Stang70Fastback Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 Seeing as I completely, absolutely, positively hate the tires on my car now, and that my left front now has a second slow leak for some reason, I've decided now might be a good time to spend some money I don't have on some winter tires. I've never had dedicated winter tires, but it's my goal to never again use all-seasons after all the research I've done over the past week. I want to get some Blizzaks since, from what I've read, the difference will be night and day both in snow and just on freezing cold dry pavement. I hate the look of steelies, but I don't really have the money to invest in an entirely new set of wheels (and I've had so many issues with all of my tires loosing air that I want to just get rid of the set of wheels I have on the car right now) so it looks like steelies will be what I will be getting. TireRack does not list any available steelies for the 98 Outback. I was wondering if there was a reason for this, such as them not fitting over the brakes or something, because they are available for every generation after ours. What I want to know is what size tires I should get and how I can get some steelies on the site so that I can have them mounted and balanced before they are shipped? I know tall and skinny is what you want in the snow, but I don't really want to go much skinnier than the stock size since I'll be leaving these on for likely 3-4 months and most of the time I will be driving on dry pavement. I also want to try and keep my speedometer somewhat accurate, lol. Can someone recommend a steel rim size and what size Blizzak tires I should get so that I can do some hunting around TireRack and try to find them listed under other makes? I would appreciate any input about dedicated winter setups because I've never done it before and I don't want to waste my money on a non-optimal setup. Thanks guys! http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Bridgestone&tireModel=Blizzak+WS70 The Blizzaks come in 215/70R15 which is actually 10mm WIDER than OEM equipment, but that's the only size they have that matches the other specs (so that would keep the diameter the same.) I assume an extra 10mm should fit on this car without any clearance issues. I just can't find a way of just browsing steel wheels on TireRack - it seems you have to pick a car and then it gives you an OEM spec steel wheel - so I have no idea how to find a steel wheel that would fit those tires. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnegg Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 go to http://www.car-part.com and look for wheels for the 00 - 04 years. any of them will fit your car, even the 15'' steelies. i have never heard of sending your wheels to the tire company to have them mounted. you will probably have to have the tires shipped and then take tires and wheels to a local shop. where are you located? have you looked here in the ''tires and wheels'' classified ads? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stang70Fastback Posted November 13, 2011 Author Share Posted November 13, 2011 If you order wheels and tires from TireRack, they give you the option to have them mounted and "Hunter Road Force" balanced (whatever that is) for free before they ship them. I have looked on the forum, but nothing there is really what I want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnegg Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 so look for used wheels at http://www.car-part.com , i think you can get a set for $100. the only wheels that will not fit your car are the 14'' wheels that came stock on 90 - 99 legacys and imprezas. buy some 15'' steelies, paint them and then mount your snow? tires. i have 2 sets of 15'' steelies with decent street tires. but shipping would vbe expensive, about 150$ with tires. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stang70Fastback Posted November 13, 2011 Author Share Posted November 13, 2011 I'm just thinking that having the wheels and tires shipped from the same place, pre-mounted and balanced is probably better than having them shipped separately from different locations and then having to pay for mounting and balancing. I know winter tires are... mushier... handling than performance tires, so I was looking at 215/55R17 as a possible tire size. That would give a much shallower sidewall that should hopefully help stiffen the ride up, and the tires will only be 10mm wider, which I would hope wouldn't cause any clearance issues. I just need to find some corresponding steelies with a 5x100 bolt pattern on TireRack. EDIT: Nevermind, I didn't realize 17" steelies didn't really exist. What I've come up with is 205/65R16 wheels on 16x6.5 steelies from a 2010 Legacy. According to the online calculator I used, that should result in a nearly identical overall diameter to what this car uses stock, and since it isn't wider, I shouldn't have to worry about fitment, and that will help keep the tires a bit narrower for snow... AND I gain an extra inch on the rim diameter which should help offset the squishy handling of winter tires. Does this sound like an intelligent setup, or am I missing something? