Time for Winter Tires?

[redline9001]

couple in progress

[Chowster]

Thanks for this! Interesting... Considering my climate is never close to -10C with minimal snow and tons of rain, I actually find the wintersport 3D not bad at all. Our winter temps are 2 to 10C. I'll try and drive Doctor_J's E93 with LM25s for comparison this winter.

Originally Posted by stefan

Sure! I can come to a clear answer on this actually..

1. LM-60 - replacement for LM25, great tire for our cars, good wear, and best all-rounder. They hold up really well in very cold conditions. They handle snow well. Deep snow, they aren't as good as the Nokian's, but they counter that with better "warm" wear and dry handling.
2. LM-25 - about the same in my experience.. I didn't wear the tread down on the LM-60s enough to know if its low-tread grip was any better than the 25's.
3. Nokian Hakkipilleta R's - amazing grip, easily the best of the bunch but quite soft and wear down very fast in the dry/warm. Being Calgary, we have too much fluctuation IMO to get the most money out of these tires. But if snow is the main concern, these are the best.
4. X-Ice 2 - slightly improved over the original X-Ice, though I had problems -30 and down. Snow performance was pretty bad.
5. X-Ice - not a very good tire. Didn't wear too badly, but really didn't offer good grip in any situations.
6. Wintersport 3D - by a large margin the worst of the bunch. These were even on my STi and were still completely useless. I don't know what these tires are supposed to be good at.. maybe marginally cold days above -10C. But for most of the winter I found them to be useless.

[Chowster]

Just put on the winter wheels and tires today. It's surprisingly cold in Vancouver these days. Maybe the predictions for a cold and harsh winter may be correct....

Alufelgen 19" CS7 wheels
Dunlop SP Wintersport 3D tires 235/35/19 and 255/35/19.

Also found a screw in one of my summer tires today when it was taken off the car. I dropped the wheel off at my dealership and they'll replace the tire next week under my Road Hazard Warranty coverage. So convenient that I don't even have to leave my car or wait for it to be done!

[BMWftw]

Wheels look amazing Will, I really need to get mine soon. Where'd ya order yours?

[Chowster]

Originally Posted by BMWftw

Wheels look amazing Will, I really need to get mine soon. Where'd ya order yours?

Ordered directly from Alufelgen. Check the vendor classifieds for a few options.