Winter tires?

Dgc333

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I am a big proponent of dedicated winter tires. My Tremor came with General Grabber ATx all terrain tires. My experience over the years with AT tires in the winter has not been good and I fully planned to get winter tires for the Ranger. I was surprised to find that the Grabber ATx tires had the Mountain Snow Flake designation so I decided to give them a try. While not as good a true studless ice and snow tire on ice they were more than adequate in snow and slush.

For the truck I had before the Ranger I used Firestone Winter Force tires. These are a studable winter tire. They are an absolute beast in snow, ice and slush but do give up some performance on dry pavement and get real mushy if the temps rise above 50F.
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TheDo114

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The stock tires on the tremor are not bad in the winter. Really good in snow, passable in ice and terrible in -40 weather, they become hard and just slide all over the place.

Like others mentioned can't go wrong with Michelin, Blizzak or Nokian. I personally think Nokian are the best out of these 3 and have been running them for the past 8 years in Canada.
 

JohnnyO

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For the truck I had before the Ranger I used Firestone Winter Force tires. These are a studable winter tire. They are an absolute beast in snow, ice and slush but do give up some performance on dry pavement and get real mushy if the temps rise above 50F.
Ten years ago I bought a used Jeep Wrangler for my daughter (since sold) that had Firestone Winterforce tires. Two were pretty good, two were pretty worn so I bought two more. The cost wasn't bad at all and like you said, they were beasts in the snow. Highly recommend as a budget alternative to Blizzaks, etc.
After a blizzard I cleaned the windows off, shifted into 4wd, and drove it out of there. I don't think it spun a tire.

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Wes Siler

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Anyone who lives north of the Mason Dixon line should run winter tires in winter. All-terrains are not an adequate substitute. This is one of those things where it's everyone's responsibility to be a good community member. Your braking distance on even dry pavement below about 40 degrees will suffer without running a tire designed to remain flexible in those temperatures. Obviously the problem gets worse with weather. Please don't put my safety at risk due to your ignorance.

Don't stress too much about exact sizes. Use https://tiresize.com/calculator/ and just try to stay around the neighborhood of what you have now with your suspension etc. If you find tire sizes frightening, just stick with the stock size.

Having said that, all other things being equal, a narrower tire will provide slightly superior grip in winter conditions. More weight on a given contact patch. But sizes also change price and availability. Just being on a real winter tire is 90 percent of the battle.

Some other randomly organized notes from way too much experience:

- Studs are an outdated technology that don't do much. I have studs on my current Nokian LT3s (blame supply chain stuff), and while modern tech has made them quieter, they offer no appreciable performance over the studless LT3s I ran two years ago. Studs only provide a hypothetical advantage over studless on bare ice, and even then, the latest studless tires have started to eclipse that advantage. Yes, my studded tires still skid on bare ice at intersections, no more or less than my studless.

- Modern studless tires provide the best all-round performance. You cannot predict what conditions you will drive in during winter. A proper studless winter tire is designed to deal with all of them. Again, even bare pavement presents challenges.

- It used to be that winter tires didn't do great in rain. This hasn't been the case in 5+ years.

- Best of breed are Bridgestone Blizzak and Nokian Hakkapeliitta. I run both and don't see any advantages for either, except that Blizzaks are available at Costco.

- P-Metrics will offer much superior performance in most winter conditions. But if you drive bare gravel with them, they can chunk easily. LTs will prevent that, but offer less grip in terrible conditions.

- The only place where chains have a role is in very deep fresh snow. Put them on to get through an obstacle, then take them off. They do not replace winter tires.

- Anyone who thinks 4WD, AWD, Terrain Management or whatever can offer an adequate replacement for winter tires is fooling themselves. Traction aids may get you going, but they will not help you stop.

- OMG money!!!1!!. Americans own new cars for an average of five years. In that time, you will need to buy a set of tires. Making those a set of winters will move the time at which you need to replace your summers forward, likely stretching their life to 5 years. YOU HAVE TO SPEND THAT MONEY ANYWAYS. Spend it on not having accidents, not hurting yourself, and not killing me, please. This will actually save you lots of money.

An example of my typical driving conditions:

 


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What part of hell do you live in that you need winter tires over these?
Edmonton - where IF they plow the roads, a layer of compacted snow or ice is left behind. I had to keep the truck in 4wd a lot last winter. Also had 180kg of sand in the bed. The tires were great in snow, but with the mixture of extreme cold and that layer of ice, I want something much better this year.

