Snow tires for Denver?

[Monique]

I would bet good money that is what happened to the driver of every upsidedown Subaru in the ditch on I-70. Manual transmission Subarus have a 50/50 torque split and are much more predictable

Interesting. I have a 2008 Outback with manual transmission, but I'm tired of dealing with it at the tunnel. It never occurred to me that if I got another Outback but automatic, I might be sacrificing much. (I do like starting in second in the snow)

 

[ChrisFromOC]

That is an incorrect question. The correct question is, with all the advances in snow tires, does my daughter need a summer/all-season tire? To that question, I would say no. Buy a set of Michelin X-Ice 3 tires and run them all year. In my opinion, they are a true all-season tire. Not the best on snow, but they don't melt (too fast) in the summer. Buy them from Costco ($70 off a set of four right now) or Discount -- they are the two best tire shops in the area. A set of the Michelins run year round is good for about 30,000 miles, but you don't have to worry about storing or changing tires, which is one less thing for a college student to deal with. If you want to the best of the best for a pure snow, Blizzak or Hakkapelitta. If you want the cheapest snows you can get, the Hankook iPike's (ripoff of an old Nokian) are good but loud, particularly when studded, and the new Yokahama's are getting decent reviews. @Muleski's suggestion to run dedicated summer/winter tires on dedicated wheels is the correct way to go, but not the only way. I've noticed that most people who buy Blizzaks have very little experience with other tires because once they buy a set they just keep buying more.

In my slightly extended family, we have one Outback on the Hankooks, two Outbacks and one Suburban on the Michelins. All the Michelins are run year-round. The Michelins are better than the Hankooks on dry, wet, and ice. The Hankooks are better in deep snow, slush, windslab, and when studded better on snow or slush over ice. I think the Michelins are crap in slush.

If your daughter is going to school at DU, the Discount Tire on Colorado Boulevard will take care of her. They don't carry Nokian. For those you have to go to Meadow Creek Tire. If she is at CU Health Science (Anschutz), the Costco on Havana is best.



At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, if you are concerned about your daughter's safety and wellbeing enough to put her in a Subaru, just put good snows on it and don't think twice. From personal experience, because of way the Subaru AWD system works on automatic transmission cars, they can be occasionally terrifying in winter conditions without good snow tires when the AWD system freaks out and suddenly shifts power around. I would bet good money that is what happened to the driver of every upsidedown Subaru in the ditch on I-70. Manual transmission Subarus have a 50/50 torque split and are much more predictable.

Thanks for all of this very helpful info. She's grown up in So Cal and has limited experience driving in rain let alone snow, so everyone's responses are really appreciated.

 

[ChrisFromOC]

It varies all over the place, in terms of tire dealers and stores. One of the high end tire stores near us {Boston} will swap over for free, and will store tires for free.

We have all of our snows on dedicated rims. Store them at home, and I swap them over and torque them. Guess I prefer to know where they are! Our daughter complains that they eat up a lot of space in her storage unit. As do a number of bikes, a lot of skis, tuning bench, blah, blah.....

Storage will be an issue, but I may consider looking at those all seasons with a winter bias and getting those here in So Cal before we drive the car out there. She's studying abroad right now but will be back in Denver late December.

Thanks again.

 

[BGreen]

Storage will be an issue, but I may consider looking at those all seasons with a winter bias and getting those here in So Cal before we drive the car out there. She's studying abroad right now but will be back in Denver late December.

Thanks again.

Just to clarify, the Michelin X-Ice3 is a real snow tire, it just has good manners outside of winter conditions. I would not recommend any tire marketed as an all-seaon tire. It either has the snowflake symbol/rating or it doesn't.

 

[Monique]

Just to clarify, the Michelin X-Ice3 is a real snow tire, it just has good manners outside of winter conditions. I would not recommend any tire marketed as an all-seaon tire. It either has the snowflake symbol/rating or it doesn't.

