wish a 14.4 kv cable lands on the vehicle and it bursts into flames

 

renocat - see pm

 

I don't recall belittiling you in any way. I am referring to the regular 4wd/awd idiots around here - Winnipeg - who drive like complete morons and who cause most of the winter accidents here

I can tell you that the Province of Manitoba changed their motto from "Friendly Manitoba" to "Spirited Energy" as most of the drivers here are anything BUT friendly, and their "spirited energy" usually involves a certain digit on their hand. I'm especially referring to that retard who drives the gray Hummer H2 plastered with Blue Bomber decals.

As you have discovered, a true winter tire - with the snowflake emblem on the sidewall - makes a world of difference in true winter driving conditions. If you had run winter tires on your previous vehicles, you would have immediately been sold on their positive safety aspects.

It's just that you didn't absolutely need dedicated winter tires on your previous vehicles. The Prius very sensitive traction control - which cannot be defeated - combined with absolute crap OEM tires, makes winter tires pretty much mandatory on snow and especially ice.

They also have negative aspects too: you're paying for two sets of tires (All season for the other three seasons, and winter just for winter), the mounting/balancing, the vague handling and tracking, usually a loss in fuel economy. Everything is a compromise, isn't it?

 

Joe

Another pet peeve of mine is the Stealership and the lying scumbags - the salesfolks - who will tell you *anything* just to move the car out the door. You can't go back on what they said, as this is considered "puffery" and is completely legal. It's also verbal, your word against his

You will discover that even the cheaper studless winter tires will transform your Prius from undriveable to a good winter performer. Don't be shy about shopping around, the 185 65 15 is a very common tire size around here and bargains are to be found

If you chose to run separate rims, the ugly black steel ones are cheapest and work fine. I paid $45 a rim for new "universal fit" ones from Canadian Tire.

A word of caution: you will need proper conical lugnuts to use the steel rims, the Toyota OEM lugnuts meant for the aluminum factory wheels will dangerously loosen up while driving. The lugnuts are easily available at Napa

 

Jayman,

As a fellow Canadian and native Montrealer, I am also a supporter of winter tires as well. I bought the same Michelin X-Ice last winter (Costco) as Renocat just did and only say good things about them, though they are fairly pricey.

One thing that does drive me nuts though is when people justify their decision to NOT buy winter tires (as you alluded to, above) because "they don't want to 'waste' their money by buying two sets of tires". If they thought about it for more than a moment, they would realize buying the second set of tires does not mean it was "wasted", but rather all 8 tires will last twice as long since only 4 are in use at any given time. You are just paying it up front, that's all.

Which, IMHO, is a pretty small price to pay to have maximum safety getting you around. Furthermore, if you spend a bit more on a second set of time and have the initiative to jack up & swap your tires yourself twice a year (about an hour of work, taking your time, and changing a tire is good practice for a skill every driver should have, but I digress), then you can save most of the labour cost as well.

It truly does amaze me that people spend $20K, $30K, $40K or more on a car, then skimp out when it comes to shelling out a few hundred dollars in advance to keep it (and it's occupants) safe...

 

Kevin

Well, I certainly didn't mean to make it sound to Renocat that I personally was knocking down the choice of tires, or implied driving skill. I thought the comment was clearly directed at Manitoba drivers in general, Winnipeg drivers in particular

I hear it all the time that folks refuse to buy winter tires due to the "extra" cost. You are entirely correct in that you are then spreading the wear out among EIGHT tires instead of FOUR.

I generally drive about the same distance Spring/Summer as I do Fall/Winter, so both sets will see about the same use. True enough I had to pay "extra" for the steel wheels for both my Prius and my FJ, but that also quickly pays for itself: like you, I swap the wheels myself. No future cost associated with paying a "tech" to mount/dismount tires.

I used to live in a condo with heated underground parking, and the CC&R forbid "working" on vehicles. So I always got a bit of flak over swapping the wheels over. I recently purchased a house with a heated garage, so that is no longer a concern

Yes, it's *very* good practice to jack up a car and swap tires twice a year. A lot of folks don't realize just how intimidating it can be to perform that operation, especially in the dark with rain/snow. Practice makes perfect.

Want to know something else that drives people NUTS when they hear it from me? I promptly replace my tires when they are "only" half worn, I refuse to drive tires down to the legal limit. This is why:

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/testDisplay.jsp?&ttid=85

Oh and good luck with the weather. Hard to believe you got way more snow than we did

jay

 

Snow tires made a HUGE difference for my Prius. I have Nokian Hakkapeliitta RSi's on an extra set of OEM rims. I'm on the roads before the plows clean with no trouble at all. Traction control and VSC come on a only a fraction of the amount of times as compared to the all season Integity tires.

 

Amen to that... quite a powerful article. For those who don't want to read the entire thing, this is the most disturbing part, under 'Stopping a car';

Yikes. That's why I don't wait until the tires are "legally" finished before changing them either...

 

Snow tire Question

I'm just not sure. When you run snow tires do you buy 4 all around or 2 for the front. We probably get an average of 45" of snow /year

 

After spending several winters in Colorado, I definitely recommend 4 snow tires. Most top end snow tire mfrs also recommend four. Definitely helps braking and cornering.

 

If you are putting snow tires on, definitely go with all 4 corners. Especially with the safety technology on modern vehicles (ABS, VSC, Traction control, etc...) the computer is assuming equal traction for managing your safety. Intentionally mixing & matching your tires can only have a negative effect on this...

The idea of using only 2 tires is an old idea from the days when all cars were RWD, tire technology was simply bigger treads and cars were generally "simpler". People tend to mistakingly think you only need traction on the drive wheels (i.e. which are the front wheels nowadays for most cars), when in fact this is a BAD assumption. In this configuration, sure it will help get you moving and reduce the chance of getting stuck, but having significantly better tires in the front will make cornering more difficult as the front will be more likely to hold, but the car will tend to oversteer (fishtail).

In fact, many tire shops have a policy that if a customer insists on only installing two tires, they will ONLY install them on the rear, regardless whether it is a FWD or RWD vehicle. Non-professional drivers can more easily compensate for understeer than oversteer!

Again, just like the question of whether or not to install winter tires in the first place, why would you skimp on a safety decision that could potentially save your life?

That's my opinion, anyway...

 

No go in snow

I've had my Prius (2005) for almost two years. With 22,000 miles and dealer provided all season tires, I found it goes nowhere in the snow. I can't get up my driveway, the wheels don't even spin, they just stop. Does this have something to do with the CVT? My previous car, a 1996 Cadillac DeVille had no trouble at all. Of course the mileage stank. It looks like your recommendation of snow tires is the way to go.

 

It sounds like your 2005 has the same hyper-sensitive Traction control algorithm that my 2004 does. You're right, once it senses any sort of wheelspin, the car will either cut most of the power or - in rare but dangerous examples - cut ALL the power

My first winter with my Prius - before my backordered snow tires finally arrived - I damn near got nailed in the middle of an intersection. I was first in line at the light, it turned green, I stepped on the gas, and the car was barely crawling forward. Other cars were launching with minor wheelspin. Mine, nothing, zip

Halfway across the intersection, cars behind honking, the light turned red. Now I have cross traffic trying to stop and honking at me. I was just about ready to shove my Prius up the sales guy butt at that point

The best thing was the studded tires. On ice, no problem at all