Winter or All Season tires for SPEC B

[34specb]

Any Spec B owners plan on putting winter or all season tires on? I am having trouble finding any made for the SPEC B. Any thoughts or suggestions?

[Gator GT]

I'm planning on getting an 07 B, and have a set of 05 LGT rims that I'm going to use for winter.

 

Knowing that those are smaller, I'm aiming to use 205/50R17 to get as close to OEM Spec.B height as possible.

 

The 205 will be better for winter use anyway (narrow footprint = better traction) and the 50 series will help handle a touch better in the snow, than 45.

 

There are a couple threads, though, that I've found on this topic already. Search "spec winter" or "specb winter" and you should find some.

 

thanks,

matt

[LoveMySpecB]

Any Spec B owners plan on putting winter or all season tires on? I am having trouble finding any made for the SPEC B. Any thoughts or suggestions?

 

I decided to buy a spare set of 17" rims and basic snow tires (Hankook IceBear). Not the greatest tire but perfectly adequate. Right now they're sitting in the garage. Come winter, I'll have them swapped out for the 18" tires that came with the car.

[IwannaSportSedan]

(narrow footprint = better traction) and the 50 series will help handle a touch better in the snow, than 45.

 

thanks,

matt

 

I am not sure that it is this simple. More surface area usually equals more traction, when it comes to tires.

 

More surface area also allows more gripping edges (breaks and cuts in the tread blocks, and circumferential sipes in a tire, which also help traction.

 

Where width comes in is floatation. Will the tire cut through snow and snow pack, or pile up and ride over the snow. That is where more circumference sipes and lots of edges and many small tread blocks come into play, to manage the snow plowing effect, and soft surface grip. Taller sidewalls allow flex, and can help grip uneven surfaces, and the flex can help grip soft uneven surfaces.

 

The tread block surfaces and rubber compounds that stay soft at cold temperatures help with ice and frozen surfaces. There, more width allows more contact patch, which is good.

 

With water, cold or otherwise, directional tread sipes pump liquid from the center to the sides as the tires roll, which reduce hydroplaning, and allow the tread blocks to remain in contact with the pavement, rather than pushing the water, and riding up on top of the water's surface tension.

 

Cornering performance relies on larger tread blocks that squirm less (don't twist laterally, between the road surface and the tire' belt "carcass".), and good 'meaty' shoulder blocks that again, don't squirm. Short sidewalls also decrease squirm, and 'suspension effect' where the tires bounce and interfere with the suspension's more precise action rates. Rubber compounds that stay sticky, but yet intact (rather than pilling or wearing very fast) at high temperatures also help here.

 

More width and more diameter means more contact patch, but have to be ultimately balanced with rolling resistance (grippier wider tires have more) and unsprung weight.

 

As you can see... some of that is mutually exclusive. All seasons try to make compromizes. rubber that is somewhat grippy at a wider range of temperatures, and a mix of tread blocks and sipes that try to do a lot of things, a jack of all trades, master of none, as it were. Ultra high perf all seasons shift that compromize more toward dry and wet performance, and less toward snow, while still being able to handle a little bit. Summer tires don't make any of that concession, have higher grip in the warm and dry, but will spin to the moon on anything cold, soft, or slick.

 

Conversely, snow/ice tires tend more toward soft surface and slick surface cold temperature use, naturally.

 

I always suggest summer/winter, or at least UHP All-Season/winter tires, (depending on when you want to change tires, late into the fall, and early in the spring...) if you live in an area in the snow-belt, with more than a couple of inches a year. Less than that, All seasons will work, and somewhere perpetually snow-free, summer tires are even better, of course.

 

On a car with a dead axle, RWD OR FWD..., I would see where winter tire width would be a concern, for rolling wheels just drag along, or get pushed through the snow or slush. Narrow will be better to slice through that with less resistance.

 

Wider winter tires on FWD will be slightly more likely spin and understeer on power, and oversteer on lift-throttle, as the rear slides on top of a slick surface, rather than cutting through snow. (ice means almost no traction regardless...)

 

Wider winter tires on RWD WILL slide on top of a slick surface on power, and understeer the rest of the time, as the front tires slide the same way. Narrower is better here, too.

 

I have owned both RWD and FWD on wide all-seasons year round. Not great. I currently own wide 215/40-16 T1-Rs for the Miata's (RWD, torsen LSD) summer tires, and cheapy no-brand 195/55-14 winter tires that need to be replaced soon. That is still better than wide all-seasons on a 2-wheel drive car, even FWD. The miata's even weight distribution helps, too. A nose-heavy RWD car might be a bit more to handle.

