Snow tire season starts this week
 

It's not that I hate my snow tires, I just really love my summer tires (OE Insight tires, still the lowest RR I know of). I figured I could ride out the first snow accumulation of the season on summer tires by just driving slowly, which I did this weekend. I hoped it would buy me a couple weeks, but now it's time to throw in the towel:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5290/...b5171bb8_b.jpg

Twelve inches of snow, with thunder, with a chance of more snow all week. The Insight is very sensitive to small changes in road load that other cars would just shrug off. I'll have to make a habit of running higher RPMs, and I'm sure I'll be doing a lot less lean burn.

:(

The Nokian Hakkapeliitta R tires sound really nice, other then they don't make them in a size that would fit the insight, closest are the 155/65R14 but those re really short tires.

really short? its about 13mm smaller in diameter, and the 175's are about 13 mm larger in diameter. This is not a big size change either direction. going larger would be 20 or so less revs per mile, if mile figures are right (and this is using the theoretical dimensions of the tire, not actual)

You took off "SUMMER" tires and put on "SNOW" tires? Around here, we put on "WINTER" tires!

But seriously, some folks switched over 2 months ago. It's pretty much dependent on what the conditions are like where you live.

We usually don't get 12" of snow in a day around here, but I've switched to winter tyres as well.

I also put my snow/winter tires on last week. I went with 185/65R-15 Pirelli Winter 190 Snowcontrol Serie II tires. Despite the cold temperatures (which really hurts the Prius mileage) and high speed winds we've had lately, my mileage has not been effected as much as I had thought it would. So far, I'm quite happy with them.

I'm switching next weekend. I need to have them on by dec 15th, it's the law here.

I've heard about the Nokian Hakkapeliitta R LRR snow tires, and while they are the lowest RR tire in the Nokian catalog, they're not the lowest RR tire on the market. AFAIK, that's still the 11 year old Insight tire. Anyway, this might be the last season I get out of my MZ-02's, and if so, I'll get a set of LRR snow tires next October.

Most days, neither do we. ;) But this is what happens when you live on the leeward side of one of the Great Lakes. It's occasionally expensive and inconvenient, but if this is the closest we get to "extreme weather", I'll take it.

On my way in to work, it felt like I was driving with the brakes on. It felt like a "normal" car, as Basjoos might say. But I did some 4th gear lean burn where I would normally do 5th gear, drove slowly because of the weather, and managed to get the same mileage as I usually do on the commute.

I haven't put the Blizzaks on the Honda yet, but it has to happen soon. My summer tires are getting pretty bald. I'm not too far from Buffalo, but we only got about an inch here.