Winter Tire Longevity?

Jeffblue

Time to start thinking about my winter set up. I live in NY (long island) My Z is my daily driver, however, on really snowy days i can commute with my dad (AWD G35x) or theoretically just work from home. I'm curious about the longevity of winter tires. Anyone have any experience? how many seasons can i expect to get out of these? I was thinking of putting them on mid-late november, until sometime in late feb/march. I've read if you run them around 32F/0C or colder they wear very little, but on a warm day they will wear more heavily. makes sense. any please share your experience/insight.

mpanecki

the bridgestone blizziaks are supposed to be pretty good

kenchan

on my other car i use snow tires and they wear pretty well. its going to be its 3rd season and plenty of thread left.

kenchan

btw, just a FYI, the blizzak LM-60's come in our stock sport 19 size... this is what i would do on stock 19's if i was going to run my Z in the winter.

Bridgestone Blizzak LM-60

spearfish25

I have the LM-60s and they work great. As you noted, putting them on once winter really hits and getting them off early will prolong their lifespan. Also, I transition into winter granny driving as soon as I put them on. Even though they are 'performance' winter tires, they neuter the car.

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Jeffblue

Thats what i want to do deep down, i have just 2 concerns though. Price and width. The sport package wheels with 245/275 tires are wider than the stock 18's, do you think that extra .5 inch is enough to significantly hinder safety or traction with the LM-60's?

That is good news!

have you got them on the 19's or 18's?


thanks for the reponses guys

kenchan

jeff- as for 18's i would recommend you use the stock size 18's or the next narrow size available.

ideally to get max traction in snow it's better to use the narrowest you can fit so that it digs into ice. but most roads (unless you are in mountains) the streets are plowed and the most you might drive is like 4inches... so the wide tires will do fine, i thinks and just looks so much better.

shumby

man go 18@ and get a set of piolet alpins (michelin) they are 100 times better then the blizzacks. I have had both and I only put one winter on the blizzacks took them off and scraped them. Litterally put a knife through them and off to the dump. They sucked compaired to my michelins.

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lemansz20

Hankook makes a very good winter tire, I have had VERY good feedback from them. Dont know if you wanna try that route.

Cmike2780

I had a set on my old maxima a few years back when I lived in Buffalo. They were awesome once the snow hit the ground which was pretty much once or twice a week. On dry roads however, they would break loose easily. It's fine if you don't mind driving like a grandma when you have them on. I would put them on as late as possible and they went through 4 winters without any signs of major wear before I sold the car.

To be honest, aside from the occassional winter storms on Long Island, we can get away with all season tires as a winter set. It's not going to have the extreme snow traction of the dedicated winter tires, but it will get you home...and like you said, you could always hitch a ride with your dad. I just borrow my sister's car for those occasions. It might run a little cheaper if you decide to go with m/s all season vs. winter tires depending on the set.

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kenchan

hummm... the LM60's i use do not break loose in the dry..actually they grip better than the all seaons that came with the other car...

not all snow tires are the same i guess.

Cmike2780

Sorry, I meant compared to summer tires. I had the Blizzak's on the car.

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Jeffblue

If i go either size, i am going to stick with stock tire sizes

my cousin is in the tire business so i just called up the guy at the front and he told what they had based on the 18" sizes and 19" sizes i gave him. He said i was looking at Pirelli 240 soto Zero's for 19's for 1271 for the whole set. for 18" he said that dunlop winter sport M3s would run 950 for the set. He also raised the issue of potholes considering how plagued the north east is by potholes in winter. He said that consumer reports rated the dunlop M3's the best winter tire last year (i can tell he is not biased since they are a goodyear shop, and he didn't even mention any goodyear tires to me) he also said i could probably get 3-4 seasons out of the dunlops. Anyone have experience with these?

I tried checking these out, but they don't seem to come in the right sizes 225/50-18,245/45/18
Thanks, I will see what i can find with the hankooks too.

I'm thinking i might as well just go for winters since i have 2 dedicated sets of wheels, one of which has summer tires, which i'd like have on from march through november because i love how they look, i'd really only be getting these so i can drive the car in really cold, occasionally snowy conditions, so winter tires seems like the best choice. last winter i had all seasons on my altima, and i could lose traction pretty easily (i would do it on purpose in a parking lot so just so i could know how the car behaved in snow), i'd be a little scared of that in a car with 2x the power and RWD.