Snow Tire report: Dunlop Graspic

["Tim King" <tking_ms@email.msn.com>]

Hey snow lovers --

I'm pretty happy with these tires (Graspic HS-1). They were dirt cheap
($48/ea at my local discount tire for 195/65/15), yet drive impressively:

Rain -- It's been dumping here the past month. These tires handled major
water-on-the-roadway situation, that would have had my SP8000Es in the
weeds. They also seem to have good traction on just plain rain-slick roads.

Snow -- I've taken the tires up to the pass (Steven's) twice now. They did
just fine in compact snow and ice, and fantastically on non-compacted
logging road snow. At one point, I passed two 4x4s (probably w/ all season
tires, to be fair), out hunting for Christmas trees that had chained up and
turned around. As I continued cooking  up the hill, they looked at me like I
was crazy. At another point, I ran into some 4x4ers coming down the hill.
The wouldn't pull off (even though they were going downhill, had ground
clearance, and nice compacted turnout -- the jerks!), so I had to back up
and bury the rear of the car in a small bank (about 18" deep). They went by,
and the last jeep stopped, thinking he'd have to pull me out. I was feeling
pretty cocky so I locked the rear diff, hit the gas and popped right out. My
wife, who was out of the car with our dog heard them on their radios --
"that must be wunna those quattros."

Dry -- OK, we haven't had much of this, but I can tell you these are less
squishy than my old Blizzaks, but nowhere near the feel of my summer tires.
One (big) problem... these tires are loud. Louder than the Blizzaks, _way_
louder than the SP8000s, just plain loud. They make a nasty high pitch hum
that had me thinking "bad wheel bearing." I can live with it (see my stereo
post), but I'm sure it would bother the more delicate among you.

Anyway, I'll post back in spring about how they wear.

Tim
Seattle Wa
89 200tqw