Chain & snow tires?

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by Tipsy McStagger

Studded tires are incredibly common in Portland, and for the most part completely unnecessary unless you are running up to the ski resorts five times a week. The UP of Michigan was mentioned as a place with lots of studded snow tire use? They're absolutely illegal to use in Michigan much like most of the upper midwest because they shred the roads. You hear cars go by with them constantly here in PDX in the winter while it's 50 and drizzling for weeks on end. Makes zero sense.

Non-studded snow tires are fairly useless here as the typical winter daytime high is right around where the benefit of using winter tires ends (~48F), and it never really gets cold enough to reap the benefit of the softer tread/sipes vs. somewhere like Minneapolis or Detroit where you get consistent below freezing temps for weeks/months on end, with average lows in the single digits.

Well, I only have my own experience but I've noticed a night and day difference between Michelin Defender all-season tires and Bridgestone Blizzaks for driving on snowy and icy streets around here in Camas with a Toyota Highlander. We are up on the top of the hill at similar elevation to the Portland west hills so often when it is raining down at sea level we are getting snow. They give phenomenal grip when we drive up for skiing as well. Much better than the Defenders which were almost new and your basic top of the line all-season radial.

If we didn't live up on a hill and my wife didn't have a job that required her to be present regardless of snow conditions then I'd probably not have bothered with snow tires at all.

I do agree that studded tires should be banned in Oregon. It's ridiculous that they are allowed. I had them on my car living in Juneau Alaska but that is a whole different level of winter driving than anything we get here. I didn't know they were banned in MI. I was just using that as an example of a snow zone.

[Tipsy McStagger]

Oh absolutely. Blizzaks, Michelin X-Ice, Nokian Hakkas etc. have God's own grip on snowy/icy roads but once temps hit 50 or so the tread is flying off those things so most people are not getting much return on that investment. They also get gooey and handle/brake/corner like crap at highway speeds above freezing (granted rush hour traffic doesn't allow for much of that anyway).

For most people living in most areas around here, winter tires are a huge waste of money. Worse are the studded tires which actually decrease traction on wet roads, i.e. 99% of the conditions most people encounter here over the winter months. Of course some places in the state they are essential, others not so much and shredding the roads for months on end with a tire that is actually needed infrequently at most.

Really an ideal winter tire in this climate is something like the Michelin Pilot Alpin PA4, Nokian WRG3 or Conti DWS, a "performance" continental winter tire with excellent wet/dry cold weather traction with the trade off being deep snow or ice performance, which again just doesn't happen here with enough frequency to justify the expense for something you use two or three months of the year at temps that are really pushing the limits of what the tread compound was designed for.

Studless winter tires are great but even they have their limitations on steep roads and certainly at elevation, such as in your case. There are going to be occasional times they don't cut it and the chains need to come out.

Like OP pointed out about western PA and the reason I brought up the Michigan ban, very few people in seriously cold climates in the U.S. are using winter tires or traction devices of any kind, even in hilly, rural areas where roads are not cleared with predictable frequency as they are in more heavily populated areas. Probably should be using them really. We have the opposite problem here as you point out with deeply rutted roads because of overuse of studs.

fwiw I've got the Defender LTX on our LR4 and have had just a couple occasions to use them on slick roads. Agree that with limited use in those conditions they are not great in snow, certainly not compared to an Alpin PA4 or something of that nature. Great for the overwhelming majority of winter conditions around here though (rain).

[Thom52]

I do agree that for the Wet side, something like the Nokian WRG works great year round. That is what I used in the Seattle area for about the last 20 of the 31 years I lived there. And that included heading up to the mountains for snow sports.

Central Oregon is a different story, although for our "town car" (AWD Subie Impreza) I still stick with Nokian WRG's year round. But our Snow Beast Forester gets Hokka studded tires, because it gets driven up the icy mountain several times a week and whenever it gets icy in town, which is fairly often, in most years. But I will only buy the Nokian Hokka studded tires because they use a shock absorber technology behind each stud to greatly reduce or eliminate the issue of extra wear and tear on the road. That technology makes them the only studded tires allowed in some euro countries.

The reason most heavy snow areas do not need studded tires is because they use so much salt on their roads, and actually have an infrastructure that keeps the roads all plowed. Here in Central Oregon, even with more snow and ice than on the Wet side, the city pretty much tells us we are on our own, except maybe the main highway and some spotty selection of downtown streets. And with the first dusting of snow, they whine about already being out of budget for plowing/sanding/de-icing.

In reality, the worst wear and tear on the roads comes from the big trucks. A fact that is always pointedly ignored in any discussion on road wear and costs.

[cooky01]

What do people do, when they spend most of the time in flat areas, and only go up to ski resorts from time to time?
Would all-wheel drive car w/ all-season tires cut it?

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by cooky01

What do people do, when they spend most of the time in flat areas, and only go up to ski resorts from time to time?
Would all-wheel drive car w/ all-season tires cut it?

Yes, that's what most people do. I'd guess that 80-90 percent of the cars I see in the ski area parking lots just have regular all-season tires and many if not a majority are not AWD either.

Just make sure you have a set of chains in your car and know how to put them on.