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kennyfvholla Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 I can source a set of brand new late 96 GT 5-spokes, 97-99 Snowflakes, or maybe 02-04 WRX wheels for about $600. Maybe a bit less. Also, why are you going for a dedicated snow tire? I've never had a problem doing anything in the snow with my firestone firehwak high performance all seasons or my current Toyo Extenza blah blah blah whatever they are.. And if you are anywhere close to me I can have the whole set mounted and balance for $40 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I Donated broknindarkagain Posted November 14, 2011 I Donated Share Posted November 14, 2011 Snow tires are a waste on our cars IMO. If I had lots of snow, I would have two seats of tires. One all season set for the winter on junk wheels, and one set of summer tires on my nice wheels. -broknindarkagain My Current Project - Click Here COME AND TAKE IT "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stang70Fastback Posted November 14, 2011 Author Share Posted November 14, 2011 Actually, I have run into quite a few situations over the years where I was stuck wishing I had winter tires rather than all seasons. Not to mention that AWD only aids in acceleration and partly in turning, but does absolutely nothing for braking performance. Couple that with what we experienced when we put a set of Winter tires on my dad's AWD Audi A6 and I definitely want to invest in a dedicated winter set for the 3-4 cold months of the year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stang70Fastback Posted November 14, 2011 Author Share Posted November 14, 2011 I don't mean to bump this thread (yes I do), but can someone give me a confirmation that the setup I selected below should work fine, or if they have a different size suggestion. I just discovered ANOTHER roofing nail in my right rear tire, which is now leaking. I leave for home for Thanksgiving break in one week so now I am being forced into buying these tires TODAY to get them in time because I am NOT driving home on two damaged tires. Any last-minute help would be appreciated. Just don't want to receive these tires and then find they don't fit because I didn't take something stupid into account. 205/65R16 wheels on 16x6.5 steelies from a 2010 Legacy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnegg Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 the 16 '' wheels will clear the calipers just fine. i assume the offset is the same as you 98 outback but i don't know. the tires are 0.19 inches larger in diameter than stock. that means on the top side of the tire you will have ~.10 inches less clearance. this is less than 1/8 inch. you should be fine. FYI: your speedo will read about 1/2 mph slower than it did before. (you will be going faster, 1/2 mile per hour.) but it is doubtful it was accurate before. they usually read a little slow from the factory. but just be aware. if you have a GPS use it to check your speedo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
subikid90 Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 Snow tires on our cars makes a night and day difference, unlike a fwd or rwd car/truck. The pilot alpines, imo are the best snow tire on the market now. I have tried a few and my friends have used many others and everyone I know switch to the alpines. -Subikid90 1997 Legacy GT 5spd & EJ251 w/EJ25D heads ~10.5CR 1998 Legacy GT Limited waiting for EJ22T hybrid swap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stang70Fastback Posted November 14, 2011 Author Share Posted November 14, 2011 So I ended up spotting a special on TireRack for the 16" Sport Edition A7 wheels in silver. Ended up getting those with 215/60R16 Blizzak WS70 wheels. I hope I made a good choice. I've seen photos of other Outback with 16" Impreza wheels and while I was never a fan of the wheel design, I thought they didn't look too terrible. Hopefully the A7 design is clean and simple enough to look nice... but at the very least they will look better than steelies and only cost me me an extra hundred... Thanks for all the input guys. I realize I might not have seemed to listened to a lot of you, but I did appreciate and consider all the feedback. I was more looking for issues with fitment or different suggestions for tire diameters - I had kind of already made up my mind about buying the WS70s! Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
98LGTLover Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 my current Toyo Extenza blah blah blah whatever they are.. Not to thread jack but... What do you think of those tires? I've always like Toyo's and I have been knocking around the idea of getting a set of those for my Jetta. On the subject of snow tires. I had studded Hankook Winter iPikes W409s on my Subaru. They did give me more confidence and had good grip. They were nice but I sold them because I just didn't feel the need for them (I bought them slightly used so I was able to sell them, after a season of use, for exactly what I bought them for). My family used to live way out in the sticks and made it everywhere with siped Toyo all seasons on all of vehicles, so that's what I'm sticking to. Never the less, I'm still interested to see what you think of your Blizzaks after it snows! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kennyfvholla Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 Not to thread jack but... What do you think of those tires? I've always like Toyo's and I have been knocking around the idea of getting a set of those for my Jetta. They're awesome. I have the Extenza A/S series. They have worn kinda fast, but that's most likely because of the fact that I take almost every turn as fast as I can. I'm pretty sure that they had about 8k miles on them when I got the car and I've gone another 15k miles since then. They would have worn a LOT better/less had I rotated them (they can also be cross rotated) more than once, and on a normal basis. They weren't ever rotated because when the rears were up front I got a horrible shaking as they weren't balanced and I didn't feel like paying for them because the car rode smooth with them in the back. I had one Extenza fail on me just after I got the car because the sidewall somehow got sliced and I replaced it with some soft Dunlop piece of garbage $60 tire and put it up front... that thing has worn down ridiculously fast. The rear tires have worn exceptionally well and very even, as to where the front wore quite a bit more on the out side than the inside. By cross rotating the fronts, and putting them in the rear I'll get at least another 3k to 4k miles out of them easily. 27k miles total is crappy, but they'd definitely last much longer if I drove the car like a normal person the whole time as they were barely even broken in when I got them. They've never even gone out of round at all. Which is GREAT considering the off road abuse they've seen. I love the way the handle in the dry, the rain, dirt, snow, and even ice. They're even fairly quiet while cruising on the highway as well. They're probably the best tires I could buy for under $100 and probably better than many tires that cost more than $100. I would definitely buy them again. and wow was that a long reply.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
98LGTLover Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 Dang, I was hoping that you had the HP's not the AS's! I had the Toyo Proxes TPT (Extensa HP replaced this tire) on my Subaru. I had them siped and went through every winter with them. A couple years ago I shouldn't have gone though the winter with them.. I had like 4/32nd left but couldn't afford new tires and they still did extremely well. Those things were the best tires I've ever had! I had them on my car for about 33k, then they were at the wear bears and I couldn't go through the winter. I gave them to my friend for her car (summer tires) and she has had them on there for about another 10k miles. Now they are done for sure, they are almost completely bald! For having the AS one tread life should have been a lot better! On the Subaru I put Toyo Eclipse tires on it about 6k ago. The Eclipse is a tire that only Les Schwab has down here and Toyo sells it in Canada. The tread rating was 560 so that is the reason I bought those. Hopefully they last a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kennyfvholla Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 If I had rotated them consistently they'd have lasted a lot longer. I have probably a 1/3 (maybe more, idk what the original tread depth was..) of the tread left on the rears and between 1/4 and 1/3 on the inside of the fronts, while the outsides are pretty much done. I'm tempted to try out the HP's when I get my 16" 99 RS rims Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
98LGTLover Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 My Proxes wore perfectly, but I also religiously rotate my tires. I'm religious about pretty much all maintenance my car needs, provided I have the money for it.. But tire rotations are free and take like 5-10 min. I want to get HP's for my Jetta. Right now I have Federal SS595's on the Jetta for summer and studded Hankook W409's for the winter. I'm much happier with ultra high performance and high performance all seaons than summer tires, just for the reason that I live where temps vary and if snow hits I won't be totally screwed. But the Federals are pretty sweet in the summer time. They have good handling and a pretty attractive tread design. I usually buy my tires based on tread design and of course I read reviews to see if they are worth having.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lulzcow Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 In Iowa, if you are planning on doing much driving, especially on highways and in areas where snowplows or salt trucks don't hit, you want snow tires. If I am not mistaken, the Blizzaks I currently have mounted on my Legacy L wagon with stock suspension are either 215 or 225's. They BARELY fit. But they fit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stang70Fastback Posted November 15, 2011 Author Share Posted November 15, 2011 A couple of the experiences I have had where all-seasons have let me down in the winter: 1. Going dicking around in 8" of snow on a friend's hilly back yard, only to discover that while my friend's Blazer wasn't necessarily better suited to climbing the hills, I couldn't make it very far because my tires offered no real grip in the snow. 2. I do offer to help pull people out of snow banks when I go out driving in the storms, so it would be nice to have tires that offer some amount of actual grip in the snow. 3. The fact that I probably burn through a tank of gas dicking around every time it snows, and while I have driven through unplowed snow in my Outback so deep that it was piling OVER the hood, a set of winter tires would really make me more confident. 