Labor Day Tire Sales? Share your Snow Tire experiences

As we come up on Labor Day weekend, I suspect there will be a bunch of labor day sales on tires. Anyone have the inside scoop on what retailers/brands to look at for good sales? 

I've always heard great things about blizzaks, but I'm seeing that the Yokohama ig52c tires are available at a reasonable price. Anyone have experience with these. General Altimax arctics seem to have gone up in price, so what's the latest and greatest in budget snow tires?

I'm planning on buying some snow tires for my girlfriend as she commutes a ton and has never had decent tires in the winter. All the reviews I've seen online of tires are typically after 1,000 miles or so, and lack any information on longevity of tires. Please share your experience with your snow tire of choice over the life of the tire and the conditions you drove it on. 

What size will you need (or what vehicle for)?  

What climate are you in?  Trying to decide if your most prevalent challenge is either Deep Snow, Icy Roads, Slushy Roads

Current generation Honda Civic. Looking at 205/60r16.

I'd like to keep this thread open to all sorts of cars and tire size experience though. I understand that "light truck" tires are different than normal car tires, but I'd like to hear experiences from a variety of car tires and drivetrain layouts. 

Firestone Winterforce tires are rather nice. Hold up well and have good traction in the snow, price is fair.

I seem to recall someone had a Pep boys tire that did well, maybe they will chime in.

Paul B

I had two sets of Michelin X-Ice tires:

One set on a Saturn SL2.  I used them only in the winter.  Got seven winters out of them and they still had plenty of useful tread when I got rid of the car.

Second set on my wife's Buick Rendezvous.  She ran them year round, which of course everyone says not to do.  They lasted three years and 38K miles.  They still had legal tread, but were useless as snow tires at that point.  Still pretty good in the rain though.

In reply to bluebarchetta :

How did they handle deep snow? My only experience with x-ice tires was at a winter rally which was mostly sheet ice. As the name might imply, they did fairly well on ice!  

All experiences below in RWD cars of varying weight, although I have used a few of them on F or AWD things also.

Firestone Winterforce Original Version (now discontinued, can still find occasionally): Soft sidewalls, soft deep tread, studdable.  Good in deep snow, sand, or light gravel, OK in slush and wet snow, not great on ice without studs.  Very floppy sidewalls make for "meh" steering response but otherwise a great and cheap snow tire.

General Altimax Arctic Original Version (now discontinued, can still find occasionally): Soft sidewalls, soft deep tread, studdable.  Good in nearly any winter condition, and in my opinion the best winter "all-rounder" available unless you anticipate seriously deep snow or mud.  Not as floppy as the Winterforce and not quite as good on ice as something like a Blizzak.

Yokohama iG20: Relatively soft sidewalls, very soft but shallower tread, non-studdable.  Good on ice and hardpack, but the looser and wetter things get the worse they perform.  Good on groomed roads but can get sketchy quickly in deep stuff.  Better on dry pavement than most.

General Grabber AT2: Decently stiff sidewalls depending on rating, hard deep tread, studdable.  Good in deep snow, sand, gravel, hotter weather, worse in wet or icy conditions.  Totally usable winter tire but not going to win any races and not very good on ice.

BFG All-Terrain Original Version (now discontinued): Stiff sidewalls, hard deep tread, forget if studdable.  The deeper and looser the snow the better, sketchy on slush, Flying Spaghetti Monster help you on ice.  Extremely fun in the snow (hard sidewalls mean hit berms as hard as you want) but not on ice.

I've got the Cooper Evolution Winter Studded. I was really happy with them last winter, and we got a LOT of snow. Worked well in snow and ice. I made it up my very steep driveway many times I previously wouldn't on studded M+S tires. I didn't have the best luck in 3+" of slush, but that's a tough job for most.

It has been a while since I bought, so this info is dated.

Blizzaks.  Rock my socks.  I loved them in the snow.

X-ice.  Wore forever, but only fair in the snow.  They are really designed for ice which isn't overly common where I live.  If it's bad enough that the roads are a sheet of ice, I just don't go out.

If I were doing it again, I would do the Blizzaks of those two.

1996 Probe GT.  Dunlop WinterSport 3D.  Bought new.  By far my favorite winter tire on FWD.  berkeleying savage until snow was too deep and front fascia became a plow.

2003 Odyssey.   Michelin X-Ice 2.  Bought new.  Meh.  Better than AS, but didn't hold a candle to Dunlops.  Probably negatively influenced by Honda's E36 M3ty traction control.

2003 Odyssey.   Blizzak WS70.  Bought new.  Huge improvement over Michelins on this vehicle.  Got 3 winters out of them.

2010 Odyssey.  Blizzak WS80.   IMO a slight step back from the WS70 in grip, perhaps made up by longer life.   We got 4 winters out of these.   Replaced with another set of WS80.

