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Old 12-04-2005, 10:57 AM   #1
lemming
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snow tires in the snow.

light dusting today of 1-3" but the trucks are slow to awaken on a sunday so all sideroads are still covered.

fx35 with all-season (horrible) re92s --> very fishy and fun. nissan's DSP lets you get some yaw going before it will try to correct. funny how much torque that little engine has. fun.

CTS-v with blizzak lm22's --> boring. stops better than the fx35 (this one was obvious) but bite and handling was a snooze. GM's stabilitrak is really, really, really good. it engages the traction control plus the mechanical LSD really well and the s'trak absolutely will not let you put a tire in the wrong direction. amazing.

anyway. no excitement this winter even with 395ft#'s of torque to deal with on skinny little 245s. i thought it would be more feral than it is. happy to report that snow tires change the nature of the beast when you're in their element. otherwise they're loud, squishy and generally horrible.
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Old 12-04-2005, 11:00 AM   #2
rumatt
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lemming
skinny little 245s.


Quote:
otherwise they're loud, squishy and generally horrible.
Yeah, I definitely don't feel the love many others do for these "performance snows" in the dry. My experience was with the Dunlop m3's, not the LM22's.
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Old 12-04-2005, 11:11 AM   #3
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It's just my luck (and seems like it happens every year... maybe someone is trying to tell me something?) that I always get stuck with snow a few days before I'm ready to put my snow tires on my car.

Two years ago, I got stuck on some unplowed streets after an early storm because I was waiting for my tires to come in.

Last year, I had a blow out right after I put the tires on, and then we had a snow storm before I was able to get a replacement and I had to make my way through the snow with 3 snow tires and a mini-spare.

Late last year, I hit something in the road and blew out another tire. Being lazy (and since it was already time to put my summer tires on), I decided to wait until this season to get a replacement tire. Shame on me... Bridgestone is phasing out the LM-22, it seems, and they no longer make a regular version in 225/45HR17 this year. After an endless search, I had to order two LM-25s so I would have the same rubber on both sides of the axle. Now, I'm waiting for the tires to come in early this week, and I look outside this morning to find snow on the ground.

The only saving grace is that we have two other AWD cars that can get me where I need to go... my car can stay in the garage for a while.
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Old 12-04-2005, 11:13 AM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rumatt




Yeah, I definitely don't feel the love many others do for these "performance snows" in the dry. My experience was with the Dunlop m3's, not the LM22's.
I've had "regular" snows on some other car (instead of the "performance" oriented ones), and trust me, they are even worse!! The ones I had on my E30 felt like Jello!
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Old 12-04-2005, 11:27 AM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rumatt




Yeah, I definitely don't feel the love many others do for these "performance snows" in the dry. My experience was with the Dunlop m3's, not the LM22's.
performance snows. what a misnomer.

as far as i can tell, they're "performance" only because of their speed rating. otherwise they're godawful on dry cold days. if i had the rear diff whining that a lot of V owners have, then i'm missing it because the tire thrum is drowning out anything else.
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Old 12-04-2005, 12:14 PM   #6
BahnBaum
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lemming
performance snows. what a misnomer.
For my area of the country performance snows work fine. What they give me in non-snowy conditions is a decent ride and noise level - using the word performance is a stretch, I agree. With moderate levels of snow, they work fine.

They're a good compromise for those of us who put them on in November, and then sit and wait for a month, maybe two before we find ourselves driving in any sort of significant snowfall.

Alex
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Old 12-04-2005, 01:49 PM   #7
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I kinda like the Dunlop M3s. Yeah they suck in terms of absolute performance and they are a little loud on the highway, but not that much more so than half worn Pilot Sports. What's actually fun is that they make it possible to drive the M3 at its limit at normal speeds.
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Old 12-04-2005, 02:35 PM   #8
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I find the LM22's on the 330i to be reasonably good on dry winter days. Of course, my only other winter tire reference is WS-50's on 65-series tires. In other words, driving with play-dough tires.

My wife went to work in Boston today with the Saab, which due to my laziness still has RE92's on (as lemmign said, it's snowing here). I REALLY have to put the order in for the Saabaru winter tires. I'll do it today.

Last edited by FC; 12-05-2005 at 09:35 AM.
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Old 12-04-2005, 02:58 PM   #9
lemming
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fernando
I find the LM22's on the 330i to be reasonably good on dry winter days. Of course, my only other winter tire reference is WS-50's on 65-series tires. In other words, driving with play-dodough tires.

My wife went to work in Boston today with the Saab, which due to my laziness still has RE92's on (as lemmign said, it's snowing here). I REALLY have to put the order in for the Saabaru winter tires. I'll do it today.
if she's a real quebecoise, she'll think today is a spring day driving into downtown.
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Old 12-04-2005, 03:18 PM   #10
John V
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After further review of the Dunlop M3s, yeah, they don't corner for sh!t. But I didn't really expect them to.

This squirminess is something I still haven't experienced. I guess I just don't drive my snow tires anywhere close to the limit.
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