RE: WINTER TIRES

[Jouko Haapanen <joukoh@vtoy.fi>]

We've had a number of our new-car buying customers return Blizzaks for a 
full refund to the tire reatailers after they found the dry/wet 
driveability horrible.  We sell almost exclusively Nokian (Nokian 1, NRW, 
NRW-H, and the new NRW-Q)  tires for winter use to our customers, with the 
odd Continental (Viking Stop) or Michelin (Maxi-Ice or Ivalo) sprinkled in. 
 Snow tires are legislated here Dec 1 to March 1, but in reality the usage 
is one month longer at each end - six months of the year.  The new NRW-Q 
blew away the competition in the latest non-studded comparo here, the 
Blizzak was_only_better on pure ice.  It even outperformed most of the 
studded tires.

FWIW, my A4 has NRW-H's, my wifes A3 has Nokian 1's and my UrQ is getting 
NRW-H's.  I like the NRW-H for its better speed rating and rounder 
shoulder, giving me more wet/dry performance.  Our demos are almost all on 
NRW-Q's, save for the odd NRW-H and Nokian 1 with studs.

Jouko Haapanen
Pori, Finland

On Friday, October 30, 1998 6:06 PM, Dave Michael 
[SMTP:dave.michael@quantum.com] wrote:
> I used to have a coupe Qq with 4 1st generation blizzaks and I thought 
the
> blizzaks were horrible. The ONLY think they did well was grip on ice, but 
they
> were so squooshy on dry pavement that I didn't even like driving the car. 
> Currently, on my 200 qw, I run the older h-rated pirrelli winter 210, 
which,
> like a previous noter mentioned, handles on dry like an allseason tire, 
and I
> find to be very suffciant in snow and ice. On my wife's mbs 190 2.3-16, I 
have
> four pirrelli winter master ice tires (q-rated), and the car does 
amazingly
> well in snow/ice  with those, PLUS, it doesn't handle like a 63 crown 
imperial
> with no shocks.
>
> I would get any of the pirrellis again, since they seem to have the best 
combo
> of dry handeling vs snow/ice performance.
>
> Dave
>