What do u guys Recommend for Snow Tires for The R? I don;t want to do this but as a last Resort i might have too. Lol Can it be driven easily in the snow. I got stuck in a snow storm this winter when i bought it and was doing 35 down the highway in 5th gear and spinning and sliding all over the place. I figured it was the tires since there for warm weather use only. I tried Search Function but to no help

 

195/55/15 nokian hakkapeliitta. you will never need anything else.

 

Who Sells Those lol never heard of them

 

Ahhhh it's nice sometimes to see someone other than myself that plans THAT far ahead! I actually planned on storing my PY R last winter and not needing winter tires Well. That is what actually happened because I could not even get out of my driveway after the first storm hit, "Geez the East coast sucked this last winter."

My friend used to have Gislaved's on his Fiesta and could drive through anything this side of an avalanche!!! "Sorry for the misspell."

I was set on getting Blizzak's or Artic Alpins BUT, All tha local tire places and TireRack ran out of the tires in our size! One speed shop explained it as the rubber companies produced less winter only tires this last year because the previous few years were mild. Well, F*ck Me!

This year I will be getting a set of Blizzak's on Steel wheels just for the off chance that I just may need to move my R around my Driveway to plow! My POS Nissan Sentra does wonders in most storms with just the 4 season Bridgestones it has.

Good luck,

A.

PS I answered to provide a little info and also to recieve some. Anyone with better rubber than the Blizzak's or any specs on the "unknown" rubber from the above post please post it.

 

Right on R1020!


More Pics
http://members.aol.com/josh3030/Frame1.html#snowtires

 

Hakkepelitas are the best - but expensive.

Yokohama makes a pretty good snow tire. I had them on my CRX back in the early 90s and made several trips deep into Quebec in the middle of winter and never got stuck once.

The Guardex tires are good too.

FYI the "siping" present on winter tires that gives you ice traction wear away very quickly if you drive the snowtires on dry pavement.

 

The Tire Rack shows no winter tires in the stock 195/55-15. I thought one of the Pirelli winter tires came in that size, but I don't know why it's not listed. The website for Discount Tire Direct shows the Pirelli Winter 160 Direzionale but it's out of stock.

Where can you buy the Nokians?



[Modified by nsxtcjr, 4:34 PM 8/13/2001]

 

Try 205/50-15s. I run that size for my R compounds.

 

The Thought of Snow, and Salt and my R just doesn't seem right but might have to do it. My dad works at Goodyear so i can get there tires Cheap last set of Almost $300 dollar a piece tires i got at $125 bucks after all discounts. But i haven;t checked there sizes and what they offer.

Plus the fact I might have to add Emergency Lights and Siren to my car for the Fire Department and try and respond to calls in it through the snow running hot and weaving through traffic so Grippy Tires are a must for me in winter too.


[Modified by Wildohiorice, 2:42 PM 8/13/2001]

 

I had Hakkapelittas on my R but they are done now. Awesome tire....never got stuck. This year I got a set of Gislaved cheap so I'll try them. They are supposed to be good too.

 

I like my Blizzaks, they've helped get me out of snowdrifts, up hills covered in ice where other people were spinning their tires. I've made it through 3 winters without ever getting stuck once

 

I run Bridgestone Blizzaks on my old CRX, amazing tire. Never had a problem, even when the front lip of the car would plow snow!

 

I ran Pirelli something or others on my GSR.
Size was 205/50-15
They were HR so they were not to terribly offensive in the dry and went like stink in the snow.

Pilot Alpin

I was going to get these this year for the R

We do not get constant snow in Pittsburgh so I want something decent in the dry. I had a set of Toyo FZ4s once, and I threw them away. They sucked *** in the dry and did not go in the snow. After that it has been 3 season tires and 1 season tires.....No Compromises

 

DON'T USE 205/50-15 FOR WINTER TIRES!!! With winter tires, you want tires that are NARROWER, not wider! Narrow tires will do better on snow and ice. Narrow is better!!!

