GET YOUR DEDICATED SNOW TIRES NOW !!!

I got my snow tires mounted & sure hope they don't affect my MPG. I was wondering what's a GD tire pressure for these Continental Viking 7 There a XL tire . Not sure what that means. Right now there's no snow yet but it's coming next week. Just wet roads because of rainy season.

 

They will. They're likely to be heavier than the OE tires. The deeper tread will have more tread squirm. They aren't made from low rolling resistance rubber compound. Set the inflation pressure to give the best traction, not chase mpg when traction is more valuable.

On the other hand, your MPG would be zero while your car is in the body shop getting winter crash damage repaired.

 

Right now I can care less about getting 50MPG. I already know I will get better gas mileage than my old car. These tires are really nice & the thread on them look gd. Can't wait to try these tires out when I drive over the mountain passes. The car says 33psi on the door. I'm running them right now at 36psi.

when the snow starts falling should I increase pressure to 40 for better traction.

will 40 hurt the tires when I drive on bare & wet after the mountains?

 

This year it's shaping up, that we'll be getting better mpg through winter with our Michelin X-Ice 195/65R15 (on steel Corolla rims), than our Michelin Primacy hxm4 215/45R17 (on OEM alloy rims). If not better, at least neck-and-neck.

Both have the Green-X badge, fwiw.

 

Same here, though they may be bluffing.

 

They are calling for 15-24 inches of snow here in the next 24 hours. I might go for a drive around the neighborhood just to see how the car does in deep snow, but thankfully I probably don't need to go anywhere.

 

I like to get the snow tires on, AND go nowhere when there's a heavy fresh amount of snow. Don't forget: you've got 4~5 inches of ground clearance.

 

I think I've only had them on for around 1000 miles this year, so the remaining tread should be similar to what I posted previously.

I've noticed a lot less front wheel spin this year (in fact basically none). I was having a problem with the front wheels losing traction spinning too much last winter, particularly with the winter tires but not the all-seasons, and I think contributed to the excessive wear on the fronts. The rears had minimal wear.

This winter I rotated the tires front to back to even out the wear, but I don't know what else changed. Maybe different tire pressure. I'm targeting about 38/39 PSI right now, but I need to check again now that it's gotten colder. I can't remember what tire pressure I used last year, but maybe it was too high? Or maybe I changed by driving style to accelerate more carefully. Or maybe the battery is getting old and can't supply as much power as it used to. Or maybe last year the tread on the tires got rounded off, making them more likely to slip.

Last year I felt like I had to intentionally be careful not to accelerate too quickly, otherwise I'd get wheels spin. With my all-season tires (dunflops, I think) I don't need to be too careful, and I'll usually only get wheels spin if I hit something slippery at low speed (like a painted crosswalk or a manhole cover). This year I haven't consciously changed my driving style since when I had all-seasons on this fall, but like I said I've had almost no wheel spin with the blizzaks so far. I still floor it all the time, but I gently increase acceleration if I'm starting from a stop.

 

The shape of the front bumper should make a great snowplow. But thankfully I can work from home during a storm like this.

 

I've noticed that too high of pressure seems to make traction worse in general. I'll stick with the recommend PSI plus a couple (so it doesn't fall too low) for the winter.

Maybe the thinking is that higher pressure cuts through the snow, but snow tires work by having lots of edges (that's why they have sipes) and packing with snow because snow sticks to snow fairly well if it's packed. Higher pressure means fewer edges are in contact with the snow, and each bit of packed snow has to take more shear force. But most of my driving is on dry pavement, so I can't say for sure about snow traction.

 

I don't think I'll go anywhere today. That's about 14 inches on top of the car.

 

What car?

 

We noticed some cars (likely from up the hill) had a bit of white stuff stuck at the bottom of windshield, this morning. First of the season.

 

Got these rims last week. They seem good overall but the paint on the inner part seemed a bit light. I put a set of General AltiMAX Arctic 12's on them. Mounted and balanced this week. Got them on the car yesterday. Not using hub rings, just made sure to seat the lugs properly.
I'm getting about 46mpg with this setup so far (tested over 22 miles with 0 miles of charge).

I'm using these closed ended black lug nuts:

They're 21mm so you only need one socket when swapping your wheels.