Tires

[Doyt W. Echelberger]

In northern Ohio I've been running  Nokian WR2 year round on part of my 
fleet, for control on ice and snow and slush. Also leaving them on all 
summer just to test to see how that would work out.

Been doing this on 3 different cars...2 front drives and a rear drive: 
Taurus, Jetta, Benz E320. ( I have Bridgestone 950's on the 87 5ktq, and I 
roll it out whenever we can't really tell for sure where the roads are. It 
doesn't need WR2's.)

All 3 Nokian WR cars drove comfortably and safely under the worst winter 
conditions. The Benz showed the greatest improvement, going from "keep it 
parked" to "drive it anywhere."

The Jetta showed the least wear over the summer, and tires stayed round and 
quiet.

The Benz tires wore unevenly on the outer edges, and got noticeably noisy 
the second year, after a full year of winter-spring-summer-fall. The noise 
seems to be the result of wear patterns on the outer edge blocks.....with 
the leading edge of the block ending up thicker than the trailing 
edge....counter-intuitive but that is what is happening. Maybe it is 
because the leading edge can flex into groove space and the remainder of 
the block can't do that as easily, as it comes into contact with the road.

Another factor complicated drawing conclusions. The Benz suspension was 
running so soft that I replaced ball joints and all 4 shocks. Worn-out 
shocks may account for the uneven outer edge wear. Summary...inconclusive.

Taurus tire wear was even, like the Jetta.

In other years, I ran Michelin MXV4's on all those cars, with frightening 
winter driving results.

In the future, I'm considering a set of (hard to find) steel wheels for the 
Benz, for Dunlop M3's in the winter and maybe some of those cheap Kumho's 
the list is talking about....Ecsta ASX or XPT? on the alloys the rest of 
the year. Or maybe it is time to listen to all those good reports about 
Goodyear. ....staying round sounds good.

Doyt