How much difference do snow tires make?

SparxVA
Tue, 18 Jan 2011 16:09:06 +0000
Maintenance/Repairs

My car is a RWD 2008 Lexus IS 350. It is great on dry pavement and horrible (HORRIBLE) on snow and ice. I live in the DC Metro area and last year I spent a lot of time pushing my car and figuring out how to turn off the traction control features so it would move in the snow.

My wife wants me to replace it with something that is better in the snow, like the 2011 model of the same car with AWD. Well, no, she doesn’t want me to spend the money to buy a new AWD version of my car.

What I’m wondering is whether replacing the OEM “all-season” tires with good winter tires (e.g. Blizzaks) would make a significant difference and save me some money, or whether I should just take the opportunity to buy a new car with AWD?

Assuming the winter tires would work as well or better than coughing up the $$$ for a new AWD car, what is the easiest way to do this? I’m thinking about purchasing a set of steel rims with the required TPMS sensors and having the tires mounted on those, then I could just change from the OEM tires to the winter tires without having to have the tires remounted twice a year. I ask because I’m under the impression that remounting the tires repeatedly is going to damage them.

I realize this is similar to a previous question, but I hope it is different enough. I’m not asking if my car will be as good in the snow as my wife’s 2010 Subaru Outback. I’m just looking for a less expensive way of dealing with the 3-5 days/year on average that the roads here are unusable.

56 posts - 20 participants