Winter separate or same tires year round

[robvas]

Narrow vs wide snow tire debate - take your hand and try to cut thru water, first time hit like a slap and next like a knife. Which works best?

Weekend ride, I have company vehicle as a daily.

yet your bike doesn't have narrow tires!

(I know it's completely different)

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[Juggernaut]

https://www.motor1.com/news/696279/wide-vs-narrow-winter-tires-explained/

These guys have better testing IMO and found the opposite to be true, i'm more inclined to side with this because it aligns with the math

Magazine articles are great and all but I am just going from personal experience. I had wider on my burb and they were terrible, went back to stock width and it was much better. When I put wheels and tires on my Expy i went from a 22 to 18 but stayed stock tire size. If wider worked better that's what I would run

 

[TrueBlue22]

I’ve been on both sides of the “winter tires vs. all seasons” debate.

My 2011 GT came with Pirelli PZero Neros which just SUCKED all the time and we’re dangerous in even the slightest amount of snow. After one winter, I bought a set of 19x9 Track Pack wheels to run summer tires and used the 19x8.5 factory wheels to run Michelin Pilot Alpin PA3’s. Those tires were freakin’ AMAZING. Short of the snow being deeper than the front splitter, I could drive through anything.

My 2022 HPP came with Corsa4’s, which immediately got removed and thrown away. I went with Ultra High Performance all-season Bridgestone RE980 AS+’s, same width as the factory P265 tires. They have astonishingly aggressive siping and were outstanding all through the winter of 2022-23. Ice, snow, rain - didn’t matter; I got through with zero problems.

I do think that a modern UHP-AS tire can be a reasonable 4-season solution so long as one doesn’t live in the mountains or in a heavy snow region like Buffalo.

I like the Bridgestone so much that I’m ordering another set to replace the Pilot Sport AS3’s (now 9 years old) on my 2011. They’re hard to beat at their price point, or even at $100/tire above it.

 

[sdskinner73]

I’ve been on both sides of the “winter tires vs. all seasons” debate.

My 2011 GT came with Pirelli PZero Neros which just SUCKED all the time and we’re dangerous in even the slightest amount of snow. After one winter, I bought a set of 19x9 Track Pack wheels to run summer tires and used the 19x8.5 factory wheels to run Michelin Pilot Alpin PA3’s. Those tires were freakin’ AMAZING. Short of the snow being deeper than the front splitter, I could drive through anything.

My 2022 HPP came with Corsa4’s, which immediately got removed and thrown away. I went with Ultra High Performance all-season Bridgestone RE980 AS+’s, same width as the factory P265 tires. They have astonishingly aggressive siping and were outstanding all through the winter of 2022-23. Ice, snow, rain - didn’t matter; I got through with zero problems.

I do think that a modern UHP-AS tire can be a reasonable 4-season solution so long as one doesn’t live in the mountains or in a heavy snow region like Buffalo.

I like the Bridgestone so much that I’m ordering another set to replace the Pilot Sport AS3’s (now 9 years old) on my 2011. They’re hard to beat at their price point, or even at $100/tire above it.

funny you say that. My current setup is the track pack wheels fitted with blizzaks (245/19). They’ve done fine on my ecoboost. But between the 3 mustangs I’ve had, it’s the first time ever using winter tires. My concern is like right now. Sunday and Monday were supposedly seeing 75+ degree days and I still have the winters on bc it’s been so back and forth. This makes me feel like investing in a true winter tire is going to be a lot of wasted money bc of days like this. An UHP AS like you mentioned may be the best solution.
I agree. The pzero neros are some of the worst tires I ever used. They were on my last GT and were almost completely useless. (Fitting a 460hp car with 235s should be a crime anyways lol)

 

[RedTetsu13]

Adding in another Midwesterner two cents. As someone who does an occasional drive from Detroit to Chicagoland a few times a year and also has a multi day commute (about 11 miles).

I'm currently run Conti VikingContact7's (winter) and conti extremecontact sports. As an apartment dweller in currently running 2 sets but I'll probably move to 3 sets (performance winter, UHP A/S, Summer/Track) once I get a house with actual storage.

