Re: Snow Tire Price Showdown

["Robert K. Davis" <bob@btv.ibm.com>]

John,

  I'm not familiar with the driving conditions in Portland (I'm in Vermont) but I'll give you my take on them for the weather here.

  I'm sold on the Hakkas.  

Dry/wet weather:  As far as I'm concerned, the Hakkas are the pick here.  Not only are they T (118 mph) rated to the others' Q (99 mph) but I haven't heard any good comments on the dry weather handling of the Blizzaks.  In dry weather
I definitely hit speeds approaching the Q rating for sustained periods, and I like the larger safety margin I get with the T.

Snow:  From what I've seen, the Blizzaks approach the performance of a good studded tire on pure ice, but lag on snow and snow covered ice.  Since the latter two are also quite common here, the nod goes to the Hakkas. 

 I commute 30 miles each way to work on two lane roads, not the straightest ones either.  The past few days we've had a mix of freezing rain and snow, with snow and ice covered roads.  I've been testing out the Hakkas to see how they perform, I've been impressed.  The car feels quite stable even when negotiating some of the twistier parts of the snow covered roads at extra-legal speeds, and the braking performance in excellent.  Two days ago the ovloV in front of me was all sideways trying to stop for the stop sign, while I watched him, already having stopped (without even a hint of activating the ABS).  (OK, so maybe that isn't the ultimate test, but playing with braking while no one is around has me very happy with the Hakkas.)

I've been using Hakka 09 and 10 tires for the last 10+ years, and moved to the 1 this year.  I was skeptical about them at first, just because the 10 was a great tire on snow.  But, I'm now convinced that they've definitely made an improvement with the 1.
--
Bob Davis