Pretty sure that's what mine are. We only use them in the winter, but even in the winter we sometimes have 60* days, and yes, they are just fine. (I don't want to rip open the plastic bags they're in to check the model)

 

[Muleski]

Agree with @BGreen.

The "outlier", in our experience, is the Nokian WRG3. It's got the snowflake, it's used all over the world in snow and winter weather, and it's a heck of a summer tire.

It's not terribly expensive these days. It used to be. Google "Subaru, Nokian WRG3." Lots of info.

By no means the only choice, or "the best", but one that I'm very familiar with on a variety of Subies. Turbo and NA, standards and Automatics.

Worth a look. Agree 100% with @BGreen. You need the snowflake, IMO.

 

[ChrisFromOC]

It varies all over the place, in terms of tire dealers and stores. One of the high end tire stores near us {Boston} will swap over for free, and will store tires for free.

We have all of our snows on dedicated rims. Store them at home, and I swap them over and torque them. Guess I prefer to know where they are! Our daughter complains that they eat up a lot of space in her storage unit. As do a number of bikes, a lot of skis, tuning bench, blah, blah.....

Thanks for the info on the Nokian, right now it is looking like that may be a good idea. My wife and daugher will be driving the car from So Cal to Denver after Christmas, and I'm concerned about waiting to get to Denver to swap out the tires. Going with the WRG3 installed here before they leave may work just fine, and my daughter's mileage is relatively light so treadlife is not a big concern.

 

[Scotty I.]

That's not quite accurate. The Passenger Vehicle Traction Law (code 15) applies at specific times when activated. It requires that any vehicle must have tire tread depth of 1/8th inch tread. Those vehicles that are not AWD or 4WD must have either snow tires or all-season tires with the mud and snow (M+S) designation.

Duly corrected.

 

[Blue Streak]

Snow tires are de rIgueur.
Donning them is an essential rite of autumn.

 

[Ken_R]

Quick question for those who live in Denver --- should I plan on getting snow tires for my daughter's car for the winter months? She's in college in Denver, but will make a lot of weekend trips to the various Vail resorts in Summit County. If it matters, the car will be an AWD Subaru.

Thanks for any input.

YES. i70 can be downright SCARY and dangerous without snow tires on quite a lot of occasions. If the ski resorts are open then the snow tires should be on. I was told snow tires also help in wet conditions even with temps in the 50's compared to regular tires. The rubber compound just works better as temps get lower.

 

[Slim]

Thanks for all of this very helpful info. She's grown up in So Cal and has limited experience driving in rain let alone snow, so everyone's responses are really appreciated.

I was about to say, get her snow tires. However, if she has never driven in snow, maybe it's best to let her start winter in town on the all season tires. That way, during the first snowstorm, she can go to a parking lot and spin around, drive around neighborhood streets at slow speeds and slide. Even snow tires slide, they still don't have unlimited grip. It's better to feel this out at the lower speeds that all seasons slide at than at the higher speeds required to slide a snow tire.

Then have her mount the snow tires for the first trip to the mountains.

And yes, the snow tires are more important than the AWD. Every car on the road has all wheel brakes, AWD doesn't offer any stopping benefit. Not making it out of a parking lot is inconvenient. Not being able to brake is dangerous. That's the difference between the priority of tires vs AWD.

 

[Dave Marshak]

What Slim said, and if you are really concerned about her winter driving skills, you can send her to the Bridgestone school in Steamboat Springs for a day.

dm

 

[Bill Miles]

One thing to watch out for:

It is nice to have dedicated rims for winter tires to avoid paying $50 or so per swap.

If you do have dedicated rims and TPMS you have a choice of paying several hundred dollars for sensors and having the system reset twice a year, or doing wihout and swapping them yourself in the fall since it is illegal for the shops to do so. This is what I do.

 

[DanoT]

Purchasing a quality snow tire is also important.

