Quote:
Originally Posted by 10"
Snow tire > Winter tire.
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^^
This guy winters.
"Performance winter" == I want to be able to take it out in light snow, but if there's a real blizzard, I get in my G wagen / some other AWD beast thing
snow / ice tire == I actually need to drive this car in snow and ice, I have no second car
I have Michelin XIce3 only because I couldn't easily get my hands on Nokian Hakka R2s in the time window I had before winter hit. (Xice3 are stocked by TireRack so easy)
I've mentioned this elsewhere on this subforum, but a year ago we had a huge storm not long after Christmas, probably a foot or more of snow and plows couldn't keep up (plus holidays). I drove across town, including freeway, through all sorts of mess. No problems. Watched a Honda Civic get stuck in snow at a traffic light turning left. So much snow that you couldn't even begin to see lane lines or anything, he was kind of cheating to center even though I think it's only a 2-lane street. He was stuck partway into the intersection; I was able to turn right at the same light and get around him without any trouble.
One sketchy time when I hit black ice on an overpass on the freeway - first time I've ever actually experienced the whole "bridge freezes first" thing, there were cars slid off the highway all over the place. I got a little squirrelly but I just gently came off throttle and slowed, and then applied some brake once I quelled the momentum from the back end (it was a banked turn overpass). That was the one time I wished I had studded tires.
So yeah, there are really two schools of thought with "winter tires."
You either want something that is more flexible (i.e. doesn't turn hard like a hockey puck when cold) than a summer tire but is still mostly dry-performance-focused, or you want something that actually deals with deep snow and ice.
It really comes down to whether you have other cars to drive, or if you know what lake effect snow is... Without real snowfall amounts, the "performance winter" stuff makes sense.