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Driving stories with good snow tires.

billski

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Warning! Tis is not a "why you should have snow tires" thread!

Sunday was the first day I really got to use my snows this season. I picked up some Bridgestone LM-25s two seasons ago, while the rest of the family uses WS-60s.

Trip from metro Boston to Magic (VT). Started as pouring rain in the metro area. Out route 2, at about Fitchburg it changed quickly to wet snow, within a few miles it began to accumulate on the road. By Orange MA it was accumulating on the road, painted road lines disappeared. The snow became very heavy, it was dark, few other cars, no taillights to follow; the challenge wasn't the snow, it was the limited visibility and hypnotic effect of the snow at night. The car held nice and steady, no slipping, even as the tracks I followed weaved over to the breakdown road margin. It lightened abround Greenfield, then stopped completely, back to dry road. Nearing VT border the snow picked up again, and I-81 at 9pm became an unmarked road. Snow was accumulating, though not too deep, perhaps 2-3" on the road. When I departed at exit 6, I expected worse, but the local roads were actually a pleasure to drive on.

These tires were really nice. I was a bit worried that "performance" snow tires might be dumbed down in terms of handling, but it proved otherwise.

My only "white knuckle driving" had to do with visibility. I didn't worry about traction at all.

Being up early, I drove the unplowed Magic dropoff area. I tooled up the 8" on the steep but short hill with no problem. Those tires have make driving in the snow a pleasure!
 

St. Bear

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I have Dunlop Winter 3D on my Mazda. Driving home during the New Years storm, whiteout conditions in parts of northern 84. The left lane was completely covered in snow drifts (~3-4 inches deep), and cars were only traveling in the right two lanes. I was able to drive comfortably in the left lane at 50mph, while everybody was stuck doing 35 in traffic in the right lanes. Probably drove that way for 30 minutes and passed hundreds of cars. Occasionally, other people would try to join me, and when I did have to hit the brakes, I had no problems with traction or sliding of any kind in the snow.
 

hammer

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flatlands of Mass.
Warning! Tis is not a "why you should have snow tires" thread!
Of course it is...you just want to rub it on on those of us who don't have snow tires... :razz:

Been looking for a set, but I'm a little leery of spending several hundred on wheels/tires though craigslist, and a set of new wheels and tires will be at least $1200.
 

wa-loaf

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I'm just happy to have them. My all-seasons were pretty crappy in the snow, so that the ABS kicked on even when coming to a stop a slow speeds. They seemed even worse than the stock tires I first got with the car. Have to really slam the breaks now to trigger them. Handled great on the drive up to Cannon through both 6-8 unplowed inches in spots and slick highway.
 

wa-loaf

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Of course it is...you just want to rub it on on those of us who don't have snow tires... :razz:

Been looking for a set, but I'm a little leery of spending several hundred on wheels/tires though craigslist, and a set of new wheels and tires will be at least $1200.

What do you have for a car? http://forums.alpinezone.com/showthread.php?t=68744

That seems pretty steep. Skip the wheels this season and get the tires. Add wheels next year.
 

roark

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I love my manual Mitsui Outlander AWD + Bridgestone WS-60 in snow. The only problem is I forget that most people ahead of me have neither the appropriate tires nor AWD and sometimes get impatient :)

Making 'first tracks' with riv through Franconia notch and over rte 2 to Bethel a couple weekends ago was easy - pretty much drove the speed limit the whole way with no sketchiness.
 

Puck it

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Never used them. So I don't have any. I have AT on the FJ now does that count. But I have not driven in any reasonable snow yet except for the slush yesterday.
 

mondeo

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The Monday after Christmas, WNY was getting a couple inches/hour. I found a parking lot. I had a lot of fun for a few minutes. A lot of traction and a lot of power with AWD means a lot of control over donuts.
 

WJenness

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The Monday after Christmas, WNY was getting a couple inches/hour. I found a parking lot. I had a lot of fun for a few minutes. A lot of traction and a lot of power with AWD means a lot of control over donuts.

I did the same thing the first Sat. in December... My buddy and I go to the MA high school superbowls every year. They were at Gillette Stadium this year. We got there about half way through the first game and stayed until the end of the day. The last two games were held in a pretty steady snowfall. I came out to find that they had been parking people in other lots all day, so I had a big lot of an empty canvas... Much hilarity ensued... Good times...

-w
 

bigbog

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I hear where you're coming from billski. I remember driving up to Sugarloaf from Boston area in mid 80s in the very early morning hours in my Toyota Corolla on somewhat bogus 80s ATs in what ended up being minimum of ~8" of untracked from Augusta on up. Slow speed all the way from Augusta area but had to keep some momentum going or else would've gotten stuck. Still remember more than several times totally losing one's bearings of the road shape & size.....LOL, but I wasn't laughing then = white-knuckle time:-o...

$.01
 

Glenn

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Never used them. So I don't have any. I have AT on the FJ now does that count. But I have not driven in any reasonable snow yet except for the slush yesterday.

I bet you'll like them. I'm running A/T's on the Jeep and they do great in the snow.
 

billski

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:lol: Someone needs some anger management classes... ;)
+1 on anger management. However, he does make a good point for the first two sentences before he goes off the deep end. The driver who pulls selfishly out into traffic, impatient or unwilling to wait more than 10 seconds can still be faulted.
When I first moved here, I was pretty much always at the end of a conga-line of cars. I lost count of the number of times people pulled in front of me and I had to significantly break even though there was a quarter-mile of free space behind me.

Is there a 10-second wait-is-long-enough rule in Massachusetts?
 

Geoff

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Warning! Tis is not a "why you should have snow tires" thread!

OK. I'll play. The last two winters, it seems like every time I have a trip, it's snowing and I'm snow driving. I tend to drive the VW with Blizzak WS-60's rather than the Mountaineer on trips. 30+ mpg vs 16 mpg makes it a no-brainer.

Last winter when I was unemployed, the only trip I took was to Vancouver before Christmas. I was driving on Route 4 in Killington and Bridgewater on my way to Manchester, NH with the snow coming up over the windshield of the VW. It had to be at least a foot of unplowed blower until I hit plowed roads in Woodstock. I was almost at the snow limits of the VW since it has such poor ground clearance.

The first week of December this year, I drove from Killington up I-91 to Sherbrooke, QC for a meeting. About 3 hours. Hit snow around Burke. Snow driving all the way. On the way home, I had to pick a friend up at the airport in Burlington. I was snow driving down obscure 2 lane highways in rural Quebec to get to the I-89 border crossing. After Burlington, the orographic lift was working overtime on I-89 and there was a foot of snow on the highway.

I was down in my home town the weekend before Christmas. They got 20" of snow while I was there. I did the drive from the south coast of Mass to Vermont in snow all the way.

Yesterday, I did the Boston-KMart drive after being in DC for a day. Snow covered going down and snow covered coming back home.
 

jrmagic

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The Monday after Christmas, WNY was getting a couple inches/hour. I found a parking lot. I had a lot of fun for a few minutes. A lot of traction and a lot of power with AWD means a lot of control over donuts.

I did that last year when I had a buddy in the car who rebuilds trnmissions and he yelled at me telling me I would ruin the differential in my AWD. What a buzz kill.
 
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