Snow tires and MPG

[Daox]

I also ran my last set of General winter tires @ 50 psi and they wore very well.

[99LeCouch]

Good stuff. I'm sure the max sidewall on these is crazy high.

Also, seeing one of the hills I'll have to climb, I'm glad to have these tires. It's 1/2 mile of old, slick pavement as straight up the hill as they could. Y intersection at the bottom, with woods and a ditch on the far side.

[Weather Spotter]

Let me reopen this thread, I am looking for winter tires for my aero trix. Daox, you mentioned General's which ones do you have? would they be Altimax Arctic by chance? they have good reviews on tire rack and are cheep, how is the MPG penalty on snow ties on dry pavement?

[99LeCouch]

I noticed a 10-15% drop in MPG with the Generals on my old LeSabre. They were an excellent snow tire, letting that car claw through anything in its way. Highway driving was stable and sure-footed. I'm glad I had them, despite the MPG drop.

With the Cruze, I'm tempted to get them again. However, given some of the reports for LRR snows on here, I'm also leaning toward getting a set of LRR snows such as Nokian R's or Michelin X-Ice XI2's.

Based on my math of driving about 7k miles during the winter and gas at $4/gallon, a set of LRR snow tires giving a 5% drop in summer FE of 40 MPG would cost $737 in fuel. A set of non-LRR snow tires giving a 15% drop in FE would cost $821 in fuel. So one would save $84 in fuel in 1 year by getting a LRR snow tire compared to a non-LRR snow tire. At the current price difference between the Generals and the Michelins, the payback would be 2 years for getting the LRR Michelins over the non-LRR Generals.