 

I have really good all-terrain Bridgestone Revos on my 4-wheel-drive (transfer case, not center diff) truck, and it is a real drift-buster since it is high, and has skid plates. The truck is unuseable in 4WD on anything resembling dry pavement, due to the transfer case. the thing won't turn. AWD has a huge advantage there, as a full-time system.

 

However, with 4-wheel or all-wheel drive, with all wheels receiving torque, for all intents and purposes... (ignoring differential effects for this discussion) the all the tires apply power to the roadway surface and dig, rather than being rolled by the motion of the car. I think that would allow slightly wider winter tires to be used, to get enough traction surface area to apply driveline torque to any number of road conditions.

 

205/50 will work fine, and is probably a good size for a 17x7 wheel. I would not necessarily be worried about putting a 215 or 225 section tire, as long as it is a good quality tire for the conditions. I would be much more comfortable with wider on an AWD Subaru than on a FWD or RWD anything in the winter.

 

Hope that gives you some background. From one Matt to another, and anyone else who cares to read this much rambling.

[Scooby Fan]

Hey ....Iwannasportssedan.......Maybe that is why all the WRC teams use those honkin' wide snow tires for the "Snow Rallies".........OOPS......My mistake...they actually use skinny little snowies for better traction......Skinny tires in the snow = more pounds per square inch pressure on the snow = BETTER traction.

 

The best (Easy) solution is to got to a tire that is the same rolling radius but is at least one size narrower.....try it..it works:lol:

[IwannaSportSedan]

You make a good point. What size are the WRC snow tires?

 

I wasn't suggesting *overly* wide snow tires... mostly that AWD is more capable, and less sensitive to unpowered wheel sliding, and even a 215 or 225 snow tire might work ok, too. I certainly would not suggest 235 or wider. I would suggest 225 or wider for summer tires, and a middleground size for all-seasons.

 

but the higher pressure per square inch of contact patch does make sense... Thanks for making the point.

[DMan]

Yeah, I've read that skinnier tires were better in the snow for that reason. I have no theories though.

[Shag-e]

After running summer and winter tires on my past Subaru, I have gone to a pure all season tire. I found that the winters up here didn't require a snow tire (excpet for maybe 2 storms a year) so I went with a set of Avon M/S 550's and have enjoyed them a lot. In the rain, I cannot break them loose, in the snow they had good traction and a lot of predictability, and in the dry they handeled and gripped well.

 

I have run AutoX's on them which have kicked a lot of people's butts especially in the colder months and rainier events, where traction is an issue

 

The best part is that for a set of 4 I got them for around $400.

[Jon in CT]

I bought my spec.B last October and my solution was to buy a set of nearly new 17" rims from a 2006 WRX TR over at the NASIOC classifieds for $500 including shipping. I then mounted a set of 215/50R17 performance snow tires ($568) in order to get a wheel circumference that was as close as possible to the 18" summer wheels.

[Vimy101]

Hope that gives you some background. From one Matt to another, and anyone else who cares to read this much rambling.

 

I guess I cared enough to but I thought that I had just started a thread that contained exactly this topic yesterday. I was in a bit of a hurry so maybe I screwed up. Anyhoo....

 

Friction. More friction from the driving surface and less friction from the drive train AKA "Where the rubber meets the road." There were extensive threads on this topic on the NICO board.

 

As I understand it, the object of the game is to find tires that optimize available grip. I realize that sounds rather obvious but the tire industry has poured billions of dollars into this pursuit which has resutled in thousands of possible choices. Using logical deduction, one can reduce the the number of choices available. Since we're debating all season vs snow tires we can start there as summer tires are not designed with cold snow at all. They are street legal "slicks" or as close as the manufactures dare offer because of liability concerns when selling to the general public and dealing with insurance co.s.

 

When it comes to snow/slop, narrower tires will cut through to establish a firmer contact area on the road surface than will wider. Tread design concentrates the vehicle's mass on the contact patch. Temperature specific rubber compounds maintain a tire's ability to retain designed performance characteristics.

 

One also has to consider the vehicle's suspension design, ride height and drive train not to mention the driving conditons one is likely to encounter (it would be nice to have unlimited resources so you could have entire closet of "shoes" for your Spec.B and a crew to change them up daily or even follow you in a chase vehicle or even perhaps have prestaged depots along your route and change them out F1 pit stop style ).

 

However this being the real world, I think that I'll get some 17" wheels and outfit them with some all season tires that meet the OEM circumference. I'll look for the lowest max inflation brand (<35psi) because that generally means that the sidewalls are stiffer. With AWD and the conditions one sees here in Chicagoland, it seems like the logical choice, IMHO, not to mention the extra cushion for Chicago's infamous winter spawned pot holes.

