Hi, new owner, just bought an 03 z4 as a "fun car", always wanted one and finally found one. I am looking forward to learning more about the community and participating as much as I can. Of course, 2 days after I get it, NY gets a snow storm! Got stuck at fiancé's with no garage but I had JUST bought a car cover for it, so that worked out! LOL... Dug out, uncovered, drove it to self serve car wash, and all shiny again! .smiles. Any recommendations for winter tires? Tom
When I lived a bit further north I liked Vredestein Wintrac since I drove in an occasional snow. For a lot of snow driving I liked Blizzaks. Hated them on dry surfaces though. All tires have tradeoffs. Ask 12 people you will get 12 answers. Good luck.
Welcome to the club and the forums from a fellow new owner. On the winter tire question, I have had Blizzaks on the last two cars I've owned, and I highly recommend them. I'm sure I'll get a set for the new BMW as well.
The Blizzaks seem to be a tire of choice for many! I have also had folks recommend to me the Continental Extremes (see link below!). Any experience with those? I note that neither the Blizzaks nor these other ones are "run-flat" tires. In fact, I have seen some folks recommend to get rid of the "run-flats" and get different tires for summer use as well. I'm guessing folks don't worry so much about the potential of a flat tire... (Roadside assistance to the rescue, I guess!) http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires...&autoYear=2003&autoModel=Z4 2.5I&autoModClar=
Hi Dragkar! I am in upstate NY where it lasts a little longer, though usually it is just a day or so before things are back to normal. Regardless, I plan to cover this baby up when I get stuck with no coverage preceding an impending storm! I'm just looking forward to enjoying it!
Welcome to the asylum! Since it's back in the 80s in San Diego, I hereby bow out of any discussion of snow tires!
Welcome to the club & forums! The Blizzaks are popular and highly regarded, and appear to be very effective as snow tires. Unless something's changed, something like about 1/2 of their tread-depth is a soft tread compound that works very well on snow and ice, but will wear faster, and the remaining part of the tread is a conventional snow-tire compound. Here in s.w. Ohio the norm is occasional snow, once-in-awhile ice, and otherwise mostly cold & rain (this winter, colder & much more snow than in recent years), so I've never opted for Blizzaks because mostly I'd just be wearing off the really useful part of the tread in fairly short order, and I can get by just fine on regular snows (I usually go for Michelin X-Ice variants). I can also get by with a pretty narrow size on my old E34 which allows regular snows to work reasonably well. You'd want a narrower size that's safe, if possible, & I'd suggest separate wheels w/ the snows mounted, as long as the wheels are in the budget - saves that twice annual mount & balance. The Blizzaks might be a good choice despite any tread-life trade off, any extra grip might be a plus since in all likelihood you'll have to be using a relatively wide tire. If your car doesn't have a limited-slip diff, the Blizzaks might be a really good idea. Many opt to ditch the run-flats for tire-life & ride quality considerations. BMW has been installing sticky low-treadwear rating high performance tires on their new cars, which makes for great lateral grip and immediate turn-in response (definitely adding to the fun-to-drive factor, if one pushes the car at all), but the trade-off is you're replacing an expensive set of rear tires at around 15-20k depending on how you drive. You can decide what kind of trade-offs you want in that regard; as for rft's you have to judge your risk tolerance for risk of a flat, and associated inconvenience if you get stuck with no spare. If you have no complaints about the ride quality & don't mind your rears lasting half as long as your fronts, maybe you have little reason for ditching the rft's.
