All season tires vs Winter tires ( Winter)

L

lloyd

New member
Hello everyone,

I'm new to this forum . I just want say thanks to all for all the great postings ,I've learned alot :) ! . I own a toyota 4runner sr5 1999. I have slipped on ice road , and snow covered road . I had the car in H2 . Yesterday i got stuck in the snow so I put the car in H4 , and since its been driving really well . I did not slip at all . My questions , do I need to proceed with my order of 4 blizzak winter tires DM-V1 ,or keep my all seasons tires and use my 4WD often . Is getting those Blizzaks a good investment or just waste of Money .

Thanks to all in advance for your responses .
 
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Just my input. I currently own a 11 4Runner SR5 and this truck so far is awesome in the snow. The technology in these new trucks is advanced to say the least. Now with that being said. I still own my 97 4Runner SR5 that I bought new and to be honext with you since I have now given that truck to my daughter I have dedicated snow tires for that truck and it is like night and day. I never got stuck in the 97, but it can be a handful in the winter when it comes to stopping and cornering without the snows. Big difference between both trucks.
 
Yes, Blizzaks DMV1's or a suitable winter tire are the way to go. Coming from North Dakota I would swap them out in Oct and run them into April. Normally will last about 3-4 years. DMV1's are a fantastic winter tire.

You will feel way more secure. 4wd's are great, but when it comes to stopping nothing beats a winter tire or studs.

The cost is way worth it, IMO.
 
it will be a night and day difference like most have said.


Lineman said:
Yes, Blizzaks DMV1's or a suitable winter tire are the way to go. Coming from North Dakota I would swap them out in Oct and run them into April. Normally will last about 3-4 years. DMV1's are a fantastic winter tire.

You will feel way more secure. 4wd's are great, but when it comes to stopping nothing beats a winter tire or studs.

The cost is way worth it, IMO.
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In Europe you are required to run winter spec tires if you live in an area that gets a lot of snow.

If I lived in an area that got a lot of snow and had to drive a lot, I would run snow tires for sure. I recommend a set of beater wheels for the winter, that way you can just swap your winter tires on at your convenience and not pay every season to switch over to winter tires.
 
like said, night and day, you'll never go back once you treat you're self.


Here are my Nokian Hakkapeliitta suv 5 tires.


IMG_1018.jpg~original
 
4 wheel gives you better acceleration without slip and helps you not get stuck, but snow tires are what let you corner and stop much better.

DM-V1 are outstanding. Narrow them up: I use 245/70/17 vs a 265/65/17 stock as the narrowness allows them to cut through slush like a knife without floating and dragging.

This year I'm using GYWSA year round because we aren't getting any snow and don't want to burn out the blizzak rubber.
 
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Depends on how much actual snow you'll be driving on since pavement really wears on snow tires and if you only drive on it only a handful times a year I'm not so sure they'd be worth the extra cost.

I lived up in the mountains west of Denver for 5 winters with my AWD Eclipse and just had all seasons on it and didn't have issues but it would've really rocked with snow tires.
I like having A/Ts so I don't worry about the choice anymore.
 
Unless you live somewhere you never see temperatures around freezing, winter tires are worth the investment. The cost of an accident, due to losing traction or control, far outweighs the cost of another set of tires and rims. Plus, your all season tires will last that much longer, not being used year round. It also frees you up to buy a set of tires that you prefer for fairer weather, or run aggressive AT or mud tires in the spring-fall months. BTW, put them on steel rims to minimize cost and wear/tear on the tires to have them mounted and balanced twice a year.

I bought a 1999 4Runner Limited in Oct 2012, and live in Northern British Columbia. I researched tires obsessively, and ended up with the BF Goodrich KSi winter tires in the stock size 265/70/16. I probably would have gone for Michelin X-Ice SUV in the narrower 245/85 size as my friend runs them on his 2002 SR5 and loves them, but I got the BFG's for a song with only 400km on them. I have found that compared to Michelin M/S all seasons (not the newer version with the snowflake) that the stopping and starting on packed snow, icy roads, and deep snow to be shockingly different. In H2 (your normal 2WD mode, rear wheel drive) the traction for starting, accelerating, and turning is impressive. The main improvement I notice is on icy surfaces. There are times I have stopped at a store, gotten out, and nearly landed on my a$$, due to the ice that I had just driven across, and stopped on with no difficulty. The other main difference is tread flexibility at temps as low as -30 Celcius. The normal all seasons lose the flexibility, due to harder rubber compounds (which in turn give better fuel mileage and wear) at these low temps, whereas the winter tires are still flexible allowing the sipes and tread blocks to flex and grip the road.

