Winter Tire questions 2015 FR-S

[Sapper211]

Always been a fan of Blizzaks, but I have a few questions. I did search, but didn't find what I was looking for.

In South Dakota we often get snow into late May, however it looks like this might be a relatively snow-quite spring. That being said, last weekend I found myself stuck in the driveway in an inch or two of heavy wet snow on the OEM rubber. This weekend it will be in the 70's.

In the past, I've purchased Blizzaks from Tire Rack, mounted to a smaller rim (01 BMW 740l) and have also gone with naked Blizzaks, which were mounted and balanced each spring and fall to the OEM wheel (12 Focus ST). Of course the cars were totally different in nearly every way, (with the exception of incredible beauty and attention to driver centric detail), but I didn't notice a huge difference other than the costs associated with mounting and balancing each year.

My question is, on our FR-S86BRZ's is it worth the price/performance difference of having Blizzaks mounted to 16" (mounted and balanced one time only and included in the price), or would it be wise to just go with the stock size tire and have them swapped out by the shop, re-balanced and mounted on the stock rims each spring and fall?

A description of your experiences either way would be much appreciated.

Thanx in advance,
Sapper211

[SlammedSilly]

youre best bet, in all honesty, buy a set of 02 wrx wheels, or a 16in 5x100 wheel. then buy snow tires for those wheels and just swap wheels. i bought 06 forester wheels for the winter time, 16x6.5's for $200. then bought michelin x-ice winter tires, for $480 with a $80 rebate, so technically $400 for the tires. im in the whole wheel/tire combo for $600 and the snow tires will last me probably 5 years or so... so what im saying is invest in another set of wheels and spend the money now, you will save it in the long run

[Stang70Fastback]

Yeah, I went with the steelies route. It was only $6xx for a set of 205/55R16 General Altimax Arctic snow tires on 16" steelies mounted, balanced, and delivered from TireRack.

[ichitaka05]

I went with Hankook winter tires (w OEM wheels) at local discount tire shop and out the door was $620-ish. I wasn't using the stock wheels anyways, so it's workout out.

[churchx]

I remember in past having driven un-re-balanced wheel-tire combo for 3 seasons. Was eye-openingly amazed, what difference balancing brought at end, when suddenly big share of extra noise/vibrations/uncomfortable ride issues, that i somewhat tended to blame on other things then tires, were almost gone. Said to heck with trying to save small spare on not rebalancing with using separate wheels sets for summer & winter tires, and since then i did always single set of wheels that i changed summer and winter rubber on with rebalancing each time. As small side gains, one can get and benefit of use for all year long just one uber set of some good aftermarket forged wheels and it's also much lighter weight wise to store and carry to tire shop just tires.

[gravitylover]

I have 17" '06 Outback wheels with Conti EWC's that I've used for 2 seasons now and they have been lifesavers. I will get a third because I hardly drove at all this winter, used the Durango more often than my car because gas was cheap. I did not have to have them balanced again.