[s-cars] NAC - Snows on an 04 Jetta

[Lee Levitt]

Ian,

For your route I'd go with non-studs. Studs are only really useful on 
ice and only marginally so. And most of our winter we don't have real 
ice, just slush and occasional powder. Nokians are fine. You'd 
actually find studs to be dangerous on wet roads and annoying on dry roads.

The RSi is what I run on my cars. A fabulous tire for a quattro, 
should be fine for your Jetta.

Lee

At 10:52 AM 11/30/2007, Ian Duff wrote:
>So, I'm in a quandary. I need snows on my 04 Jetta TDI commuter, as
>it is no quattro, and the round, black, holds air now balding OEM
>skins suck in anything by dry, sunny, SoCal advertising weather.
>
>I have "found" two studded snows, and two non-studded snows from a
>neighbor. Neither is still available new or used, even looking at the
>local used tire shops or craigslist or ebay. The local tire shop says
>they will not stud the old snows, too difficult, and too hard to
>clean out the stud holes enough to get good seating of the studs,
>leading to shedding studs as I drive. Not something I'm looking
>forward to, and the travel brochures recommend against it.
>
>Obviously I can't have studded snows on one end, non-studded snows on
>the other end. I might be ugly, but I'm not dumb. Not that much,
>anyway. However, I am cheap, so I don't want to buy four new tires,
>particularly as I already have two. So, I can buy two studded snows
>or two non-studded snows, and drive the "found" tires into the
>ground, then replace them next fall or even the fall after that with
>two more of whatever I buy now.
>
>So, given that this is a commuter, 95% of my miles are on eventually
>plowed interstates between New Bedford and Cambridge, MA, I don't
>want to get stuck, and I'm pissed that there are no quattro TDIs,
>what do I do? Studded snows will make the FWD Jetta closer to quattro
>invincible, but are prolly not necessary in the vast majority of
>driving I do. Non-studded snows will prolly suffice, but will they be
>enough for a FWD car?
>
>Nokians are the brand of choice. If I go studded, it looks like Hakka
>5 is what's cheaply/easily available, whereas if I go non-studded,
>Hakka 5  or RSi is available. I'm leaning toward the RSi.
>
>Thoughts?
>
>-Ian Duff.
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