[s-cars] Snow tire shopping, blizzak vs Nokian vs? thoughts?

[LL - NY]

Actually, I thought the entire Alpin line was mostly designed for ice and
hardpack conditions, which bears out in my experience with them. They were
the first with the Michelin's patented "Y" sipe, which was done to keep the
sipe to tread ration constant as the tires wore. As I said, they were pretty
exceptional on freezing rain (the really scary stuff) and pretty damned good
on hard pack. They were just simply terrible in loose stuff.

LL - NY

On 11/18/08, Erik Addy <erikaddy at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I think that the X-Ice series is designed with different priorities than
> the Alpins were (or the current Pilot/Primacy series).  They are designed
> more for winter traction than low noise/dry traction like the Alpins.  This
> shows in the tread pattern and compound (the X-Ice are Q-rated, the new
> Xi2's are T rated).
>
> Erik
>
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* LL - NY <larrycleung at gmail.com>
> *To:* Erik Addy <erikaddy at yahoo.com>
> *Cc:* s-car-list at audifans.com
> *Sent:* Tuesday, November 18, 2008 10:44:11 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [s-cars] Snow tire shopping, blizzak vs Nokian vs?
> thoughts?
>
> Hopefully, Michelin has progressed from their original Artic Alpins (which
> we had on my parent's Legacy AWD). Very good dry tire, very good wet tire,
> pretty exceptional on their supposed forte (ice), but boy did they SUCK in
> fresh, unpacked snow. Car was wickedly squirrly on fresh stuff, and that car
> had NO Horsepower. They were okay on hardpack (which was good) or post
> plowed roads, although I'd expect most A/S tires would do just fine on
> post-plowed roads.
>
> FWIW, my brother's Artic Alpins on his Mazda 6 seemed to lack traction
> (although it's FWD and I'm still not sure that he truly understands how to
> be effective using traction control) on any form of snow, fresh or packed.
> Me thinks it may be par for the course, as in France gets mostly wetter snow
> that melts to form ice, so they've biased their tires to meet such
> conditions.
>
> LL - NY
>
> On 11/17/08, Erik Addy <erikaddy at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> In the past I have always purchased Hakkas, as they are "the stuff"...
>>
>> Lately, however, cost has become more of an issue for me, and the Nokians
>> have gone up in price a bit, due to the value (or lack thereof) of the
>> dollar.  This year, I bought a set of Michelin X-Ice Xi2's for my wife's
>> Passat 1.8t 4motion (with manual).  I haven't driven them on snow, yet, but
>> I think they are fine on the dry for what they are (and I'm confident they
>> are significantly better than a Blizzak WS-60).  Based on my experience with
>> the last version of this tire (the original X-Ice) and the Tire Rack reviews
>> and info regarding the new model, I think they will do quite well on the
>> ice/snow.  Hard to get, due to the Canadians buying them all up, but the
>> Tire Rack came through for me.
>>
>> Other good values out there-
>> Hankook I-Pike 409 (very similar to the Hakka studdables), available at
>> Discount TIre
>> General Alitimax Artic, which is apparently a rebranded Gislavad (same
>> parent company) sold at a lower price, available at TIre Rack.
>>
>>
>> Erik
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>