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Winter Tires need help deciding

George_Pimpdaddy

George_Pimpdaddy

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Edmonton Alberta Canada
Hello all, so the winter months are on the way up here in alberta and ive been browsing over the archives of winter tire polls and have a few questions. This is for my 89 full size blazer with 14ff rear and a 10bolt 3/4 with 4.10's. I currently have no lift and have trimmed for 35" BFG Muds on 15X10 rims.
So first off im thinking of going wiht the BFG All Terrains as my truck had them when i first bought it and they did good on the snow and icy roads. Now what size should i get i was thinkin of 33's but will it be over powered with the gears then and im losing some diff clearance too or should i get 31"s just wondering what the best daily driver winter tire i should get would be lol i know its gonna be a hard one to answer :doah:
 
With 410s I would go with BFG AT 33" I run 33" General AT2(Same as BFG ATs At but a lot cheaper) In the winter Ice/snow. They work great. I run 3.73 locked front and rear in my DD 89 K5 driving 40 + miles a day. It snows here from Nov to April . and gets -30F. So i get quite a bit of snow ice driving in.
I have ran 31s in winter but like the 33s better. I have 12.50 x33 but 10.50 x33s would be even better in the snow.
 
I had 33x12.5 BFG AT's on my F250 when we got an early snow storm. Holy Smokes, those things were scary on snow and ice!!!! The best snow tires I have ever run were BFG TracEdges (studded) in 235x85x16. They were incredible in the winter. The only time I had to use 4 wheel drive was at uphill intersections and in deep snow. Right now I am running BFG Commercials (studded) and they are ok. It seems that narrow footprints on pizza cutter tires do better in snow and ice due to more pressure being put on road. At least that is what I have found. I have heard great things about Nokian Hakkapelitta's. A number of people have told me that they are just as good unstudded as most tires are studded. I will probably try those next as long.
 
George_Pimpdaddy said:
what if i had my mud terrains sipped? how much would that cost? is it good for the tire life?
Click to expand...

$75 if you buy the knife and do it yourself.
$30-60 US if you pay a tire shop to do it on their machine. Sorta depends on the shop and what they consider a "big tire" to be.

At the very least it doesn't hurt tire life and at best it might increase tire life by allowing heat more opportunities to dissipate out of the rubber.

I only run siped MT's year round on all of our vehicles. Even my wife's DD has itsy bitsy MT's on it.


If you sipe them or pay to have them done have them only sipe the center lugs. The outer lugs are prone to tearing.
 
Will they be as good as a purpose made winter tire? No.

Will they do perfectly good as long as you drive responsibly? Hell yeah.

Radial MT's have softer rubber than most tires so they do pretty good when siped well. Also the tread voids and depth have something most modern winter tires are missing...the ability to dig through a drift of snow. Ever notice the old snow tires that were knobby and could make mom's Crown Vic chew through a snow drift are gone and have been replaced with what looks like overly siped car tires?
Those new winter tires work great if you have good plowing in your area...I don't here but thanks to our siped MT's the wife and I can always get to work and school when the snow is deep and the plows are no where to be seen.


That said don't get overconfident and try to go the posted speed limit on icy roads. One of my pet peeves about up here:
"I've got snow tires/winter tires/siped tires/chains/AWD/4x4/a truck/a SUV/a Subaru/traction control/the offroad package/a winch/15 lights/a roll bar/AAA/grew up here/been living here for 15 years/etc etc etc and I can drive 65mph down the two ruts through the 2' deep snow drifts where the road used to be...":rolleyes:
 
If you are just looking for winter tires run the 35x12.5 retreads with the green diamonds from hi tech retreading, these things are magic in the snow. Had them on a pickup I had for a couple of weeks last winter. Wow is all I can say
 
We liked them too on our previous Suzuki. However here was our experience with them and the company:

I had a set of High Tec's OTR Muds on my wife's 03 Grand Vitara. They had the green diamonds for increased winter traction. We liked their performance...aside from the fact that they were as loud as Boggers on the road...but hated the customer service and problems we had with the tires. First it took over a month to get our tires. Then after we finally got them one fell apart after less than 400 miles. After more stupidity and BS they sent me a new replacement tire pretty fast. Fast forward most of a year and I realize two of the four road tires have portions where the tread seems to be loose of the sidewall. It took two emails and a phone call before I got a response and was then told to call back in a few weeks. A few weeks later I called again and was told they wouldn't be making our size in the MT anymore so I was SOL unless I wanted the AT pattern.
Considering the crappy service thus far I told the guy off and hung up.

About 2 weeks later my wife was involved in an accident and the vehicle was totaled. I didn't bother getting the tires off of it.

I found a deal on some new Kumho MT's on Ebay for even less than the HighTec's cost me a year before and siped them myself. I'm aware of their shortcomings but so far they're doing great under the wife's DD.

From these experiences I recommend people to avoid HighTec. If I could do it over again I'd have bought new tires somewhere else, even paying retail locally.
 
so this morning theres snow out there lol so ive already noticed not to my surprise that my 35" bfg mud terrains arnt going to cut it as DD tires on my k5 lol so will siping help noticably? or should i be looking for some skinny 33's like all terrains or go full out winter tires if i can find any in 33"
 
In all honesty I have 285/75s Toyo M/Ts on my 99 Z71, They actually handle great in snow and ice. Kicked All season tire ass.
Kind of a compromise tire, you can drive them all year long, ok in mud and trails and last a very long time.
That said I have driven BFG A/ts but in the stock 245 size on a ford and would rate them better on the ice, but not snow and I'd imagine the benefit lessens as the sizes go up.
I also have 33" BFG M/Ts on my 85 and am not looking forward to ice with them, as the traction is terrible even on wet pavement. I am hoping to get 35" toyos for it sooner than later.
In the end nothing touches tires made just for ice, I have them on my wifes 2wd daily and they rock. If I had to buy 2 sets of tires I would get specifically made ice tires like mentioned earlier in this thread
 
Sipes will definitely help. More biting edges = more grip on the slick stuff.

It's up to you.
 
You'd probably have to sipe them yourself too, I know the tire places around here won't sipe used tires
 
Dunno about Canukistan but around here the tire shops will sipe just about anything capable of holding air.
 
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