redevo8driver

iTrader: (1)

well i could have guessed that an allseason tire wouldnt have been that great in snow with a high horsepowered turbo car...if you had run the conti wintercontacts you would have been fine..cant really expect that much from an allseason unless you're riding around in an suv which has the extra weight to help with traction..with an all season tire i'm surprised you didnt get way more miles out of them i mean i got almost 30 k out of my advans only using them on dry pavement but ya conti wintercontact or the blizzaks are my recommendation

MyCre8n=Evlshn

I did all this research last winter (on these forums and others) and found that I had decided on Blizzaks but couldn't find them anywhere (a plant in Japan that makes Blizzaks reportedly burned down...heard that one from 3 sources and one source said that it wasn't the Blizzak plant and that it was some other plant...whatever). Anyway, I finally found some Blizzak LM-25V's and I couldn't have been any happier. The WS-50's are the very best in true snow, you can't get better grip in snow, but they don't really perform well when it's been plowed, or on dry pavement, and they really are soft so they aren't going to last long. I live in Amarillo, Texas but drive to Taos, New Mexico all the time in the winter (dad lives there and I ski a lot). Last winter went to Taos...over dry highway at high speeds (wide open middle of the flat high plains across rural NM where you can see for miles) like 100-140mph (mostly 100-120) for about 1-2 hours they performed great. If anyone's going to flame me for driving fast, spare me...go look at a map and look at route 39 through Roy and Mosquero and route 120 through Wagon Mound and Ocate (I go slow near towns)...Eastern NM...middle of nowhere. You can see for miles. They also handle decently on dry pavement in town and cornering isn't bad for a snow tire. When I got up into the mountains, I hit a lot of snow...particularly, there is an 11 mile rough dirt road winding over a mountain pass that is a shortcut to Taos ...saves a lot of time to go over it but most people won't go over it without an SUV, especially in the winter. There were several inches of snow and I loved it. I went rally racing through the entire 11 miles, power sliding through turns and these things really gripped amazingly. Then I drove in 8-inch deep snow (no it didn't clear the front bumper and packed into the intercooler) and it didn't stop me. Felt like I had an SUV, just without the clearance (damn!). Then I drove up to Aspen, Colorado (a very long drive) and coming out of Denver, westbound, there was a blizzard so bad that most traffic pulled off the road. Well, not me and not the SUV's. I crawled through all the slippery stuff, over mountains and mountains, with a lot more control than the SUV's and passed everyone and had tremendous grip. I could easily see that it was the tires that were saving me in this. If I'd have not had good snow tires, I literally couldn't have driven in that stuff...it was heavy for about 3 hours and I cranked past lines of SUV's only rarely feeling a little slip here and there. I'm certain they were all thinking they were going to come accross my car in a ditch later. So deep snow all the way to Aspen (X-games) and they had plowed the highway between Aspen and Glenwood Springs (where I was staying) so I drove in a lot of slush and pavement too. Then, in the town of Aspen, I drove on some graded sloped streets and was truly amazed. I watched while SUV's WITH SNOW TIRES slid backwards on the icy hills while I crawled up them like I was driving a snow cat. That's when I was really psyched. These tires allowed me to crawl up icy streets that other 4wd vehicles with snow tires were sliding all over.

So overall, I couldn't have been happier. True, the WS-50's are likely even better grabbers, but when you're driving a lot of paved miles while still wanting extra grip in the snow and ice, these cannot be beat. They are expensive and I'd bet there's something comparable out there for less, but I felt totally confident driving triple digit speeds on the dry highways, and totally confident driving through a heavy blizzard and through a remote snowy mountainous rugged dirt road. Honestly, if I'd gotten stuck in the snow, it would have been because of clearance, with snow piling up against the bottom of the car and the front preventing me from moving. These tires weren't going to give up grip for nothing.

I really don't think it's worth it not to change to a snow tire in the winter if you really drive in snow much. And in the summer, you're just going to lose way too much performance not to go with a dry pavement performer (plus you're going to wear out your expensive snow tires for nothing). So I just change them out when I'm going on a snow filled trip, but when I live in Lake Tahoe (hopefully in a year or two), I'm going to have these on all winter.

Sorry to bore you all with my long-winded diatribe, but I think you really need to know how I came to the conclusion that these are an amazing snow tire.

Eveolicious

According to TireRack.. for the Evo (size) they only have the Blizzack LM-22... unless I am missing the 25 somewhere.

