Thoughts on winter handling?

nate704 said:

All season tires + FWD/RWD/AWD + snow/ice = ditch

get good quality snow tires if you live in the snow belt area.

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Sorry, but I have lived in the snow belt my entire life and used mostly all- season tires and never been in the ditch. Perhaps you need a driving lesson .

Dedicated snow tires are better, but they have disadvantages too. Especially when the weather gets mild and/or there is no snow or ice on the ground.

Bowser said:

I guess my experience is that in the past, driving my FWD shitboxes, I intentionally drove like a little old lady in the snow. Always bugged me when folk - mostly in 4x4s - would blast past me in blinding snow/rain. AI'm just not in that much of a hurry. nd in 30+ years of driving in N IL winters, I never got stuck/ditched/etc.

I think I've been enjoying DRIVING this car, such that the seasonal change to little-old-lady is more striking. As long as I take it easy, it seems to get me where I want to go just fine. But it doesn't really feel like driving the GTI!

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I drive pretty aggressively in the snow and wet weather. Even on mediocre A/S tires I don't have too many issues. With the DWS 06 I can pass 4x4's and trucks. Can't take a corner super aggressive however.

All season tires work marginally well in all seasons. Studless winter tires have worked well for me on several FWD cars over more than the past decade. Blizzaks, Hakkepelita, X-Ice, etc all work well for the entire winter season if you're not going to the tracks. Save you car and make sure you can steer and brake.

nate704 said:

Don't ever do this when it gets below 30 after snow. Frozen snow mounds will destroy your car instantly.

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Yes that's a good point! It was above 30 F today. Soft and wet snow. I know because I was out shoveling it.

heiney9 said:

Sorry, but I have lived in the snow belt my entire life and used mostly all- season tires and never been in the ditch. Perhaps you need a driving lesson .

Dedicated snow tires are better, but they have disadvantages too. Especially when the weather gets mild and/or there is no snow or ice on the ground.

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Not being in a ditch shouldn't really be the metric of a good winter tire. There are many advantages to snow tires. Better traction, better acceleration and handling, less chance of sliding or losing control, and less chance of crashing into other people and causing damage or injuries. This is all assuming common sense driving. Obviously there are certain things snow tires can't save you from, like driving unsafely in the first place.

But, there is no question that they are all-around better than all-seasons. I know some pretty damn good performance all-seasons exist, but the ones that come on our cars are not them. I don't think snow tires have disadvantages, either. I'm talking in a place that gets snow and has consistently cold temps. If the weather gets regularly mild it's time to change them out for something more appropriate. A few mild days isn't going to negatively affect traction much. It just might wear your tread a bit quicker. And snow tires certainly offer all their benefits when there isn't snow on the ground. It has to do much more with the rubber compound than the tread pattern. Non-snow tires will be much more likely to break free on cold dry roads.

Not trying to argue but I just strongly feel they are worth it depending on where you live and depending on your car. My wife's car just got rear-ended by a FWD car with normal tires due to black ice. It's not fun. Accidents happen but there are way too many cars out there unequipped to handle the weather.

I am not really arguing dedicated snow tires aren;t better than A/S tires in snow. And those of you who drive in the snow 80-90% of the time I see and have experienced the advantages. Here in the Midwest it seems that past 6-8 seasons we don't really have all much snow. Sure it varies and if we get a big snow fall the dedicated winters are great.

But most of the past couple snow seasons we have run pretty much on dry pavement with temps in the mid 50's in January a couple times this month already. A dedicated Winter is going to do much worse on dry pavement above freezing than a good A/S tire. In the past 14 months I have used my new snow blower exactly twice because there hasn't been enough snow to matter.

There are A/S tires like a DWS 06 that do well enough in the snow for those periods when we actually have snow on the roads for an extended period of time.

Again, those of you who have large volumes of snow and drive in it a lot, a dedicated snow is probably better. For us in the Chicago area outside of the lake effect snow machine, we haven't needed dedicated snows for the past 3 seasons as there isn't enough snow to make it worth it.

Hence my recommendation to the OP who lives near me to get a good set of A/S tires that are good in the snow Conti DWS 06 come to mind.

P.s. Ever tried to stop on snow tires when it's bare ground and 50* out? Scary and I used to run Blizzaks in the Winter, but the DWS 06 was 75% of a good snow tire as long as you don't drive like an idiot.

Mike in Anchorage said:

All season tires work marginally well in all seasons. Studless winter tires have worked well for me on several FWD cars over more than the past decade. Blizzaks, Hakkepelita, X-Ice, etc all work well for the entire winter season if you're not going to the tracks. Save you car and make sure you can steer and brake.

