All Weather or Snow

[TheNewBlack]

Another thing to consider Lyssa is that you don't have traction issues in a regular 3. In an MS3 it becomes a struggle to get the power to the ground so having good tires becomes even more important. I could never run an all-season tire on a performance car. Just seems completely counterproductive to me.

Agreed.

[deepSpeedMS3]

all depends on your goals for the car and driving style. Not everyone buys a performance car to "drive the shit out of it" or "push it to the limit and see what its got!". especially in the winter. i would never drive my car in the winter the same as i would in the summer months. Some people, myself, bought it for the looks and option to drive/track the car if you want to. I personally think you should have a summer set and a winter/all-season set. that's what i have.

My question: why do company's even make high performance all-seasons and "nobody" should buy them? They have to be making a profit somewhere with all-season.

[bellalyssa]

He doesn't have a speed. With the performance parts, if he is putting down more power to the wheels then it makes sense. I can understand where the traction issue comes from with MS3s, I'm just saying that I haven't had an issue with my all seasons on my car. With that said, I will be switching to summers next year

With autocrossing, I can definitely tell a difference between my all seasons and dedicated summer or race tires. I get more grip and they do hold up longer. Financially, it just made sense to go with all seasons at the time I got them. It's a give and take for sure.

[tbot]

I run all seasons just fine...even autox with them. SOOO...depends on how much money you want to spend. I ran all seasons on my 3 and never had a problem. I run all seasons on my ms6 and never had a problem (well autox woulda been nice to have a lil more traction) but for day to day driving...

I think a set of dedicated snows is always going to be better than all seasons, but at the same time its all about how much money you want to spend. Me on one end would rather have a set of all seasons for everyday summer/winter driving and a second set for autox. Someone else who doesn't race might have a dedicated summer and another winter set. Or like when I had my 3, just one set of kick *** all seasons.

[erod550]

You're right Lyssa he doesn't have a speed. My bad. So many new people and I'm getting them mixed up lol.

[bellalyssa]

I think a set of dedicated snows is always going to be better than all seasons, but at the same time its all about how much money you want to spend. Me on one end would rather have a set of all seasons for everyday summer/winter driving and a second set for autox. Someone else who doesn't race might have a dedicated summer and another winter set. Or like when I had my 3, just one set of kick *** all seasons.

I think my plan is to go with a summer set that has a Z rating on them. The Dunlop ZR1's pique my interest quite a bit. I can run them all summer, not have to switch out tires for autocrossing and then just throw the winters on when it starts with the snow stuffs.

[AIM WO4]

I have a set of summers and a set of winters. I drive like a crazy person though.

[dommo_g]

if you tear shit up with all season tires, you'd tear even more shit up with summer tires.

qft.












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[Operator]

Echoing alot of posts here. I've got a set of dedicated winter wheels and tires, along with a wheel and tire set for the summer. I even went so far as to get my wife's Montero a dedicated set of wheels with A/S tires to go along with the wheels she has for her winter tires. I've only been here one winter season, and I already know that winter tires are worth their weight. Invest the money in some cheap wheels that you'll run in the winter and slap some winter tires on them and as many have stated, you'll be able to swap them out whenever you want. Beats having to pay a shop every time you want to swap tires out.

[MazdaTom]

Do you like to be able to stop no matter what? That's really what winter tires are about. They do offer some acceleration and cornering traction, but they really earn their keep when you can stop on snow pack as well with good winter tires as you can with all seasons on dry pavement. I got to drive on the ice at the Pepsi Center during the Denver Grand Prix back in 2003. Bridgestone had a demonstration set up- 2 identical vehicles (Honda CR-Vs or something). One with all seasons and one with Blizzaks. Both cars started at one goal line and accelerated as fast as you could up to center ice, then you stood on the brakes and let the ABS do it's thing. The Blizzak vehicle beat the all season car to center ice and stopped shorter than the all season car even though it was going faster when it hit center ice. After experiencing that, I was sold- although I have never bought Blizzaks.....

