[s-cars] Thompson's Vermont snow tire choice

[Thompson Smith]

Hands down the absolute best snow tire I've used is the Hakki 1s (and now
IIs) with eco studs. I used to live in Lake Tahoe and used Hakki 10s. I've
used Hakki 1s since they came out in the 195/65-15 size for the last seven
years living here in Northern Vermont through varing conditions, slush, ice,
ice and salt, crud, crispy dry snow and very wet snow. On my old '89 200
Avant, '87 Porsche 944 (which made it almost invincible for a one wheel
drive car), and my '84 urq. Narrower the better. They cut and rip, right
down to the hard stuff - with major tread clearing abilities. All the rallye
guys over at Vermont SportsCar and at John Buffum's shop Libra Racing have
used them as well. Tire of choice I guess.

This winter it's time for new snow tires for my //S4. I have 993tt calipers
and //S6+ rotors and can't run my original Speedline 7.5x15 rims and Nokian
NRW 205/65-15s anymore - bummer. So... I plunked down over to
http://www.discounttiredirect.com and bought four ATS type 10 7.5x16 ET35
rims for der //S4. They are on special at $99ea! Great looking rim, super
popular in Germany, Switzerland and most of Europe. Just came last night via
FedEx and I immediately took off the stock 8x16 and tried (with fingers
crossed) that they fit over those monster red bad boys. With two millimeters
to spare, at the top of the ID portion on the rim, they appear to not rub
anywhere. Phew! 2mm!!! I hope that this is not going to be a problem. Since
the red calipers are fixed now, they (or the rims) shouldn't flex or hit,
right? I think that it will be fine.

Since I had NRWs on the //S4, and my wife complained that they were not as
good as the Hakki 1s, I'm thinking that it's time to run the 1s on all cars.
I'll try the 205/55-16 flavor for the ATS type 10 rims.

Regards,
Thompson