Performance Winter Tire- what to choose?

[rporter]

These are some great recommendations. The Nokian WR is popular as well for all but the most extreme conditions.

 

This is pretty much what I've read from anyone who has commented on them. I'm going to get a set for my wife's Del Sol, and have her use them year-round. Her '95 Del Sol only has 45K miles on it since we got it in 7/95, so they should last a long time!

[Garandman]

This is pretty much what I've read from anyone who has commented on them. I'm going to get a set for my wife's Del Sol, and have her use them year-round. Her '95 Del Sol only has 45K miles on it since we got it in 7/95, so they should last a long time!

Great choice, we have them on a Mazda MPV minivan and a Honda Accord V6 as well.

[Lothar]

How much is my speedo off by?

 

You could figure that out easily enough by setting the cruise control at 60mph and timing how long it takes to get from one mile marker to the next on a flat section of interstate highway (or any other road that has mile markers)... or better yet, time it across several mile markers for greater accuracy. Convert minutes to hours, and divide the number of mile markers by the number of hours to get actual MPH.

 

Alternatively, I wonder if the nav system's diagnostics screen displays actual MPH? My old cheap Garmin GPS used to display MPH very accurately, and made me realize that most car speedometers aren't even close to being accurate.

[LGT Dave]

I put the tires on the stock LGT rims that I bought off another member, I didn't think there would be too much of a speedometer difference since the size is the standard LGT sizing. How much is my speedo off by? I drive past at least 2 cops a day, and I don't wanna get pulled over because my speedometer was wrong...

 

Subaru takes care of the different stock sizes by changing an ECU setting using the Subaru Select Monitor that will switch the speedometer between regular 17" LGT tire size and 18" Spec.B tire size so that it will read correctly.

 

This little calculator is good for checking different sizes of wheels and tires: http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html. According to that, your speedometer is going to read 3.9% too fast. Meaning, if your speedometer says 60mph, then you're really only going 57.7mph. Luckily it's on the fast side so you don't have to worry about the cops if you keep the speedo where you normally do.

[goneskiian]

There's that tire size calculator! Thanks LGT Dave! I had it bookmarked on my old computer but it died a few months ago.

 

Back on topic, I've got the WR and it seems to work fine. Living in the PNW though we definitely do not get the extreme ice and snow many of you in the NE get. Mostly wet around here with snow in the mountains and occasionally in the city. They did great for me last winter and I just got them put back on today. Yes, a little late for our first round of snow but I didn't have to drive in it that time.

 

Cheers!

-Ian

[DoubleM]

Ok cool, that sounds good. Thanks, I'll have to bookmark that tire calculator too. Can an accessport mess around with these measurements easily, or any other ecu tuning software? It doesnt bother me too much, but I wouldn't mind changing it if it isnt too hard.

[LGT Dave]

I haven't heard of anything else that can change those settings other than the Select Monitor that the dealers have. Here's a list of a bunch of settings they're able to change: http://www.legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4071. That was for '05 so there may even be a few more for the newer cars.

[TSiWRX]

Funniest thing.....

 

I stopped off at my usual favorite Shell station to top-off with V-Power today, since we're expecting a good amount of snow over the weekend here in NE-Ohio.

 

Glanced over at the next island, and saw a late-model BMW 7-series with the same ASA/Sport Edition rims as the ones I'm sporting.

 

When the guy turned my way, I called out: "Hey, nice rims! Let me guess - TireRack winter package, right?" to him, and we both shared a good laugh.

 

Turns out this is his 3rd season on the LM-22s. His car goes off-lease this year, and looking at the treadwear (he didn't know much about the tires at all, not really a car-guy, I guess), it looked like he had more than 60% treadlife left!