Ubermensch

I'm relocating to the North after a long stint in the land of summer tires all year round...I understand that all season tires do not perform as well as summer tires in the summer or as well as winter tires in the winter. That said, I'm moving to a 1 bedroom apartment and don't have room to store seperate wheel/tire combo's (other than at my mother in laws 6 hours away). So my options are:

1. Get a winter tire/wheel combo and drive 6 hours each season to make the switch.

2. Ditch my summer tires and buy all season performance tires.

I'm in a 2001 C4. With only 300 hp and all wheel drive I've never broken traction on the street with my summer tires so I'm wondering whether I wouldn't be fine with all season tires and save myself some money/driving.

Thoughts?

Shawn

Ray S

Option #3 Sponge some garage space off a friend and store the tires there.

Seriously, get the winter tires. All season tires are a lousy compromise. Why would you want to give up that much extra available traction in either the summer or the winter?

99firehawk

i wouldnt drive it without snows

brad@tirerack.com

Definitely get the winter setup. All season tires in the sizes you need work only reasonably well once they get cold and hard. They'll get you home, but with white nuckles. Snow tires get you home relaxed with a smile!

Call me if I can help or if you would like to discuss.

RAC

OK Damon where are the Dunlop M3's at?!?

RAC

Shawn

Where in the North? I would get the winter set up. Best way to go and if you don't have space, do what i do. Find a spot in a corner of a room, off to the side, and use a nice cover up. Make it look like a small table.

Ubermensch

Boston from SC from Atlanta from FL....slowly migrating north...

Ray S

Your gonna need some winter tires for a daily driver in Beantown, IMHO.

smackboy1

You could try looking for a local tire shop who will store your off season set if you buy from them. Another option is public storage. If you go with all seasons I think you're more limited in sizes for the rears e.g. I don't think you can get 285/30R18.

BuddyK

I tried driving my C4 last year in the winter - once!

It was a beautiful snowy morning -10 C, and I figured that since I had a C4, the car could handle 1 inch of snow no problem. I was wrong! I was sliding like crazy within the first 10 feet of my driveway, and it took me about 2 minutes to turn around and get back in the garage! I've never seen anything so crazy in my life.

Now I finally have some new rims with Pirellli Snow Sports. Once the snow flies I'll see the difference. From what I hear I'll be fine - fingers crossed. When I look at the wide winter tires I just bought, I am thinking that they are still way too wide for winter driving. We shall see. If these don't cut it, I'll be looking at getting studs or something.

Get the winter tires for sure - no choice really if you are going to be in a real winter.

Ubermensch

So I was checking out Tire Rack for tire options and I came across this test:

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/...ay.jsp?ttid=80

Obviously summer tires suck in the winter and snow tires are preferred, but there's not a lot of difference between the all season performance tire and the winter performance tire....

Ray S

You asked the question and people are just sharing their experiences. From my experience there is a Grand Canyon sized gap between a summer and winter tire in the snow and cold. An all season tire splits that gap somewhat but with compromises and is still nowhere near the ultimate performance of a summer tire on a dry warm day or a winter tire on a winter day.

Additionally, I would guess that the Tire rack test was conducted with brand new tires. I'm guessing that this factor will tighten the results somewhat. (In fact the testers did make the following statement about the all season tire. "When relatively new, these tires are a good choice for drivers who only encounter occasional light snow.")

From my experience on my old Audi A4 there was a large winter performance difference between "all seasons" and "snows". There is no way I'm going to conduct an "all season" experiment on my 911 in the winter.

Plus, it's great fun seeing the look of shock when I out-accelerate an SUV (probably on all seasons) from a stoplight in heavy snow.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

alprus

I live in downtown Boston - I never drive my c2 in the snow, but have all seasons on my BMW 3 wagon. If you get the right all season tire, you can get around in the snow, but you will give up a little in the summer (tire rack has user rankings for every tire - so you can look up what tire does best in what condition). One word of caution, I am from Erie PA originally, so driving in the snow is no big deal for me, but if you are not used to driving in harsh weather, get snow tires.

RAC

I am with you 100%.

After driving on allseason (the worst of both worlds) for a long time. I switched to running a summer only and winter setup on my A4. I'll never go back to an all season tire again.

AmirShaikh

A good all-season will have similar performance to winter tires for the first 1-2 seasons....after that you'll notice the big difference.

It also depends on where you live...I live in NJ now which hardly has snow compared to Montreal (where I grew up).

However, on another note...the forum and dealers are adamant about snow tires...so do you really want to take a chance getting a fender bender on your P-car?

PS: I went out and got snows.

thanks,
Amir