And the trade-off is the summer days when sun rises before 5am and sets after 10pm, real mountains 3.5 hours this direction AND that direction, many beautiful clean lakes and rivers/streams, and very few Americans once you get about 2km away from the tourist hot spots.
 
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TheDo114

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Anyone who lives north of the Mason Dixon line should run winter tires in winter. All-terrains are not an adequate substitute. This is one of those things where it's everyone's responsibility to be a good community member. Your braking distance on even dry pavement below about 40 degrees will suffer without running a tire designed to remain flexible in those temperatures. Obviously the problem gets worse with weather. Please don't put my safety at risk due to your ignorance.

Don't stress too much about exact sizes. Use https://tiresize.com/calculator/ and just try to stay around the neighborhood of what you have now with your suspension etc. If you find tire sizes frightening, just stick with the stock size.

Having said that, all other things being equal, a narrower tire will provide slightly superior grip in winter conditions. More weight on a given contact patch. But sizes also change price and availability. Just being on a real winter tire is 90 percent of the battle.

Some other randomly organized notes from way too much experience:

- Studs are an outdated technology that don't do much. I have studs on my current Nokian LT3s (blame supply chain stuff), and while modern tech has made them quieter, they offer no appreciable performance over the studless LT3s I ran two years ago. Studs only provide a hypothetical advantage over studless on bare ice, and even then, the latest studless tires have started to eclipse that advantage. Yes, my studded tires still skid on bare ice at intersections, no more or less than my studless.

- Modern studless tires provide the best all-round performance. You cannot predict what conditions you will drive in during winter. A proper studless winter tire is designed to deal with all of them. Again, even bare pavement presents challenges.

- It used to be that winter tires didn't do great in rain. This hasn't been the case in 5+ years.

- Best of breed are Bridgestone Blizzak and Nokian Hakkapeliitta. I run both and don't see any advantages for either, except that Blizzaks are available at Costco.

- P-Metrics will offer much superior performance in most winter conditions. But if you drive bare gravel with them, they can chunk easily. LTs will prevent that, but offer less grip in terrible conditions.

- The only place where chains have a role is in very deep fresh snow. Put them on to get through an obstacle, then take them off. They do not replace winter tires.

- Anyone who thinks 4WD, AWD, Terrain Management or whatever can offer an adequate replacement for winter tires is fooling themselves. Traction aids may get you going, but they will not help you stop.

- OMG money!!!1!!. Americans own new cars for an average of five years. In that time, you will need to buy a set of tires. Making those a set of winters will move the time at which you need to replace your summers forward, likely stretching their life to 5 years. YOU HAVE TO SPEND THAT MONEY ANYWAYS. Spend it on not having accidents, not hurting yourself, and not killing me, please. This will actually save you lots of money.

An example of my typical driving conditions:


Great post except the stud vs studless part. If you deal with a lot of ice, studs are the way to go especially with a pickup truck that has no weight on the rear. Studs are better in those conditions and make a big difference, not as much as winter tires vs all season, but big difference nonetheless.

There is a tradeoff, more noise and your braking distance is longer on pure pavement but you get much better ice and packed snow traction.

Are high-end studless tires getting better? Absolutely. Are they better than high-end studded tires? Not even close.

 

MXGOLF

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My mechanic really likes the Cooper AT3 year round. He used to drive from Portland Oregon to Spokane in the winter all the time and really recommended those year round. He drives a 12 year old Toyota Tundra.
 

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Edmonton - where IF the plow the roads, a layer of compacted snow or ice is left behind. I had to keep the truck in 4wd a lot last winter. Also had 180kg of sand in the bed. The tires were great in snow, but with the mixture of extreme cold and that layer of ice, I want something much better this year.

And the trade-off is the summer days when sun rises before 5am and sets after 10pm, real mountains 3.5 hours this direction AND that direction, many beautiful clean lakes and rivers/streams, and very few Americans once you get about 2km away from the tourist hot spots.
In that case, if it's legal in Alberta, get high quality studded tires and laugh your way trough winter. You will not regret it.
 

deleriumtremor

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In that case, if it's legal in Alberta, get high quality studded tires and laugh your way trough winter. You will not regret it.
Looks like the provinces and even the states around me allow the use of studded tires through winter months. I am from the mitten-shaped state and may find myself there this Christmas. Studs are illegal there.

Something I will consider.
 

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We have been running Toyo Observe GSi-5 Winter Studless mounted on stock rims. Wife has no complaints about these..
 

JasonTremor

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Where I live, we generally get a layer of ice then snow on top of it when we actually get anything. Appreciate the insight on the general atx performance in icy conditions.
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