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Dude, I get it you live in Alaska. Totally different type of climate cycle. Completely understand your need for dedicated tires. My recommendation was based on where he and I live and the weather cycle over the past 3-4 seasons.

Keep it in perspective.

People need to keep things in perspective when making recommendations. There is no "blanket" response that's good for every situation.

I picked up the car with the Pirelli all-season tires. They were okay in some light snow but you had to go easy on them. Swapped them out with Michelin Pilot Alpin PA4 tires and now the car's a tank. It's not about the snow, it's about the rubber compound. My Michelin Pilot A/S 3+ tires turn into hockey pucks when it's super cold out.

I love the winter handling.

So easy to slide around turns

All season tires suck in snow. Get a set of good winter tires and you’ll see world of difference.
I am running Michelin x-ice and have no issues navigating snowy roads in SW/NW Pennsylvania.

blaqsheep said:

I picked up the car with the Pirelli all-season tires. They were okay in some light snow but you had to go easy on them. Swapped them out with Michelin Pilot Alpin PA4 tires and now the car's a tank. It's not about the snow, it's about the rubber compound. My Michelin Pilot A/S 3+ tires turn into hockey pucks when it's super cold out.

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Yep, just as the test from Tire Rack stated about the Michelins. In fact the only HP A/S they recommended for snow was the Conti DWS 06. But then in the dry the Michelin A/S 3+ edged the DWS 06 out. All about compromise

I never said all A/S tires were good in snow

Parabola said:

All season tires suck in snow. Get a set of good winter tires and you’ll see world of difference.
I am running Michelin x-ice and have no issues navigating snowy roads in SW/NW Pennsylvania.

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Another grossly general statement.

heiney9 said:

Another grossly general statement.

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Actually all seasons suck in non-winter weather as well. They are a compromise and they fail to deliver benefits that dedicated summer or winter tires can.

heiney9 said:

Sorry, but I have lived in the snow belt my entire life and used mostly all- season tires and never been in the ditch. Perhaps you need a driving lesson.

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"You need a driving lesson" term has been taken for granted many times here. I am not sure how many driving lessons you took go become an expert. I work with a team who do vehicle test for living and most of them has winter tires on their daily drivers and thats for a reason. Can you recommend a driving course to improve daily winter driving for professionals who already have grade3 license to test vehicles on a track.

heiney9 said:

I have the Pirelli Cinturato P7 All-seasons on my MK7. They aren't as bad as people say. In fact based on people from this board and their vehement dislike, I have to say these are doing well. Haven't had any issues so far this Winter. I was going to replace them with DWS 06's right away. But I'll keep them on a bit longer now that they are better than people said. Still they are very average, but not as bad as people say.

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heiney9 said:

I drive pretty aggressively in the snow and wet weather. Even on mediocre A/S tires I don't have too many issues. With the DWS 06 I can pass 4x4's and trucks. Can't take a corner super aggressive however.

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Aggressive is greatly subjective. And you are very happy with your Pirelli Cinturato P7 stock tires which many people here would very well disagree. What is aggressive to you, might be normal to me.

heiney9 said:

Dedicated snow tires are better, but they have disadvantages too. Especially when the weather gets mild and/or there is no snow or ice on the ground.

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heiney9 said:

P.s. Ever tried to stop on snow tires when it's bare ground and 50* out? Scary and I used to run Blizzaks in the Winter, but the DWS 06 was 75% of a good snow tire as long as you don't drive like an idiot.

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There exists performance winter tires which strikes a balance between dry, wet and snow with a good speed rating.

Parabola said:

Actually all seasons suck in non-winter weather as well. They are a compromise and they fail to deliver benefits that dedicated summer or winter tires can.

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You are certainly entitled to your opinion and atleast you attempted to qualify it this time. Not sure what "suck" means to you. A very vague descriptor that many seem to use, but have zero explanations to back up exactly what "suck" means. I know it's not a good term, but just like many other words, they are different degrees of interpretation. Plus using the single word "suck" to describe something makes you appear a bit juvenile and hard to take seriously.

I'd like to see some of you street racers actually use the full potential of the ultra high performance summer tires you use. The differences while on the track are there, but for street use, highly unlikely. So much hubris about how other tires suck, but nothing to back it up beyond parroting they "suck".

Plus UHP Summer tires have other disadvantages and compromises just like A/S tires have their compromises. You just choose to live with it and accept it.

The difference between a well engineered UHP A/S tire and a UHP Summer is much less than you think in everything but track use. There are duds as well as winners in BOTH categories of tires.

Each have their pluses and minuses unless you are talking about single use as in just for the track, etc.