4. This was the final straw. About two years ago, I made the 450 mile drive home before Christmas the morning after we had that freak snowstorm that dumped like 2 feet of snow in Virginia and all the way up the coast. Everyone though I was crazy, and indeed I was. I was the only car on 81, and I passed at least three abandoned FULL-SIZE snow plows that had slid off the road, as well as an upside down Mercedes SUV with 6" of snow on the undercarriage - also abandoned. It was like armageddon. There was so much snow on 81 that my ONLY indication of where the road went were the mile-marker signs - even the guardrails were hidden and everything was just plain white. As I got further north, the conditions went from snow, to snow and ice, and I eventually caught back up to the storm. Since I was the only car on 81 I was still able to do like 50-60 mph in some spots without much risk. The problem I encountered with my tires was when I was going up a slight grade (what a 5-10% grade... I dunno what the limit is for an interstate, but it was shallow) only to suddenly have the speedometer shoot up to 100 mph and have the car start to shake. Turned out the road was pretty icy and at best I could only JUST BARELY maintain 50 mph. Any extra throttle at ALL and one of my wheels would start spinning out of control (curse open diffs!) I've never had that happen to me before or since, and it was a REALLY odd experience because generally something like that doesn't happen at speed. After that, I decided my next set of tires would be real winter tires. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I Donated broknindarkagain Posted November 16, 2011 I Donated Share Posted November 16, 2011 Last winter I was pulling people out of ditches on the side of the road when we had a big snow / ice storm in Atlanta. I was on Goodyear Response Edge all season tires. I didn't have ANY problems driving around at all. I was able to make it up icy hills, through thick snow, pull cars out of ditches while I was on ice, ect... I guess its just hit or miss. idk -broknindarkagain My Current Project - Click Here COME AND TAKE IT "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stang70Fastback Posted November 16, 2011 Author Share Posted November 16, 2011 Last winter I was pulling people out of ditches on the side of the road when we had a big snow / ice storm in Atlanta. I was on Goodyear Response Edge all season tires. I didn't have ANY problems driving around at all. I was able to make it up icy hills, through thick snow, pull cars out of ditches while I was on ice, ect... I guess its just hit or miss. idk I have driven though stuff you wouldn't believe even a Hummer would make it through. A Subaru on All-Season tires is still a practically unstoppable force. But in certain conditions, even all-seasons will let you down. I would be willing to bet that I've racked up more snow/winter miles, and driven in more absurd conditions in my 6 years behind the wheel than probably most people here by a long shot, and I would feel more than confident taking my car out into almost any conditions with all-seasons (as I have for every year up to now). HOWEVER, in the sheer amount of driving I have done, I have encountered situations where they weren't quite up to the task. The other reason for my wanting winter tires is because on the flip side of the coin, I want to get a nice set of SUMMER tires for the rest of the year, so I might as well get the winters since I only plan on using them for 3-4 months of the year. In the end though, what really sold me was when my dad got a set of siped winter Vredestein tires on his Audi. The difference was absolutely astounding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I Donated broknindarkagain Posted November 16, 2011 I Donated Share Posted November 16, 2011 I'm not arguing the fact that winter tires are better in the snow. I just personally couldn't justify the cost...at least not right now lol -broknindarkagain My Current Project - Click Here COME AND TAKE IT "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stang70Fastback Posted November 16, 2011 Author Share Posted November 16, 2011 Ah, well my other justification is that I now have nails in two of my tires, and the other two tires lose about 10 psi every 5-6 days... and this is after having all the valve stems checked AND the beads cleaned. I have to drive 450 miles home for Thanksgiving (and another 450 back), and I didn't want to drive on this, nor did I want to have to deal with patching them again, so I'm kind of throwing in the towel and just hoping a new set of wheels and tires will solve the issue because I am so fed up with having to deal with this for the past two years, lol. I can't really afford it either, but I worked a lot of overtime the last two weeks, so it's my gift to myself, lol. Hopefully the wheels won't look completely retarded on the car... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I Donated broknindarkagain Posted November 16, 2011 I Donated Share Posted November 16, 2011 If you get knobby snow tires, they actually look REALLY cool -broknindarkagain My Current Project - Click Here COME AND TAKE IT "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0Tyrael0 Posted November 16, 2011 Share Posted November 16, 2011 I take it to the next level and swap out cars in the winter time. My legacy is winter only so I use snow tires all the time on it. I put a set of continental extreme winter contacts on mine, size 205/60/16. Been running them for a year now. They are amazing. I just drove a hundred miles in a blizzard in those tires last week. There were trucks going off the road but not me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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