Any one using winter tires?

I could only find Blizzak W965 with UNI-T however they are rated for 12000 to 15000 miles. That is only two winters for me.

Ken

where did you get the mileage rating from? I have put Blizzaks on a few BMW's and Porsche Cayenns's and have come to like them alot. I know when purchaing the tires it was stated somewhere that the blizzaks are not to be used in temps above 40 degrees far. I imagine in Canada it might be awhile before you see 40 degrees. I am still running my original wranglers and seem to do a good job in the snow.

I checked snow tires at TireRack and found the milage rate there. Do you know about Bridgestone Duravis M773II? They are the original I got, couldn't find any rating.         

From the shop that does our tire work said they recommended a Dueler. They compaired the Duravis to the BFG Rugged trail. Basically a good tire but not great.

Go Dueler A/T Revo. Mine have been working great in the white stuff.

-P.

I'm dealing with weather near Albany, NY, where we get about 70" of snow per year, but also have freezing rain now and then, plus plenty of ice (particularly at and near intersections) where snow has partially melted, then refrozen.

Any knobbly tire will do well with deep, fresh snow, but getting a grip on crusty snow or ice takes more. The best dedicated winter tires have two important additional components:

- lots of sipes (the fine slits on the face of the tread); as the tire rolls, these flex and present a lot of small but effective gripping edges. Unless desinged carefully, heavy siping can make the tread blocks so flexible that handling on dry roads goes to pot.

- special tread rubber that not only keeps flexible at low temperatures but has some ability to engage icy surfaces. Tricks to make the tread rubber do this include adding silica to the rubber (also good for wet-road traction) and forming the tread rubber so it has microscopic open cells or tubes. Downside of these special tread techniques is that they wear quickly at temperatures above about 40 F, so you really only want to use these tires in the part of the winter that tends to have snow on the ground.

Bridgestone's Blizzak line is the best-known of these snow-and-ice specialists, but they're not the only ones. Most of the major makers now have ice-capable (often called "studless") winter tires, and so do some less well-known but respectable makers.

I just put a set of Nokian Hakkapeliitta LT tires (from Finland, whre they really have snow and ice) in the OE size of 245/75-16 (and Load Range E with 80 psi max) on my Suburban's OE rims. I chose these because they handle better (far crisper steering response) than the non-speed rated Blizzaks (such as the W965, which is the right Blizzak for the 3/4-ton application) and wear better.

I have had a little opportunity to try them in deep snow and on ice and am quite impressed by how positively they grip. I'm also very impressed by how crisply they handle and how quiet they are (just a faint whine) on dry highways. I am used to terrific grip and super-crisp steering respone on my rest-of-the-year rolling stock (see below) and am happy not to lose all the sportiness I get from those.

Nokian (until recently related to the mobile phone maker; their North Ameri can Web site is Nokian NA Web site) also has sportier winter-rated tires for light trucks, but these don't come in the OE size (I like to keep my speedo accurate) and are not quite as aggressively snow-and-ice capable. The tires I got can be studded, but this is only useful for serious ice, and makes thre tires considerably noisier. The Nokian distributor in Burlington, Vermont uses them to get to the office every day at 6:30 am.

I'll report further as the winter progresses.