Do I need a separate set of winter tires?

[alexcorral]

I had a 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee with Quadradrive II (pretty kick ass AWD with LSD's front and rear). I outfitted it with Michellin AT tires year round (it was my winter beater/dirty work car).

The car did very well on deep snow and you could feel the AWD working its ass off to get me through - and it did, but having had many cars with quality winter tires, it just isn't the same. The tire treads helped with deep snow, but they were not nearly as good on plain old slippery roads (ice, packed snow, etc).

You can certainly get by without winter tires. You probably will never get stuck either. But winter tires give you that extra grip that makes a lot of situations totally drama-free.

It also depends on your situation. Do you have the room for the extra set of wheels+tires (or what to deal with swapping tires twice a year)? Is it a 2-year lease or are you planning on keeping the LR4 for years? Etc.

We will have room in the garage for some extra wheels & tires. I am buying both the LR4 and RRS, not leasing, so definitely we will keep them for the long run. I'd have to keep eight extra 19" wheels (I "special ordered" the RRS Silver Package with 19" wheels) with winter tires on them.

It also seems Nokian is the preferred make for winter tires.

 

[alexcorral]

A question that might be dumb:

Why not get winter tires and leave them on all year round? Is there anything that makes winter tires not good for year-round use (wear)?

 

[alexcorral]

After watching this: http://www.tirerack.com/videos/index.jsp?video=23&tab=winter I'm gonna get winter tires.

 

[Quijote]

A question that might be dumb:

Why not get winter tires and leave them on all year round? Is there anything that makes winter tires not good for year-round use (wear)?

Winter tires are horrible when temperatures are constantly above 40F. They feel like play dough and the tread wear is abysmal. You do NOT want to use winter tires year round. Here in Boston, a stretch would be to have them on from Nov 1 until April 1st. Typically I put them on during Thanksgiving Weekend and take them out mid-March.

 

[alexcorral]

Thanks for the explanation. I'll get the extra set for each vehicle. Still not sure if I'll store them mounted on separate wheels or do the swap every season at the tire shop. I probably wouldn't do the wheel swap at home anyway.

 

[rovernut]

We will have room in the garage for some extra wheels & tires. I am buying both the LR4 and RRS, not leasing, so definitely we will keep them for the long run. I'd have to keep eight extra 19" wheels (I "special ordered" the RRS Silver Package with 19" wheels) with winter tires on them.

It also seems Nokian is the preferred make for winter tires.

The other thought is to drop to 18" wheels for the winter set, which overall may save you some minor storage space if you went with extra wheel sets for each truck - could also mean you could get some real off road tires for a summer treck into the woods!

The narrower the tire the better in deep snow, but as that seems a rarity, ice becomes your main concern - can't remember if size becomes and issue with ice - but the sipes on the true snow tires, multi-cell technology, and cold resistant compounds will make the world of difference. You will probably notice the degraded ride quality in the RRS on dry roads (sidewall and tread flex) but when you need them you will be very happy to have on dedicated snows, even for that one "real" use.

 

[alexcorral]

I found a set of Bridgestone Blizzaks 255/60R19 for $760. The slightly larger tires (31" diameter) should still fit. If not, I have Johnson rods.

 

[Kaaae]

Alex, go with a LLAMS instead of rods. More flexibility!

 

[alexcorral]

do you have a link for LLAMS? The Johnson Rods worked great on my Discovery 4 and I'm bringing them with me for the new LR4. Only issue I had is that I did not do an alignment and the tires wore unevenly (more wear on the outside), especially the front tires. I ended up flipping the tires on the wheels before I sold.

 

[Quijote]

I found a set of Bridgestone Blizzaks 255/60R19 for $760. The slightly larger tires (31" diameter) should still fit. If not, I have Johnson rods.

If I had to move away from the stock size (255/55/R19), I think I'd rather go with (A) 245/60R19 than (B) 255/60R19.

(B) will run 3.3% too slow on the speedo, but (A) will only run 1.8%. They are still bigger tires, but not so big. Plus, narrower tires are better in snow.

In fact, 235/60R19 are almost a perfect match at 0.2% speedo accuracy.

See here: http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html

Edit: Never mind, it seems there are no tires in those sizes. But they do sell 245-55R19 with is only 1.4% too fast.

http://simpletire.com/nokian-p245-55r19-t428335-tires

Second Edit: Nokian's site shows the stock size as available , but nobody seems to carry it. Weird.