In my case I bought a used Volvo XC70 a few years ago and it came with no name tires that had the snowflake symbol and very good tread. However they were horrible for stopping and gave me traction problems at times in my 600 ft long driveway and also in parking lots where they would sometimes spin and a yellow dash warning light would come on. Since the car was new to me, I at first thought that it was an AWD problem, but a Volvo shop couldn't find anything wrong.

The following winter with new Cooper Weather-Master S/T 2 tires installed, stopping distances and AWD performance were noticeably better.

 

[ChrisFromOC]

Quick question for those who live in Denver --- should I plan on getting snow tires for my daughter's car for the winter months? She's in college in Denver, but will make a lot of weekend trips to the various Vail resorts in Summit County. If it matters, the car will be an AWD Subaru.

Thanks for any input.

Thanks again for all of the input. Just ordered a set of Nokian WRG3s for this Outback which we plan to keep on year round.

 

[Monique]

Not being able to brake is dangerous.

Yeah. I just bought a new car. Still had the stock tires when I drove to Loveland. There was a tiny patch of snow in the transition from the parking lot to the road. I assumed I could stop (usually I would have snow tires). I did not come to a stop until my nose was in the road. Fortunately, I did not get clobbered by oncoming traffic.

One thing to watch out for:

It is nice to have dedicated rims for winter tires to avoid paying $50 or so per swap.

If you do have dedicated rims and TPMS you have a choice of paying several hundred dollars for sensors and having the system reset twice a year, or doing wihout and swapping them yourself in the fall since it is illegal for the shops to do so. This is what I do.

WTF, no, what? We have two sets of wheels/tires for both our cars. Discount Tire does the swap and the sensor reset for free.

You do have to watch out - if you drive off after reset with the other set in the car, there's a 50/50 chance the car will sync with the old wheels. So ask them to hold onto the old wheels for a day.

Unfortunately, I was the "test case" this week for our local Discount Tire's first 2018 Subaru. I guess most people don't buy wheels in the first couple months the car is released. Several trips before they figured out <whatever technical details>. With any luck, they're synced. It can take a while of driving before the sync happens, so I don't actually know for sure yet. The stock wheels/tires/sensors are at Discount to keep them from interfering.

 

[ChrisFromOC]

Yeah. I just bought a new car. Still had the stock tires when I drove to Loveland. There was a tiny patch of snow in the transition from the parking lot to the road. I assumed I could stop (usually I would have snow tires). I did not come to a stop until my nose was in the road. Fortunately, I did not get clobbered by oncoming traffic.




WTF, no, what? We have two sets of wheels/tires for both our cars. Discount Tire does the swap and the sensor reset for free.

You do have to watch out - if you drive off after reset with the other set in the car, there's a 50/50 chance the car will sync with the old wheels. So ask them to hold onto the old wheels for a day.

Unfortunately, I was the "test case" this week for our local Discount Tire's first 2018 Subaru. I guess most people don't buy wheels in the first couple months the car is released. Several trips before they figured out <whatever technical details>. With any luck, they're synced. It can take a while of driving before the sync happens, so I don't actually know for sure yet. The stock wheels/tires/sensors are at Discount to keep them from interfering.

And we just ordered the 2018 Outback 3.6 to replace the one our daughter is taking to CO ...

 

[François Pugh]

While we are at it, the best non-studded snow tire is the Hakka R2.
Although, it's expensive compared to the Michelin X-ice 3 when you consider wear rate

 

[Monique]

While we are at it, the best non-studded snow tire is the Hakka R2.
Although, it's expensive compared to the Michelin X-ice 3 when you consider wear rate

I can't speak to the Hakka, but we've been very happy with the X-ice.

 

[newfydog]

AWD gets you moving. Only a snow tire can get you stopped. Ummm did you say your daughter??

I firmly believe in studs, The fancy tires without studs do well in the hockey rink tests at full tread, but I have yet to see them tested at 50%. That said, I have gone with the blizzak and x-ice tires a few times and as they wore down, ran them all summer., My experience with the tires, which they say are too soft for summer use, actually have worn better than expected.