adie

I have just done a quick search and it seems that all the enquiries are for non Porsche cars (i.e. FWD cars), now I'm going to be driving the porsche in the snow and I'm trying to decide if it's realy worth the cost of snow tyres as I have just been out and although it most of the road's seen to be cleared there are still some areas that require lots of opposite lock. It's fun but I don't realy want to get stuck in the snowbelt or even strugle getting up myt drive (had to take a run up today!), so far I have come to the conclusion that steel rims may be the answer but for this year I'll stick to the cookie cutters and bung some snow's on them, Blizack (not sure if thats right) seem to be a popular choice but not seen anything like that at any local tyre shops, any one know of any tyre's offered in Canada that are suitable for the winter and rough idea on prices (not wanting to be pushy but rough does mean rough. The cars a 1984 and probably has standard tyre size on but that will have to be changed. Any help would be greatfully received.

Dave

There's quite a bit on it, try searching on the American spelling, "tire".

iloveporsches

I know one highly regarded tire are Bridgestone Blizzaks.

Blue S2

Actually, there is a bunch of talk about this on the 996 boards i believe. (it was either 996TT or 996 board...) A lot of people seem to be doing just fine in the snow with good snow tires. I just got Dunlop Winter Sport M2s for my GTI. They are the Porsche OEM snow tire i believe.

Manning

The Blizzaks are really nice, we have them on my fiance's car and they are fantastic. I have been running a set of Michelin Alpin X tires on my car for the past 4 years during the winter and they have worked well too. On sections of icy road where I had so little traction that I could not get rolling at all with P6000s, I have been able to drive in full control with the Alpins. When the Michelins are done however, they will be replaced with Blizzaks.

So, winter tires in my opinion are the only way to go no matter what car you drive in the winter time.

Marc Gelefsky

Dunlop Winter Sport M2s got my 951 around in the slop today!

Zero10

Hmm, my advice for rims, is go on E-Bay and find a cheap set of track rims, or just some badly beat phone dials. That's what I did, cost me $500 for a set (with half-good track rubber on them), cheaper than any new rims I could find, remember, Porsche uses a unique bolt pattern, combined with the offset will give you a headache. I believe it's 135/5 for hte bolt pattern, but perhaps I am wrong on the spacing. Since it's an 84, it will have the early offset, so BE CAREFUL if you buy rims on e-bay, if you get late offset, you will require spacers, which are just stupidly expensive (although my car had spacers WITH the early offset, no wonder the wheels rubbed, so I bought late offset winter rims). I have 215/60 R15 (I will check, but I believe that is right), which should be the standard tire size. People told me to go narrower, but they warned I would lose traction on ice with a narrower tire, and i live on a hill, where everybody has SUV's, so they just hammer it and ice the whole freakin road. Anyways, I have Canadian tire winter tires on there, They make 2 kinds, one is called snow something, and the other ice something (forgive me, it is late here, and I have been watching my car all evening for thiefs, don't ask), if you go to canadian tire (I know i know, they suck) take the ice set, they are about $5 a tire more, and are definately worth it. The aplin's are great on ice, performed second only to a bridgestone, however, if you drive them on wet roads, you will get very tired of the irritating noise they create, and they tend to hydroplane on water more easily than any other winter tire. The Blizzak's are a great tire, have never seen a bad review on them, I just couldn't afford them. The Bridgstone's are great as well, lots of places rank them #1, but I believe they are also the highest in price as well.

FWIW, cost of putting winter rims and tires on my 944, $500 - rims, $480 - tires, total - $980
cost of NOT putting winter tires on... well, we won't go there. I have pirelli p6000's with about 1/3rd tread left, if it so much as smells like rain, I go sliding everywhere, if it snows, I watched my car slide down a hill in park.... that's sad.

Sami951

Agreed! There simply is no comparison between a performance summer tire and a proper winter tire once the temps go down and snow starts falling...

Scott at Team Harco

There is no question you will want winter tires if you plan to do any driving around Toronto in the winter time. All it takes is one bad snow or a patch of ice and you will have a badly damaged car. Not to mention the risk to your health!
I have a lot of experience with Bridgstone Blizzaks, and Hakkapeliitta tires. I am in fact a Hakka (and Nokian) tire dealer. As an example, I can get you Hakka 2's or Hakka Q's (ultimate ice tire) in 205/65R15 for about $104 (US) each (plus shipping).
If you don't mind travelling to the Detroit area I can mount and balance them for you too. (see www.nokiantires.com for more details)
Cheers.

gleamingred944

I back Scott. The Hakka Q tires (we aren't allowed studs in Ontario) are superb ice tires, but I'm disappointed in them for deep snow. However, remember that it's embarrassing to get stuck in snow, but ice can bend things, fast! The majority view in this forum though is clearly for Blizzaks.

Scott at Team Harco

Some Blizzaks are not particularly great in deep snow either. Much like the Hakka Q's they excel in finding traction in icy conditions. For snow and general winter driving, I highly recommend the Hakka 2's. They still have lots of sipes to find that traction on ice - yet they have reasonably open tread blocks with a direction tread pattern that won't pack with snow.

See attached (hopefully)

Sami951

Yeah, the only problem with Hakka 2's are the studs, luckily we can run them over here

(Hakka 2's on both daddy's Passat and "my" Pug 106)

sm

Them there are some good tires. What sizes are you running?

Has anyone tried the Dunlop Winter Sport M3s? Those blocks look even meaner...

Doug&Julie

I've got M3s on my Boxster. But since they're brand new and we haven't had much in the way of snow, I'm afraid I can't give you any inputs. When my mechanic put them on, he did say "You're going to LOVE these tires".

If the M2s are so good...and the M3s are supposed to be better...I'm betting he's right.

Matt H

Bridgestone owns 49% of Nokian tires now. Guess why, because we wanted to have a greater share of the snow tire market. The Nokian, Hakka, and Blizzak are great products. IMHO you cant go wrong with any of them.
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