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all weather vs winter

Remember studded tires, those added a whole level of safety that went away when they banned them.
 
20" snows? Jeebus. Do you need 20" to clear your brakes? I run the smallest rims I can in the winter.
I may be able to get away with 18'' wheels - but I plan on upgrading my brakes from the BR5 to BR9 (same that they use on the Peel Police Chargers).
Clearance will be super tight between the wheel weights and calipers then.
 
Remember studded tires, those added a whole level of safety that went away when they banned them.
They're not banned. You just need to register your car up north. It looks like they may have gotten rid of the exemption if you drive south though. Out of province plates get a one month exemption anywhere in the province, it looks like ontario plates may catch the ticket as soon as they drive south. I guess that means all of the Alberta and Florida plates we see driving around could legally run studs as how would gov't track the one month period (unless you got caught twice more than a month apart).
 
I think you could stud up a motorcycle and challenge the laws anywhere, no way could it ever damage roads significantly.
 
I have bought a few sets for pennies on the dollar and given away at least one set.

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Me too. Got a set for my HHR this way along with my wife's Yaris. Bought the aer for my Ram from a guy outside of Guelph. He bought creampuff Trucks and lifted and modded them and resold in the States. He put winters in the factory alloys so my winters are not on black steelies which is nice.

Actually, with the HHR I went through 2 sets of used winters. I was able to sell the one winter left set for $100.

Big believer in winters here. On the Ram especially they make a huge difference. Even on the Subaru which is AWD you notice the difference in turning and braking.

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I think you could stud up a motorcycle and challenge the laws anywhere, no way could it ever damage roads significantly.
Definitely a lot less damage than the bar ends constantly taking chunks out of the road in the winter.
 
One thing I didn't mention...I always get the insurance company asking me if I'm putting on 'winter' tires for the season....not sure if they consider the same as 'all weather' tires in their quote/analysis.
dedicated proper winters.

i roll with dedicated winters, always have. the handling performance in snow is night and day, better for ice, better for cold; we have all 3.
 
Me too. Got a set for my HHR this way along with my wife's Yaris. Bought the aer for my Ram from a guy outside of Guelph. He bought creampuff Trucks and lifted and modded them and resold in the States. He put winters in the factory alloys so my winters are not on black steelies which is nice.

Actually, with the HHR I went through 2 sets of used winters. I was able to sell the one winter left set for $100.

Big believer in winters here. On the Ram especially they make a huge difference. Even on the Subaru which is AWD you notice the difference in turning and braking.

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I switched my RAM1500 and Jeep Commander to Firestone Transforce AT/2 tires. My BIL runs them on his snow plows, I tried a set on the RAM, they have 60K on them and look like they'll go another 60. This summer I put them on the old Jeep, been thru a bunch of snow up north this fall, they hook up like a charm.

Not much good for a car, but if you're running rough roads or on snow in a truck, they work great.
 
When I needed to replace the all season's on my wife's Saab I went Nokian (Nordman) All Weather. They were very good summer and winter for an all around vehicle (not performance) and the wear rate was also good. Basically old gen Nokian snow tires design wise with a slightly harder wearing compound--made in Russia. Likely not as good due to the harder compound in the super cold as full blown winters, we don't get those temps here. It has the correct symbol for insurance purposes.... That car has now been replaced so these rims and tires are now the winters for my Saab Aero, hard cornering etc. in summer, they suck.

On her new car I picked up winters (WS90s) as we have all seasons that came with the car for summer (see below). I got a sweet deal on new take-off rims and the WS90s....

My general views, drive to conditions which includes the tires, we get only a few days where they really pay off, I can stay home those days if need be. Winter tires are not a requirement (nice to have) for us BUT. If the AS are newish and you plan to have the car for years (like her new car), winters (or all weather for winter) make sense as you get twice as many years for each set of tires (I just find a good deal on rims and they can be sold in the end). If the car is old and not performance and it is time for new tires, I would do the All Weather tires again without hesitation as the only set.

