I have a 2006 Subaru Impreza wagon. I now live in Maine, and after a scary drive back from the mountains in the snow, I think I’d like to get some winter tires. The car is ok in the snow at low speeds, but on the highway, it slid a fair amount even with careful, slow driving. Any recommendations for tires?
The stock tires (RE92’s) are really poor in winter weather and that is normal.
If you want an all-weather tire that is winter(snow) tire rated look no further than Nokian WR or Nokian WR G2. They last about 50k miles with regular rotations important on AWD Subaru. I own a set on 2005 Legacy GT and have no issues in any winter weather condition nor rain. The benefits include no swapping the tires off with seasons and no wheels to store if an issue. Price shop around on Nokian as prices wildly vary on them in my experience. My two closest equidistant Nokian dealers had a difference of $35/tire.
Otherwise I would suggest visiting tirerack.com and checking out dedicated winter tires & rims. Good benefits of getting rims is downsizing is typically available for better winter traction and less expensive tires. Lastly the rims pay for themselves typically in a seasons as you avoid full mount/dismount of your regular tires(pre/post winter). Shipping is negated by avoiding sales tax and free mounting of tires to rims.
Michelin X-Ice & Blizzack WS-60(not WS-50) are great choices. All winter tires will give you significant advantage on ice/snow and most on slush.
I’ve been very pleased with my Cooper Zeon Stort A/T tires.
Beyond that all I can suggest is looking at the consumer feedback on the www.tirerack.com and www.1010tires.com websites.
I live in Fairbanks Alaska and have had Blizzaks on two Subaru wagons (one a Forester) with outstanding success. I also put them on my two wheel drive 95 GMC pickup and it made a significant difference in traction. I think it’s due to the “soft” material (get them off the vehicle in the spring)they are made with and the sipeing(grooves).They really work well on ice. I’d never go back to studs. We have snow from mid October until late April or so and it does not melt off of our roads throughout the winter…though we only have cold dry hard packed snow…very rarely do we get wet snow, so I have not used them on that sort of snow. We also get little snow. 6 inches is a big storm.