Hakka dis, hakka dat...

Bill Elliott wcelliot at concentric.net
Thu Jan 31 17:34:01 EST 2002


<<Has anyone tried *current* Blizzak vs. the Nokians? How about Gislaved

Nord Frost? Hasn't heard much about that one on the list.>>

Well, I _do_ ice race and I live where studs are not legal.

Here's my take:

The new Blizzak MZ-01 appears to be the trick tire for ice this year.
Best thing on the track, but not by a large margin. Hakka Q is quite
close.  And the Blizzaks reportedly still have the same poor dry
pavement behavior of the old WS-15's, but are slightly better on wet
pavement. If I was _just_ going to ice race, I'd buy the MZ-01's. But in
the "real world" I prefer the Q's. (Even over the NRW's... the Q's are
that much better in the slick stuff and not that much worse on the
street, especially when "aired up" a bit.)

I also have a set of Gislaved Nord Frosts. They are exceptional in the
snow, decent on ice, very long wearing. They are a bit better than Q's
on dry pavement. From what I understand, very similar overall to Hak
1's.  I also run Hak 10's on my Suburban. Very good on snow and in mud,
very stable  on the highway, very long wearing, somewhat mediocre on
ice.

Finally, I am campaigning a Fiesta this year rather than my quattro
(which has apparently just sold) I decided to experiment with a cheap
set of tires I bought from Ebay... a set of Canadian Tire IceTracs. New,
these were only about C$60 each... I got them for less than half that.
Very impressive tires... not quite Q's but close.  I took first in class
at the last ice race, so they're worth checking out.

Finally, there is always the argument "Do I need snow tires?" and the
accompanying "Do I need expensive snow tires?"  I'll offer "Probably
yes" to the first and "Probably no" to the second.  The added traction
of any pure snow tire far so exceeds that of any all-season that they
are worth buying even if you don't have constant snow. (And that also
allows you to dump the all-season tires and get real summer tires.)  But
you don't need the expensive stuff unless you have special needs... like
ice racing or if you want more of the dry pavement feel and high speed
performance of an all season tire....

Bill Elliott
Lake Barrington, IL




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