2007 525xi.  Blizzak WS70.  Bought used for start of Winter 2016, but almost full tread.  Holy E36 M3berkeley!  Probably not even fair to include because AWD, but this car is a goddamned animal in the snow and ice.   All the WOT, all the time.  Last year, just for grins, I drove it in the first snowfall on the AS tires at about 90% tread, and it just confirmed for me that Winter weather gets Winter tires.  They're wearing like iron, probably because AWD.  This year I'm replacing 2 because of sidewall bubbles from pothole strikes last winter.  The other 2 still have enough tread to go at least another winter.

On all of these tires, braking performance was for sure the biggest improvement of Winters vs AS.

My experiences with Firestones and Generals have been the same as stated above.  

The Firestones were great for snow on a fwd LeSabre and a fwd Taurus.  But, snow was not may prevailing weather condition.

I have since run Generals on a number of fwd car including Saturn Vue, Focus, and a couple of Prius.  They are much better at my prevailing condition which is slush and my second prevailing condition which is dry but very cold roads.  

Above there is a mention of General original version.  I bought my most recent set last year and I have not noticed (nor was I aware) that there has been change. 

As for time of year and Labor Day...  I have seen better sales and rebates in November and the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving weekend.   

Original Altimax Arctic:  

New Altimax Arctic 12:  

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

I'll have to check what I have.  

I ran the new General Altimax Arctic 12's this past winter in 16" on my BMW sedan (e90 335D) on my Michigan interstate commutes and they were great.  

as of today Tire Rack is blowing out last year's Blizzak WS80 for $90/tire in 205/60/16, PLUS you get an $80 mail in rebate.  That's ~$283 for a set.  Not sure where you're at, but you can pick them up for $40 off more.  That's a killer deal.  May pick up a set for my mother in-law's Kia.  

In my experience, the worst winter tires will outperform the best no-season or all-terrain tires in winter conditions everytime. Also, TireRack has some empirical data to support that.

That being said, I've always used Blizzaks with good success. I'd like to try Nokian Hakkapeliittas or the Michelin x-ice next.

I've got friends and coworkers using all the different brand winter tires: General, firestone, michelin, dunlop, etc and they all equally remark how much better the winter tire is than the stock eco-tire their car came with. So maybe pick the best deal that fits your budget and don't worry about the test data, unless you have a brand loyalty.

In reply to xflowgolf :

I am in the Metro Detroit region. I'll probably bite the bullet on shipping rather than drive down there for the $40 savings. 

I've heard that the Blizzaks lose their magic after the first few thousand miles. Can anyone else comment on WS80's?

Craigslist or FB market place. Summer is the best time to find a good used set from someone who sold their car and now has four donuts they trip over every time they go out the door. 

In reply to AlcantaraFTW :

That's fair. I had a similar experience the first time I drove a miata on some "Champiro Ice Pro" altimax knock-offs. Took a bit of extra planning, but that thing was unstoppable in deep snow. 

No brand loyalty here, just trying to get some anecdotal feedback from a forum that generally gets nerdy about tires. 

I am in Sandusky, OH, originally from Toledo and for years handled a sales territory of South of I-94, Downriver Detroit. 

Unless you are north of Oakland County, our climates and road conditions are generally the same.  

East of Cleveland gets worse for me but my travels rarely take me that direction 

I put the new Sumitomo ice edge on my x5 last winter they were very good.  I used 236/65/18 and I was 360 including shipping.  I bought a set for the Saab 9-3 in the same size you are looking for for around 220 shipped.  They were on eBay and had good sales at Memorial Day.  

Hakkapeliittas!

Seriously the best winter tires I've ever used. Got my STS Miata around in the worst winter in my area in 15 years like it was the model of autocross season.

In reply to cdowd :

Awesome, that's one of the ones I had been looking at but was unsure because it's not one of the "typical" winter tires people talk about and a brand I'm unfamiliar with. How much life did you get out of the tires? And in what sort of conditions?

I’ve got the current Firestone Winterforces on my Buick.  We mostly get wet heavy snow and they do a good job of churning through it. They get a bit loud but do their job and last fairly long so I just turn up the radio.  The only tires I tried and didn’t care for were GoodYears I had on my Escort years ago.  They drove fine but wore out quickly.  

cdowd said:

I put the new Sumitomo ice edge on my x5 last winter they were very good.  I used 236/65/18 and I was 360 including shipping.  I bought a set for the Saab 9-3 in the same size you are looking for for around 220 shipped.  They were on eBay and had good sales at Memorial Day.  

How are they on ice specifically? I wish some legit tire retailer sold them so there was some testing or at least somewhat trustworthy reviews done on them. I'm probably going to end up getting blizzaks for like $70 more but at that price they're tempting.