But I want blizzacks for my winter tires, just don't know which I should get yet...

AlwaysinBoost

iTrader: (17)

Sorry they were the Conti Extream Winter Contact tires or something like that... its been about 7 months since I looked at them so the name isn't fresh in my head. I did by them used with a few thousand miles on them and I could have gotten more out of them but the season was over and I didn't want to risk the chance of hydroplaning in a rain storm to save a buck on getting new tires.

AlwaysinBoost

iTrader: (17)

MyCre8n=Evlshn, thanks for the long winded write-up. I pretty much drive over the same stuff as you so I'm going to look into Blizzak LM-25V's and see if they have our size available.

4G63>OOOO

iTrader: (1)

Well, in a perfect world, you have your summer spec Evo (road course ready) and your winter spec Evo:



Here we have 1G DSM front brakes, 15"x7" Compomotive TH3's wrapped in 195/65/15 Blizzak WS-50's and stock suspension.

Now, if you're not doing ice events, it's probably not worth it to go through all this trouble (Hell, looking at my bills, I don't even think it's worth it now), but the extra sidewall really helps along with the skinny track.

For someone just looking to get through the winter and not get stuck, I'd get Nokian RSi as skinny as you can go. They have 9/10 of the ice grip of a WS-50, but with on road manners of a Wintersport M3.

As always, YMMV.

Abicus

iTrader: (7)

I couldn't find the 25v's but could someone review or tell me more about the BRIDGESTONE BLIZZAK LM-22s. I found a set of these I might buy used in 255/40/17s. Only 300miles I them. Thanks.

4G63>OOOO

iTrader: (1)

The LM-25V replaced the LM-22. No real quantifiable difference between the two.

I would suggest you pass on those tires. 255's? They'll sure look pretty, but will be pretty much useless in any significant powder. You want to go as SKINNY as you possibly can.

pgjoey

iTrader: (12)

I had the Blizzak WS-50s on my Integra. They were great! I have also drove a Honda Account V6 Cp with LM-22s in the snow, and they work very well. I tossing around getting LM-25s myself.

Tirerack must be out of them, not coming up in the search anyway. The LM-25 is more of a winter performace tire. The LM-22 is in the middle of both performace (LM-25) and snow/ice (WS-50), is how I see them anyway.

LM-25
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....M-25&x=19&y=18

LM-22
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....LM-22&x=8&y=16

SW-50
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....S-50&x=12&y=10

Also, this is just my opinion. I bet the SW-50s would be super squirmy on the Evo. I remember how they felt on my Integra. They were great in snow/ice though.

redevo8driver

iTrader: (1)

well theres 2 different tires..theres contiwintercontact and contiextremecontact...as you notice there is no extreme in the winter tires name..so take a look and let me know..if you have the wintercontacts i might be interested in buying them off of you if you still have them but I have a feeling you had the all season extreme contacts from the way you originally stated it let me know

oak2207

I'll back this up 100%. I too use these, this will be the 2nd winter on them now, and the tread still looks really good. I even used them for a trip from Denver to Phoenix over Christmas last year, and probably will again this year too.

jred321

iTrader: (3)

i'm stuck between the ws-50 and the nokian hakka rsi. i had hakka q's on my last car and the rsi is supposedly the replacement for it and i can't say i was disappointed at all, after 2 seasons they still look pretty much perfect. they're going to be the same price for me i just need to pick. i might try the ws-50 just because i've tried nokian already just to get a second view. oh decisions decisions

wingless

iTrader: (15)

I can vouch for Wintersport M3's. The are good to 150mph and grip like a **** on/in any surface condition. My only gripe might be price and soft sidewalls.

infin|ty

I just had 4 WS-50s put on my evo with the stock rims, in the stock tire size. Pretty squishy, especially when you first pull out of the lot, you will be like "whoa, is this **** gonna roll over" but after 2 weeks of them I'm used to it and it's really no problem, just don't expect to take sweeping turns at 85, more like 40.

I just say, hey they are snow tires, that's why I got them, might as well have the best ones you can get so on those wintery nights when you get outta work at 10, and have to drive 20 miles home in nasty deep snow with no visibility you know you will get home.

ashumo

iTrader: (6)

got the snow tires on the stock wheels.

advan neova's on gram lights 57F.

i make the swap considering conditions and what my intentions are for the week.





4G63>0000 that is one sick setup you have.