If you can have 3 sets I say do it, but as some said, based on your needs is just stick with winter and summers (probably orient yourself to performance winter rather than full on snow tires though).

You might face yourself with higher wear and some mush (hell I've had to deal with that) but you gotta ask yourself, are going to need to go out when the weather does turn to shit? I mean we've had days were the weather has snowed in april for crying out loud, even with global warming its still possible to have a freak event but I digress as only you can answer this op

 

[rwp50]

That was exactly my concern if I just go all seasons year round. I’d rather have a 275/19, and that could be problematic in the snow

I've always heard that, don't always get it though. Wouldn't more tread bite into the snow better and get more grip.

I think of it like using fingers...wouldn't grabbing a tool with 5 fingers be a lot stronger grip than grabbing a tool with 2 fingers?

It comes down to pounds per square inch in my opinion.

from 70-76 drove our families 70 wagoneer. With standard tires and a chain I would pull pickups with over size tires out of ditches and one on flat terrain on ice. They couldn’t believe it.
Would pull people over a small berm from snow plows yay my wife’s train station.

took the Blizzaks off our ‘17 GT yesterday and replaced with Michelin pilot sport +4’s all season.

so we’ll see if I swap again here in northern Illinois.

 

[sdskinner73]

It comes down to pounds per square inch in my opinion.

from 70-76 drove our families 70 wagoneer. With standard tires and a chain I would pull pickups with over size tires out of ditches and one on flat terrain on ice. They couldn’t believe it.
Would pull people over a small berm from snow plows yay my wife’s train station.

took the Blizzaks off our ‘17 GT yesterday and replaced with Michelin pilot sport +4’s all season.

so we’ll see if I swap again here in northern Illinois.

I grew up in northwest Indiana. I’m so used to lake effect snow every year. But central Indiana doesn’t get that. We’ve had like 4 days where the snow was on the road long enough to effect driving. Which is what prompted my question as to whether they’re actually worth keeping two. Of course summers would be nice, but I’m not necessarily convinced snow tires are needed here and moreso are a waste of money

 

[TonyT930]

I use Conti DWS 06 all seasons all year round. No problems

 

[ice445]

https://www.motor1.com/news/696279/wide-vs-narrow-winter-tires-explained/

These guys have better testing IMO and found the opposite to be true, i'm more inclined to side with this because it aligns with the math

It's very complicated math though. There are more variables than you'd think. How the tire deforms under load is a huge factor and very specific to each rubber compound and the vehicle it's installed on.

Winter compounds are extremely flexible compared to normal tires and usually work better in a narrower width (to a point) I'm sure there are exceptions out there, but in this particular case you want more force over a smaller area for more deformation compared to a wider patch with less force per square millimeter. There's also hydrodynamic factors to consider as well. Tread design and moving water or snow out of the way as fast as possible also usually suffers when you increase width, since now the moisture has to travel further and usually at a slower rate to get out of the way. It's why wider tires tend to suffer more from hydroplaning in rain storms.

Tl;Dr it's complicated but I disagree that the wider tire is always better because it assumes too much and ignores very important factors.

 

[Garfy]

This was my first year using blizzaks. Never used a winter tire on any vehicle before this. Huge difference. I already have the extra set of winters, but I’ll likely switch them out if I keep 2. Friend gave them to me cheap, but they’re the track pack wheels with 245s in them. An 18” wheel is probably better in winter, I assume

I've never had Blizzaks, though I understand they're among the best studless snow tires around. If your road condidtions aren't super bad (like going into the mountains to ski etc.) you can probably get away with other 3PMSF tires, that way you can keep hi-perf summer tires on it for late spring through early fall driving. Summer tires are great when warm but they suck when it gets too cold even without snow or ice on the roads. I heard Continentals are decent all-around tires so I may put those on mine to get rid of these P-Zero Nero factory tires (ok when hot but does poorly when cold).

 

[robvas]

IMO any true snow tire is going to be so far ahead of any non-snow tire. So if you're just concerned with getting to work or not sliding off a cliff in the snow (or into the back of another car), just buy a quality snow tire.

Some people go overboard on the best or highest performance snow tire, but if you're not doing snocross save your $$

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