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I am wondering if I need to install winter tires for my AWD suburu legacy. Currently it has all season tires. I live in central Indiana and commute to office 50 miles on highway. Hope to deal with potentially icy bridges well in winter.
I heard from a friend of mine in Canada that winter tires are much better than all season tires... But do I really need winter tires in a region with much less snow?
I would ask the folks around you who live with the weather and have to drive in it daily.
My personal experience with Subaru (WRX) says if you regularly get snow and ice and must travel before the plows are out or in areas where the plows/salt trucks are often delayed, you need winter tires (I used Blizaks on mine after driving in Mid-Atlantic snowstorm on performance "summer" tires. It was a dumb thing to do, even with the excellent Subaru AWD.)
My personal experience with an exceptionally cold and snowy winter in Indy (91 or 92, can't recall) has to do with a RWD domestic and "all-season" tires. It was fine, but I didn't need to venture out of the often-plowed and treated city limits. Of course, "fine" in a RWD sedan means that I drove slowly and ended up throwing lots of gear in the trunk to help out.
I am wondering if I need to install winter tires for my AWD suburu legacy. Currently it has all season tires. I live in central Indiana and commute to office 50 miles on highway. Hope to deal with potentially icy bridges well in winter.
I heard from a friend of mine in Canada that winter tires are much better than all season tires... But do I really need winter tires in a region with much less snow?
Your suggestions will be appreciated!
With the weather patterns changing due to global warming it would be a good idea to equip your car as if there are no snow plows.
Go to a salvage yard and buy 4 take off wheel for your car, on those wheels mount aggressive snow tires and mount them on your car in November and off in April each year. This is an old well proven method to deal with winter snows that kinda stopped when all season tires came along.
One thing.....snow tires will trash your MPG but so what? Winter cold does that too!
This topic has already been discussed a number of times, and I suppose I'll give the same basic response here as I have elsewhere: If the roads you drive on are routinely, immediately and thoroughly cleared off after a snowfall, all-seasons should be fine. If the roads you drive on are only sporadically or haphazardly cleared off, switch to snow tires.
On a side note, don't let AWD give you a false sense of security. It's great for extra grip to get going, but it provides no better grip for slowing down. While we don't all have all-wheel drive, we do all have all-wheel braking.
To what Drover said, I can only add that in my experience all-seasons work OK in snow when new and the tread is deep. Once the tread is about halfway worn down, they are noticably less competent in snow.
Nothing really grips very well on ice. Dedicated snows are somewhat less bad than regular tires on ice, but it's all degrees of bad.
If you have a place to store them, and are OK with changing them yourself, like I am, a 2nd set of wheels and (dedicated snow) tires, all mounted up and balanced ready to bolt onto the car can be handy.
As good as Subaru's symmetrical AWD system is, it still comes down to grip on the road. An all season tire is never going to give you the grip a winter tire has in poor winter conditions.
I don't know what central Indiana gets for snow or ice. But if it's not a lot, then a good tire like a Continental extreme contact might work well. I put those on my Audi and so far they have been a good performer in light winter weather. Usually from about november 15- march 15 I'll have Bridgestone Blizzaks on my car which is a dedicated winter tire.
An all season tire is never going to give you the grip a winter tire has in poor winter conditions.
I don't know what central Indiana gets for snow or ice.
I have a son who lives in Central Indiana so I watch the weather patterns closely to time our trips to visit the grand kids. For the last few year the central part of Indiana have been getting hit with lots of really bad winter weather which is why I recommended snow tires mounted on their own wheels. With all wheel drive and a set of aggressive snows mounted you should be able to get around much better than all wheel drive alone. YMMMV
The state of Indiana does a really good job of road clearing but like all states they are having money problems some a bit worse than other states. In fact I'd be willing to bet that as the economy worsen Indiana will be forced to cut back on snow removal even more in the coming winters.
Heck, Indiana has already closed many rest stops along the way to save money! So road snow removal can't be far behind!
The prepared will travel, the unprepared will not.
as someone said earlier. go to the salvageyard to pick up tires. DONT.tires are freshware.they are useless if they are to old and hard
I think they meant to pick up the rims, not the tires themselves.
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