snow tires?

[88Nightmare]

what would you guys recommend for a good snow tire on a rwd car? tirerack says they are sold out of 16" blizzaks for the season. what are the next best alternatives? anything better then a blizzak? I'm open to anything

[jakedrew]

general artic ice.

[88Nightmare]

general artic ice.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=General&tireModel=Altimax+Arctic&partnum=255QR6AMAXA&vehicleSearch=true&fromCompare1=yes&autoMake=Ford&autoYear=1997&autoModel=Mustang%20GT&autoModClar=

these? I had my eye on those too. Just wondered if anyone had personal experience with them. what about bridgestone winterforces?

[wikked]

I've had the Winterforce on my car for 2 seasons now. They work great.

[UnderPSI]

Winter force! I must have ordered 6 sets through Late Model Throttle this year. The have the best prices.

[LEWETHETIGER73]

I loved these bad boys. Only ones I'll use
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Dunlop&tireModel=SP+Winter+Sport+M3

[GTSLOW]

Did you buy the mustang?

[twicks69]

The General tires he was referring to are General Altimax Artic's. They are excellent tires and are very well priced with a long wearlife. I currently have a set on my Subie with around 12K miles on them. So far, the wear pattern is very good, with low noise and pretty decent handling/acceleration in snow and ice. The tires were worth it for the price!

Prior to the Altimax Artics I have used several models of Nokian Hakkapellitta's with great success and long life. My wife's Hocks have over 55K miles on them and still have enough tread to get through this winter and next summer. We have had them on the car for 5 years continuous time. I have had several sets with 50-60K miles on them with tread remaining.

[Car Guy]

55k miles on a true snow with tread remaining tire is very impressive. The newer Hakkas must last a LOT long than the older models. I had a set of the original Qs and they would have lasted 10k miles at most.....

[tbarsch]

I've had evry good luck with these:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Dunlop&tireModel=Graspic+DS-3

[twicks69]

55k miles on a true snow with tread remaining tire is very impressive. The newer Hakkas must last a LOT long than the older models. I had a set of the original Qs and they would have lasted 10k miles at most.....

The Q's were too soft and they were still working on getting a better tread compound to work with durability while still having good traction. Though the Hakka 2's were very nice, and my set of Hakka Q's lasted around 3 years and ~30K miles of AWD burnouts and abuse year-round on my Eclipse. The Hakka 5's were great also for ice racing; I had a studded set of those. The Hakka WR's are on my wife's saturn and have lasted a long, long time like I said before. I had RSi's on my Eclipse and my GVR4 with great mileage and results from them.

The General Altimax Artics are based on Gislaved Nordfrost 5's which are a swedish or finnish (I forgot currently) tire that General tire bought the tread compound and design from and now mass-produce them at a very, very good price. I think I bought my 215/55/16's for $350 shipped before winter. I installed and balanced them myself.

For street tires used in ice racing, the Nokian Hakkapellitta RSI and Gislaved Nordfrost were the top 2 choices. Price wise, they were once around the same with an average price around $155-170 for the tire size listed above. With General purchasing the design, it turned into less than $90 per tire.

[88Nightmare]

Did you buy the mustang?

not yet. also have another possibility. but I will need a good set of snows on either

[1320PNY]

I have General Altimax Artic's on my 1995 Legacy Sedan and Blizzak's on my 2008 Outback Wagon.

Impression is the Generals are better in really deep snow and the Blizzaks are better on icy surfaces. Something to do with siping possibly?

I would rather have the Blizzaks as I can drive around deep snow, but ice you have to drive over.

[outlawgibbs]

I ran Goodyear Ultra Grips on my 95 Camaro with no weight in the back when I used to have to drive into work to plow before the roads were plowed and they kicked ass. Also the same tires you see on alot of the squad cars. Thats even where mine came from.
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Goodyear&tireModel=Eagle+Ultra+Grip+GW3&partnum=955HR5UGGW3OLD

[4I Notch]

x2 on the winterforce. I have them on my crown vic and they do awesome in the snow.

[88Nightmare]

how does everyone feel about blizzaks? also, I'd imagine the width of any tire can affect traction in snow. what size do you guys run?

[deuceWI]

I love my bizzaks. They are on their 3rd season, and by the looks of it (and due to my driving style) I don't think they'll be very useful for a 4th season.

I may try something else for next winter, these just happened to be a great deal at the time for the steelies + tires from Tirerack when I bought them.

On my Mazda3 I'm running 205s. Stock tires were 215s. Summer wheels now have 225s mounted. Kinda pointless going wide on a winter tire, although depending on the car I'm sure there are some reasonable limits you'd want to stick to.

[theavenger333]

I've had the Winterforce on my car for 2 seasons now. They work great.

what these guys said. they are even a "reasonable" dry tire if you're a little late swapping sets over in spring. the blizzaks i had rolled over on themselves when the weather turned nice

[IcePickFreak]

I'm on my second winter with Blizzak LM-25's on my car and they still look to be in great shape and do wonders in the winter weather. Great snow, ice, wet traction and dry traction (in freezing weather) isn't bad at all either - just obviously not as good as summer tires in the summer. When I put them on for this winter with one season on them already, they still looked almost new. I'm running 245/45/18 on the blizzaks and my summer tires (stock rims/tires) are 245/40/19's.

This is my first set of winter tires so have no experience with any of the other brands, these were on closeout sale when the new LM-60's were coming out so I got a great deal on em. Shouldn't have a problem getting at least another winter out of these after checking them just last week. I swap them around once the temps starting consistently hitting 45° both ways.

[lilws6]

winter force would be my second choice over blizzaks but the blizzaks ive had worked flawless

[TransAm12sec]

General Altimax Artic's/Firestone Winteforce are useful, cheap and effective. The next issue becomes ground clearance when driving through 6+ inches.

[Exitspeed]

I put a set of these on my Corolla this year. They've been pretty good.
http://thepirata.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/hummer_tank04.jpg







*I kid