Real snow tires versus all-season

Inspector507 · Feb 9, 2003

Bob,
I used the Goodrich All Terrain T/A, but I doubt if the LT285/75R16 will work for you on the car /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

My wife has an Explorer that has Michelin tires, she's happy so far. I just bought a new truck 3 weeks ago.....maybe I'll have to go see what they put on it!!!!! I know they are 17's. First truck I ever bought and left the original tires on for more than a day or two.

RobertN · Feb 9, 2003

The key to these tires is all the "siping"(sp?). Note all those tiny little grooves. Those are what will get you traction on snow and ice.

A couple years back a 4WD/off-road magazine did an article on just that. They compared tires, and the ones with the most sipe did the best for traction. They even took some big mud tires in to a shop and had siping added to them. They claimed it made a difference on icy streets, and even a little off-road.

Other tires are made like these that were posted. That is definitely what you want to look for.

Of course, here I sit in Shingle Springs, in the California gold country, where two years ago we got 1/2" of snow. One time we got a real heavy snow here, with accumulation of a little over 1" /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

rationalizer · Feb 9, 2003

Siping is important - but I would say that "compound" is equally or more important. All rubber is not the same - it is sort of a witches brew and there are lots of trade-offs. If the issue were sipes then you could design a tire with sipes that would also wear well in hot weather (and we could have tires that did it all) No such luck.

A tread compound that has good flexibility and grip at low temperatures won't work or wear as well a "summer" or "all season" tire.

Another thing to consider - when getting snow tires a narrower tread is better (assuming the tire is large enough to carry your load). The rally drivers use porcupine studded tires that look like they came off of a motorcycle. You want the tire to cut down to the hard surface - floatation isn't your friend in the snow.

Regarding "cop tires" (I'm reminded of the Blues Brothers talking about their car...) They come from the factory with all season performance tires. The police drive so many miles that they replace tires frequently - and so the local departments then figure out what works best for their particular weather and road conditions and buy lots of those. No secrets or "unobtainium".

Bill

Trev · Feb 9, 2003

Wow.. thanks for looking those up, Rowski!

I'll add them to my list to contemplate..

Right now I'm leaning toward getting a set of snows on steel wheels for winter, and waiting until the set of Continental All-Seasons wear out and then getting a really good All-Season for the rest of the year. That way, I don't have to worry about miscalculating in the Spring and Summer, and on the trip to Florida just switch back to the all-seasons. People tell me steel wheels are best around here in the winter, as they tend to take a beating with potholes, salt, etc.

BTW, the car is a mint '98 BMW 528i, that I got such a good deal on that I couldn't pass it up. It was owned by a funeral parlor director, which may explain why it's Jet Black. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I can picture this car having spent most of its life loafing along at the head of funeral processions. It's immaculate. We had two small cars, and now with two foster kids about to be adopted, we really need more room. I think this will be perfect for us.

I could never afford one of these new, but this one only has 57K miles on it, and people routinely get many hundreds of thousands of miles out of them with proper routine maintenance. The thing sold new for close to $50K, and I can get it for $17K.. including a full three-year warranty.

Thanks again for all the help and advice, folks! As I suspected, I got a lot more good info here than I did at the BMW forum. TBN scores again! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Trev · Feb 9, 2003

( The police drive so many miles that they replace tires frequently - and so the local departments then figure out what works best for their particular weather and road conditions and buy lots of those. No secrets or "unobtainium". )

Darn! /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif I hoped maybe they had a special tire that nobody else knew about. Oh well. I was equally disappointed when I read in the manual of the coming car that "Our anti-lock breaking system is not capable of suspending the laws of physics." /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Trev · Feb 9, 2003

( Of course, here I sit in Shingle Springs, in the California gold country, where two years ago we got 1/2" of snow. One time we got a real heavy snow here, with accumulation of a little over 1" )

Better get that snowblower tuned up, Robert! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Bird · Feb 9, 2003

Bob, like most products, tires have gone through quite a bit of evolutionary development. In fact, I have a 1914-1915 edition of the Bexar County Highway League's Official Log Book for Texas in which a number of tires are advertised which were guaranteed 3,000 to 5,000 miles. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif When radial tires, especially steel belted radials, were fairly new, a number of police departments had tires that separated at high speeds resulting in some accidents. So Goodyear, Goodrich, and Firestone all came out with "Police Radials" (non-steel belted; polyester belts if I remember right). And unless a police department specified a certain tire, General Motors and Chrysler product police vehicles came originally with Goodyears and Ford police vehicles came with Firestones. Firestone eventually got out of the business because of dissatisfaction with their tires (it wasn't a problem with them breaking down; just that they had a short lifespan - the tread wore off so much faster than the others). Then General got into the act and started making high speed radials. And now, I guess just about all the tire manufacturers make tires with different speed ratings, including the high speed ones. So, it's been awhile since I was in the business and I don't know what police departments are currently using. I know that when I was in charge of the fleet management, we were using Plymouths that came with Goodyear tires, but then Goodrich met the same specifications and bid lower, so our replacement tires were Goodrich. We had no complaints with either of them.

chim · Feb 9, 2003

RobertN, you sound like a guy who could be around 50, and remember Granville King? Driving elegant? PV/4? ............chim

Anonymous Poster · Feb 9, 2003

Bob, those secret police battle cruiser tires are clearly listed on the state bid list. They are elcheapo pursuit radials.
Of course, they only put the pursuit version on unmarked command cars.

gerard · Feb 9, 2003

Any State Police battle cruiser drivers here?


We put snows all the way around in NY. Just have to be speed rated. We buy so many of them we get them pretty cheap. Also not allowed to use plugs, thye get a flat they get replaced. I think we got spoiled the last few years with the mild winters. I work on an interstate and every snowstorm we pull tons of cars out of the medians. Surprisingly many are SUV's. People have the illogical attitude that just because they can accelerate better with 4wd they can also stop faster. NOT!! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif Tough to beat snows for the winter. All seasons are a compromise. Maybe if you lived 500 miles south they'd be ok!!