I find myself running in 4WD without the center diff locked (basically AWD mode) which allows me to travel up to 100km/h (60mph) on any road surface. I only lock in the center diff for normal 4WD when on snowy roads and going less than 60km/h (40mph). With the AWD mode going, I have no difficulty travelling any roads, short of mud/sand, with my snow tires.
 
It's a common misconceived blanket statement that soft tires wear faster. An accurate statement would be "Hot tires wear faster". Apparently (and I just recently learned this), all season tires wear more in the winter than winter tires wear in the winter. This is supposedly attributed to the fact people spin their all season tires (that are stiff and don't grip well to wet/slick pavement), and thus heat up the very outside layer of rubber momentarily, leaving a deposit of rubber behind every time they do it. Winter tires seldom spin, so thus they don't wear as fast.

However, there is more to consider: winter tires have alot of sipes, tiny cuts that allow the tread pattern to conform to uneven surfaces while still allowing water to ventilate. When you roll a winter tire down the road with weight on it, by virtue of the sipes, they will flex and rub on each other, creating heat. Usually this is negated by low ambient temperatures and the constant barrage of snow and ice on the surface, and thus keeps the rubber temperature down. Were you to drive the winter tires when it's warm out on dry roads, well, obviously they're going to heat up quickly and then wear away to nothing... by virtue of my original statement "hot tires wear faster".

You see this effect in racing compounds that need to be hot to grip... they grip by becoming tacky when hot and literally glue themselves to the track surface... leaving behind a bit of rubber all the time, wearing away as they do it, of course.

You'll see this effect again when you "squeal the tires". I've never been successful to get rubber to squeal rubbing it on asphalt. But boy, does it ever make a banshee scream when rubber rubs on rubber. All the sipes I mentioned, when you exceed the grip limit of the tire's face, will all rub (read: vibrate or oscillate) across each other on their adjacent faces. You know when you skitter down a really steep hill by sort of running really fast trying to not lose control? The grip face of each sipe is doing sort of the same dance trying to grip the pavement, but they're getting twisted and bent over into the next sipe, hence the squeal. Again, the effect is witnessed again if you've driven on race tires or ultra high performance summer tires... they don't squeal, they just let go and slide with very little warning; this is because they have no sipes to rub together to produce a squeal.

I may have digressed a bit here, but my point is that the science behind winter tires is science. There is a night and day difference. Any attempt to make an all-season better in winter makes it worse in summer and vice-versa, because of the a fore-mentioned reasons.

Hope this helps.
 
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Where do you live?

Makes a difference, the north east where I live its a good idea due to the wet snow and ice. My son live in Leadville Colorado and he runs BFG AT on his Tundra, last year he ran Falken Wild Peaks both worked great for him due to very dry snow. They just plow in the high country no salt he crosses Freemont Pass 12,000 ft. His tires are A/T but they are rated MS. He is a pro skier and also coaches big mountain skiing for team summit. He drives a rear wheel Ford van to competions all over the Rockies but it equiped with studed Nokian snows.
 
RD9146 said:
Makes a difference, the north east where I live its a good idea due to the wet snow and ice. My son live in Leadville Colorado and he runs BFG AT on his Tundra, last year he ran Falken Wild Peaks both worked great for him due to very dry snow. They just plow in the high country no salt he crosses Freemont Pass 12,000 ft. His tires are A/T but they are rated MS. He is a pro skier and also coaches big mountain skiing for team summit. He drives a rear wheel Ford van to competions all over the Rockies but it equiped with studed Nokian snows.
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I love when people revive ancient threads ;) only 7 years later haha
 
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