As a side note, Aluminum rims all the way. You can always find good deals and if you have an even half decent vehicle why drive around like a hobo on ****** steel rims half the time.... Modern aluminum rims will out last the vehicle as winters.
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COLES NOTES:
Two sets if car is newish or performance oriented as you get the value out of both sets. One set of AWs for year around when it comes time to buy a new shoes for an older joeblow car (last set of tires kind of thing). You will see little if any difference in our area in winter between All Weather and Winter tires.

Nevermind that Nokian Nordmans will be better than almost all the no-name offshore discount winters!
 
Put a set of four all weathers on my last car in late autumn when it was near the end of it's life. Both my winter and all season tires were shot at the time. If I was going to do it over, I'd put a set of winters on instead.

Edit: If I lived inside Toronto, not the GTA, and didn't go skiing or out of the GTA in winter, and did regular alignments, I would be tempted to get away with all seasons, or all weather tires. The all weathers didn't last a full year for me, but at the time the steering and suspension of the car were not the best. The tires ended up cupping. I live four hours away from Toronto, and snow tires are a must here.
 
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lots of opinions
here's mine

all seasons are fine for most of S. Ontario if you have an AWD car
if you have a FWD puddle jumper or in an area where snow accumulates

get a set of steel wheels with snows on it and C/O twice/year
 
lots of opinions
here's mine

all seasons are fine for most of S. Ontario if you have an AWD car
if you have a FWD puddle jumper or in an area where snow accumulates

get a set of steel wheels with snows on it and C/O twice/year
I disagree on this. Had a Subaru awd, it needed snows where a fwd needed snows.
 
I dont quite understand why manufacturers decided to make all weather tires as well.
Wasn't all season good enough?





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I disagree on this. Had a Subaru awd, it needed snows where a fwd needed snows.
What’s the point of AWD if it can’t grip? AWD is great for starting and moving through snow, but when it comes to stop or avoid anything .... if you can’t grip in the cold, nothing will help.

winter tires are literally the only way to transfer that power to the ground....no grip....no go....no stop....no turn.
 
What’s the point of AWD if it can’t grip? AWD is great for starting and moving through snow, but when it comes to stop or avoid anything .... if you can’t grip in the cold, nothing will help.

winter tires are literally the only way to transfer that power to the ground....no grip....no go....no stop....no turn.
Awd let's you gain way more speed than you can control. With fwd, it it's really slippery it takes a lot of attention and time to gain speed. When it comes time to turn or stop, there is not a giant difference between fwd/rwd/awd.
 
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Awd let's you gain way more speed than you can control. With fwd, it it's really slippery it takes a lot of attention and time to gain speed.
You won’t be gaining that speed of you can’t put the power down. Hence the winter tires are most important IMO. Hell if I kept my stock 18s on....I would’ve already been in a ditch.

Took Forks of the Credit for a boot last week and it was super fun on the way north, and on the way south with 10cm of snow.
 
Wife's 16 AWD CRV with All-Season's was good enough in the snow and much better than my FWD CX-7 that had winters. On the new FWD Odyssey I put General Altimax Arctic 12 on and in the one decent snowfall we got so far they worked quite well. Great reviews in grip and wear.
 
don't you live in Ottawa?

of course you disagree with me, you always do
but up there in the Valley is not what I was talking about
Lol. Of course I had to disagree with you.
I've seen some nasty storms around the GTA.
Same for Southern Ontario. Horseshoe Valley gets some nice white outs, as has the 401.
If you're puttering around Toronto, and avoiding the worst storms, then you are absolutely correct.

Anecdotally, I found that
AWD with snows was significantly better than
FWD with snows which was significantly better than
AWD with all seasons which was significantly better than
FWD with all seasons.

That being said, my Subaru, and any cars before that only ever had All season tires on them.
It wasn't until I got the minivan with good snows that I noticed how much better they were.
Back when I was a kid, I drove a RWD 258/6 Hornet with bald tires to school in winter.
All of the above were in Toronto.

I live near Ottawa. Almost everybody has snow tires here.
Anybody without tends to end up in a ditch.
 

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