Sure you can "get through" a winter on all seasons. Hell, you could "get through" a winter with bald summer tires. But if the need should suddenly arise that you need to stop quickly, you'll be best served with a good set of winter tires. Of my 16 years of driving, I've only driven 4 winters with winter tires. I "got through" on all seasons with lots of slipping and sliding and TONS of luck- one of those winters was actually on bald summer tires.

I'm sticking with winters from here on out.

[AIM WO4]

Blizzaks are awesome. Once you lose the outside 50-ish percent of tread, they are more like every other winter tire though... the only draw back.

Do you like to be able to stop no matter what? That's really what winter tires are about. They do offer some acceleration and cornering traction, but they really earn their keep when you can stop on snow pack as well with good winter tires as you can with all seasons on dry pavement. I got to drive on the ice at the Pepsi Center during the Denver Grand Prix back in 2003. Bridgestone had a demonstration set up- 2 identical vehicles (Honda CR-Vs or something). One with all seasons and one with Blizzaks. Both cars started at one goal line and accelerated as fast as you could up to center ice, then you stood on the brakes and let the ABS do it's thing. The Blizzak vehicle beat the all season car to center ice and stopped shorter than the all season car even though it was going faster when it hit center ice. After experiencing that, I was sold- although I have never bought Blizzaks.....

Sure you can "get through" a winter on all seasons. Hell, you could "get through" a winter with bald summer tires. But if the need should suddenly arise that you need to stop quickly, you'll be best served with a good set of winter tires. Of my 16 years of driving, I've only driven 4 winters with winter tires. I "got through" on all seasons with lots of slipping and sliding and TONS of luck- one of those winters was actually on bald summer tires.

I'm sticking with winters from here on out.

[Operator]

A good read: http://www.insideline.com/features/tire-test-all-season-vs-snow-vs-summer.html

[roninspeed3]

Good article

"Meanwhile, snow and summer tires provide clear benefits to those who can use them. In this particular test, at least, all-season tires live up to the old figure of speech our old dad used to trot out on occasion: "jack of all trades, master of none."

[rmeeker13]

Pirrelli soto zeros are bad *** snow tires...i ran them for two years or so.

[chromal]

Apologies for thread necromancy, seemed like the most topical place to post...

So I finally took my 2010 Mazda3 with its Yokohama Avid S3.4 all-seasons out on the snow. Or rather, got caught with my pants down when I drove out for a quick lunch (work at home on Tues/Thurs) and upon heading home, found 1/2in of fresh snow on the last mile of twisty road where I climb from maybe 8200 to 8700ft elevation.

A couple of principles reaffirmed, a few new (to me) ones established:

• All seasons with tread kinda-sorta work on the snow if you're driving on a flat snowy paved road surface, but will tend to surprise you with how little grip they have on curves and grades. Serious and unexpected understeer (or would you just flat out call that 'slipping off the road'?) on curved roads, tendency to break traction on braking/acceleration, the usual.
• It's still scary to unexpectedly break traction at low speed on a corner with a guard rail or ditch on the outside. It's still embarrassing to be passed by someone because you're stopped in the middle of the road on an uphill grade on account of no grip to power your way forward.
• FWD's one saving grace remains that you can occasionally *pull* you way out of a bad situation when you've otherwise lost control, but this is an order of magnitude better with winter tires.
• DSC isn't just unhelpful for handling, it actually works against you for delivering power to the wheels. If the only way to go forward is to spin your tires, you will not go, period, with DSC enabled. If you're trying to drive up, say, a steep grade of freshly snow-covered asphalt, your engine will lose power until you're stopped, tires spinning very slowly, even with the gas pedal to the floor, RPMs limited steady at 1250. I'm scratching my head at what sort of scenario DSC was intended to be helpful for, but it certainly isn't driving on snow up steep grades with all-season tires, and I'm pretty sure it would work against a similar scenario on winter tires too.

Hope this is helpful. Dunno, nothing new here really, but I guess I had to see some of this firsthand with the mazda3. Mazda3 daily driver winter tires are not optional in the winter Colorado foothills, period.

In unrelated news, drove the Honda to work today for the first time since August.