Recent move from SC to Charlottesville, VA. Can you recommend a winter tire that would get me from here to Northern Virginia this winter when need to help out with the folks? Traveling solo, so I have been a fan of run flats. Thank you, JSH
Welcome to the forums. There have been a few prior forum threads dedicated to questions such as this. There are always differing opinions but I'll point you to a couple of more recent threads that reference my personal favorite, Continental Extreme Contact DWS. https://www.bmwcca.org/forum/index....drive-run-flats-replacement.20296/#post-87276 https://www.bmwcca.org/forum/index....ax-performance-summer-tires.20051/#post-86196 You can also visit Tire Rack for their reviews of these tires. http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Continental&tireModel=ExtremeContact DWS
The DWS, while a fine tire, is not a winter tire - it's an all-season. Nor is it a RFT, which the OP wants. Bridgestone's Blizzak and Michelin's Pilot Alpine both come in RFT and are both available from tirerack. You may well want to spend another $500 to get a set of winter wheels - check their winter wheel and tire packages. Order before October, as some of these tires are in rather short supply.
Correct. I inadvertently pointed in the direction of past experience, running DWS on several cars. The ProContact line of all-season tires was the Continental link I meant to attach. My mistake. Our experience with quality all-season tires has been Very good and that's impacted my thinking I guess. We keep them on everything. We've run Blizzaks on a couple of 4x4s but I got tired of storing more extra wheels and tires. Between winter and track tires I was storing four sets. Without question, for a full winter tire the Blizzaks are excellent and as Floyd said, a second set of dedicated wheels for the winter only tires will be much easier than swapping them back and forth on your primary rims. Sorry for the confusion on my part.
Ditto on the Tire Rack, they should be able to help direct you. Ditto on dedicated wheels for snows too (don't forget tpms sensors if your car requires them) if you don't mind what's involved to swap 'em out seasonally (jack (possibly jack pad/adapter), jack stand or two, wheel chock, breaker bar, socket & extension, & torque wrench), plus storage space for 4 wheels/tires & tools. Yes it's some expense, but, you don't have to haul 'em off to someone and wait to get them changed - in time, you'll break-even on tire-changing expense. Of course you have to learn the correct and safe way to jack the car, properly torque the lug bolts, etc. - not hard, but, tackling such projects, even if relatively simple, isn't necessarily for everyone either.