 

Pilot Alpins. Great in the snow, amazing on dry cold pavement. The speed rating is very high for a snow tire. Stick with stock tire size.

 

Yeah but you're talking a few mm wider here. A 205 section width is still pretty narrow. If he wants narrower tires then he should go down to a 14" rim - which he can't due to caliper size. I was just trying to suggest a more common (and easily obtained) tire size to the rather obscure 195/55-15. What matters is the aspect ratio relative to section width. Usually you would go to a narrower tire on a smaller rim with a taller aspect ratio - but you can't on the R because of the big *** brakes.

 

Actually with todays tire technology, a wider tire is not a bad thing. Narrow tires were for digging through deeper snow. Most of us drive in the city or at least on plowed roads. With the siping technology out there now, more rubber will give you good traction on harder snow and ice. More contact patch with the road while the siping will remove the fine layer of water that makes ice so slippery. But like someone else said we are not talking very much dufference from 185-205 wide tires.

 

Not true. See below.

The size of the contact patch has nothing to do with how wide the tire is. It is determined only by the pressure in your tires and the weight of your car. If you have a 2600 pound car and inflate all the tires to 26 psi, the size of the four contact patches is 100 square inches, regardless of whether you have skinny 175 mm wide tires or wide 225 ones.

 

If what you say is true, regarding contact patch size then why did you say "With winter tires, you want tires that are NARROWER, not wider! Narrow tires will do better on snow and ice. Narrow is better!!!"? I'm confused.

I would say contact patch DOES have something to do with rim width. You are talking about the contact patch as a static entity - which it is not. The contact patch is constantly changing in size (area) due to weighting and unweighting of the car during cornering, braking and acceleration. So why then would a skinny contact patch be superior to a wider one? Please explain.

 

First of all, what changes with wider or narrower tires is the SHAPE of the contact patch, but not the SIZE.

The reason narrower tires do better on snow and ice is the same reason they do better in the rain - with a narrower tread width, there's less water (or snow or melted ice) that the tire has to push away.

Think of the tire as a mini snow plow. If the plow is narrower, it's pushing less snow, so less snow is going to build up in front of it.

However, we're all limited to the size tires that are available. I'd really like to get a 185/60-15, which would be pretty close to the OEM outer diameter. However, I don't think there are any available. You can get the Blizzak MZ-02 in either 185/65-15 (4.4 percent larger outer diameter than stock) or 195/60-15 (3.3 percent larger). Or you can look for those Pirellis. I think the Blizzak is a better snow tire but at least the Pirelli comes in the stock size.



[Modified by nsxtcjr, 10:29 PM 8/13/2001]

 

I thought it's because on snow and ice, your coefficient of friction is low and thus available traction is limited. Thus if you want to increase traction, it is better to have more weight of the car concentrated on a smaller area so your traction is increased. In other words, the force per unit area would be higher. The grooves in the tires function to "push" away snow/ice/water.

 

Here's a somewhat useful link on the subject
http://integra.vtec.net/wheels/tiresnow.htm

 

[/QUOTE]Thus if you want to increase traction, it is better to have more weight of the car concentrated on a smaller area so your traction is increased. In other words, the force per unit area would be higher.[/QUOTE]

You're making the same fallacy. The area of the contact patch does not change, whether it's very wide (side to side) or more narrow. The force per unit area, though, is exactly the same (assuming you don't change the pressure in your tires - which, when you think about it, IS the force per unit area).

 

Huh?

What I'm saying is that if you decrease the area of the contact patch, the force per unit of area will be higher than a larger contact patch. that's wrong? wtf?

 

P.S. There's a dealer locator for Nokian tires (or "tyres") on their website here. And the Hakkepollita (sp?) Q is indeed available in 195/55-15.



[Modified by nsxtcjr, 10:54 PM 8/13/2001]