 

BTW, I have read that some consider the Spec.B tires to be too narrow. The current leading edge in tire design leans to towards long road contact patches as opposed to wide. A taller tire is more efficient.

[IwannaSportSedan]

Good stuff... Sorry if I missed your other thread... I haven't been getting down to the wheel and tire forums for the last few days. (I usually cycle through the forums in my own order, rather than looking at all new posts in all forums.)

 

I don't dispute the idea that narrower tires cut through snow and slush better... but too narrow for the available power, or the vehicle's weight, and the tires won't have enough available grip in any wet or dry circumstance, which is just about any time that the roads get plowed in the winter. Not all winter driving is on soft surface. Once a tire has no more available traction due to surface, or under-sizing, you are asking for loss of control, even in the dry.

 

My contention is that with AWD, it offers the versatility to run a winter tire well suited for the vehicle's characteristics, while still modest in width, rather than having to possibly " under-tire" the car to err toward narrowest possible width, as with a 2wd vehicle, to avoid the tires plowing or planing over the surfaces.

 

Snow tires may be narrower than summer or even some all-seasons, but they aren't exactly bicycle tires... for a reason. Bicycle tires cut really well through snow and slop, and have a much longer contact patch than it is wide. I know that is exaggeration, but hopefully it illustrates my point. There is such a thing as TOO narrow.

 

But with the longer contact, taller automotive tires usually mean more sidewall, or more rim diameter, which means either higher ride height or conversely shorter suspension travel, taller wheelhouses, and thus taller bodywork. Not a drawback for a SUV, but for a car, it means more frontal area, and aerodynamic drag, if the wheel height becomes the determining factor of designing the height of the bodywork. Subaru, especially, since the engine is so short, and allows such hood height, and low frontal area. A Mustang has no such issue, and is a brick, in comparison. This is getting into design concepts, though, rather than aftermarket fitment.

 

Also to mention that adding a bit of height to wheels and tires adds more unsprung weight than adding a little width. Unsprung weight hinders acceleration (negates some efficiency gain), and suspension action, which affects ride and handling. Not to mention that tire width comes more into play with lateral grip, I would think...

 

It is all a trade-off... and an interesting discussion.

[Vimy101]

Swamp buggies. Extremely narrow tires in an extremely slippery enviroment. However, you are quite right about it being all about compromise (unless you have those "unlimited resources":) ).

[Gator GT]

ISS,

should have clarified...assumed that since OP was asking about snowy conditions, that my axiom (narrow = better) would fall into discussion.

 

For snow, narrow is better for traction...same weight in smaller footprint; as others mentioned already.

[IwannaSportSedan]

ISS,

should have clarified...assumed that since OP was asking about snowy conditions, that my axiom (narrow = better) would fall into discussion.

 

For snow, narrow is better for traction...same weight in smaller footprint; as others mentioned already.

 

How many times do I have to agree with this???

 

I live in Iowa. I drive in snow. Quite a bit. For snow, narrower does help, to a point.

 

But the road isn't always snowy, and I am not tempted to skimp TOO much on tread area. I am not going to put motorcycle tires on my winter wheels to have a narrow foot print. And narrow means nothing on ice. Rubber surface area, or studs are the only thing that can help on ice, and even then, rubber doesn't help that much.

 

Let alone 40 degree days in the winter season which melts snow to water, or when the roads are dry... do you want to drive on ultra narrow tires there, just because they do a bit better in the snow?

 

There is more than one thing to consider with winter tires, and the question was about winter tires, vs. all season.

 

Narrow all-seasons are even worse, because people use them even MORE during other times of the year, and the car remains potentially under-tired for those circumstances.

 

Please note, that I also did say that I thought the original poster's suggestion of 205 section snow tires was probably a good size, and is much narrower than I would suggest for warmer weather tires.

[pillboy]

Swamp buggy FTW! Do they come with a heater?

[Jon in CT]

Please note, that I also did say ...

You're a freakin' eedgit. Nothing Subaru (or any other manufacturer) does pleases you. Either shut the F up or go away! I sincerely hope to God that SOA isn't listening to you!

[IwannaSportSedan]

I AM NOT talking about Subaru corporate in this thread. Not at all.

 

I am talking about winter tire theory, namely aftermarket fitment, and offering my take on the original poster's thread about winter tires. Subaru doesn't offer winter tires, so I don't see how this thread or my posts have anything to do with that.

 

If you have anything constructive to say beside attacking me personally, and breaking the rules of this forum, I am all ears. Until then, take your own advice about shutting your trap or leaving. I did NOTHING to you, and have done nothing but make points and try to back them up, and acknowledge other people's points.