[s-cars] Winter Tires??

[Douglas Fifield]

Here is my situation in northern Minnesota.  I run Nokian WR's (or the
current similar version) on my daily driver (a Prius) and Dunlop SP
Winter Sports on the S6 (sixth season?).  The S6 is lowered and
therefore doesn't play much in deep snow.  The Prius doesn't either,
but it is fine for 95% of our winter conditions. I take the Prius when
I go west skiing.  Would love to take the S6, but the differential in
gas costs makes the decision easy.

D.

On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 9:28 AM, Taka Mizutani <t44tqtro at gmail.com> wrote:
> Now you're getting into hyperbole, Scott. While your point about driving
> skill is definitely a good one and valid.
>
> That said, there is a reason why some of the European car mags do tire
> testing on winter tires- some tires simply do better on certain types of
> surfaces than others. With that information, it makes it a lot easier to
> match a tire to your particular driving conditions.
>
> Arguing that you have the wrong vehicle is just silly- there are plenty of
> people in the snow belt that do not drive SUVs and pickups and get around
> just fine. But having tires that can cope better with fresh snow is
> important if you deal with it on a daily basis. Performance on dry roads
> may be irrelevant if you're always on snow-covered roads and it snows often
> in your locale. Most people don't have the luxury of just switching cars.
>
> Tire performance on dry and wet roads is also tested frequently. Are you
> going to discount all of those tests as well? Driver skill is a larger
> factor than whether one high-performance tire is slightly better than the
> other.
>
> Finally, with the current cars and their electronic aids, a tire that
> performs well might be all that more important- ESP takes a lot of driver
> skill out of the equation until you exceed the performance envelope within
> which the system operates. Without a good tire for the conditions,
> non-defeatable ESP will thwart your inputs, sometimes to the point of being
> dangerous when the car becomes unresponsive because it thinks you're doing
> something crazy.
>
> Taka
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-- 
Douglas in MN
95.5 Audi S//6 Avant
08 Prius Touring (50 mpg reg)
73 BMW R60/5 mit Toaster Tank
82 BMW R100RT mit Russkie Sidecar
ABC# 11822