[s-cars] Snow tire size debate - 15" vs 16"

[Postupack, Jeff]

I'm in favor of Jeff's idea on snow tires. 

16" is a great size.. (15 too small for a C4 chassis Quattro) 
stiff enough sidewall for those higher speed  dry days , and large
enough tire size choices at easy pricing. 

 In 2006  I bought the Icebear (Yokohama) in 225-50 -16  for $90 each
and an H rated snow tire.
Worked great in all conditions with prudent speed management. Sold them
recently.

There's lots of great tires out there.. budget dictated what I ended up
with. 

This year I am running Graspic DS-2's in 215-55 x16.. opt'ing for more
sidewall height and a tad narrow.
This is a Q rated tire running on H&R suspension, so I wanted to soften
the tire a bit.

Plus new tires with crisp sipes make it stick very well this season.
Posto 




I used to have 15's steelies with Hakkas and the last two winters have
gone
back to 16's Avus.  

16 inch snows for such a heavy car like the S-Car have better all around
performance and they fill the wheel well better if that matters to you.
If
you hit an exit ramp too hard in the 15s in the dry the car will really
role.  The 15s just felt mushy, which all snows do, but more than the
16s

I did not find a huge difference in the snow performance between 15s and
16s, with the same studded Hakka.  

If this is a dedicated ski car to hit the mountain every weekend and you
don't care about all around performance, go with the 15s. 

16s for the occasional snow storm and better looking and all weather
handling.

Jeff