Winter/Snow Tires
 

I realize there's already a sticky thread on this subject, but a poll should be of more help IMO.
Your contribution of experience with any of these tires is appreciated.

I've used Blizzaks, Ultra Grips and the Altimax's and I prefer the Altimax for my area. Heavy snowfall and snow/ice covered roads from December to Feb/March. If you are in an area where the roads are mostly dry and have a bit of snow here and there I would go with the Blizzaks.

That's a strage mix of tires you're considering.
The first two are more of a dry-road winter tire with some snow/ice grip. The latter three are Ice & Snow tires, more suited for Minnesota/Canada or some place with lots of lake-effect snow.

So I'd say the first two should be considered (and dumped in favor of Michelin PA4), the latter three should not even be on the list.

edit: nevermind, there's no PA4 in 17" size. LM60 gets my vote.

I had blizzak on my old car and they worked great for Canada Ontario snow storms... This year I decided to go with the Goodyear Ultra Grip...I will vote once I have experience with the two....but as of right now I find that the Ultra grip lose traction pretty easily when accelerating on dry roads (snow hasnt hit us yet)

I live in Missouri where snow and ice will inevitably happen, but not throughout the whole season, so I'm looking for a set of tires that will perform in both snow/ice and cold/dry conditions. I realize that there will be compromise. I'm just widening my scope to find a suitable option for Missouri weather.

Thank you for the PA4 suggestion.

love my altimax artics!

See edit.

The latter three tires (The I&S kind) will involve a significant reduction in dry/wet performance. Is it worth it to trade off 10-20ft or more of 60-0 braking distance in the dry for more performance during a stray snowstorm?
I'm not sure. How fast will the crews clean the road?

If there were better studded options available besides Altimax, I'd recommend those. There might be ways to procure decent studded tires (Nokian/Conti/Michelin etc). I'm not a fan of Altimaxes. Sure they are cheap, but they are also sub par on ice/snow performance.

I just installed Michelin PS/3 All Seasons. So far so good, we'll see how the winter goes!

Bought Blizzaks WS70's for Calgary winters here in Canada. Haven't installed them yet since there's no snow but just handling these tires with my hands (getting them in and out of the car) they are ridiculously sticky compared to other tires I've handled so I'm confident they'll be sticky in the snow when they're actually on as well.

Can't tell you first hand of snow conditions (yet), however, I opted for WS70's for Toronto winter.

Quick question, will normal 16" steelies clear the callipers? Our stock brakes aren't to big are they?

I know TireRack has 16" steelies as an option for the car so they do work. Just not sure if all steelies are the same.

I sure hope they do.

Not to find out in the next week...

The wintersports are a great performance winter tire. I ran the Pirelli sotozero 2's last winter and they did very well, even in the deeper stuff.