Hey guys,

I’m helping a friend get set up for moving to MN; he has little experience driving in snow.
He is looking to outfit his 4WD truck with snow tires and wants to use Blizzaks on them. I’m not familiar with the brand.

Anyone?

I have used Blizzaks and Altimax tires on cars with really good success.

I run Toyo snow/ice rated tires on all of my work trucks which are also designed for mud traction. M-55s on the smaller trucks.

+1 big time for Altimax Arctic winter tires from General. Used on 3 vehicles within the extended family. Excellent performance and wear like iron.

And FWIW 4WD is not a pancea for winter roads. Too many still overdrive conditions thinking 4WD will handle things. Stooopid is as stooopid does.

Year after year after year, Michelin X-Ice wins head to head competitions. Blizzak varies every year from 2nd to last depending on how recent their upgrade is.

A guy from Texas posting about winter tires may seem weird, but I did live in Alaska 5 winters and Can-eh-duh 2 winters and had winter tires on 4wd trucks in both places. Also, I've even driven on iceroads in the Arctic Circle, and grew up in the Upper Midwest. Alaska allowed studded snow tires and they're awesome (not legal very many places though), and they actually benefit other drivers by scuffing up the ice. Canada didn't allow studded and Michelin X-Ice were out of stock all 10 places I checked so I ended up with Yokohama Iceguards (rated 2nd at the time) and was very pleased.

University Alaska Fairbanks did quite a bit of research on studded vs studless winter vs all-season. Long story short:

Studded and studless winter kicked the crap out of all-season in all scenarios.

Studded tires' only advantage over studless winter was 25 to 35 F when the ice is softer.

EDIT:
One thing I highly encourage is getting a dedicated set of wheels for the winter tires. It solves 3 issues:

damaging beads on summer or winter tires from the annual mounting/demounting

getting scammed by unscrupulous tire shops saying you need new tires because they weren't safe to mount. Alaska had a real problem with this.

if you live in a place where lots of people getting winter tires, it saves many hours sitting in the lobby of the tire shop. It's much more achievable DIY to jack up the truck, take off off-season wheel and tire, and bolt on current season wheel & tire.

In Alaska, I had kept the original factory 16" wheels (20" wheels and tires for summer) so these 16" wheels became my dedicated winter wheel (16" snow tires are more plentiful and cheaper than 20"). In Canada, I bought a set of UBS (ugly black steel wheels) to go with the winter tires.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tatortodd,

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Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

Firestone Winterforce perform well and are a pretty good value.

Michelin x ice are very good. But for a truck I like BF Goodrich all terrain TA.

300 pounds of sand over the rear axle really helps.

quote:

Originally posted by Krazeehorse:
Firestone Winterforce perform well and are a pretty good value.

Yep, no Brainer imo, not so soft that they wear too quickly.

Look up the Nokian Tires. I use Nokian on my 4WD truck and love them.
They are use to the snow in Finland.

https://www.nokiantires.com/

i would not put any of those kinds of tires on a real pickup. Put some Cooper, Hankook, yokahama, Good Year, etc. 10 ply mud and snow rated tires on it. Problem solved.

Cooper Discoverer, but you need summer tires too or you'll wear them out fast.

All my cars are awd and I always run snow setups. No issues with the General Arctics on my daughter’s Subaru or the Michelin XIce or Blizzaks on my bmws.

I use to always get nokian hakks but can never find anyone local that has them.

I haven’t gotten a snow setup yet for my current bmw but i might skip it and when the runflats wear out I will get the michelin cross climate2s or the nokian wrg4.
These are all weather tires. I think General makes one now as well.

Not sure if those are available in truck sizes

I have a set of Bridgestone Blizzak WS90 on Sparco Terra wheels for my 2013 Subaru WRX, and it's like driving on dry roads almost in the snow. I have to remind myself that there is snow on the roads and to drive appropriately.

These things have crazy grip in the snow. I have been more than impressed!

Look into the Blizzak LT or similar.


ARman

Studded Nokian Nordsman's on my Ram 4WD crew cab after suffering with studded Hankook iPikes for a couple of years. 400# of sand in the bed directly over the rear axle.

Nokian Hakka R2 and R3 on the BMW x-drives.

Luv my Nokians!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: aileron,

Blizzaks. Living in the land of the hard winter, these are what we use on all our winter vehicles, FWD, AWD, 4WD. They’re like Velcro.

This is “real world” information based on many years of winter driving.

YMMV…but not much!

Get whatever tire suits you but snowtires wont be his issue.

4WD /= 4WStop

This ends lesson #1

I use Cooper snow claw winter tires on my RWD Chevy 2500 Express van.

Truck tires are not the same as car tires, and Blizzak seems to be better at performance tires vs truck/suv setups.

quote:

Originally posted by SIGfourme:
300 pounds of sand over the rear axle really helps.

Add a couple bags of salt as well as a snow shovel and you can get out of most anything winter throws at you. I got stuck quite a few times, but never needed help to get unstuck. Also, the bridges really do freeze before the roads.

I'm old school on snow tires so take what I say with a grain of salt.
For out in the country of DEEP snow the old style bias ply narrow tire is much better the the wide tires they sell these days.
A narrow tire will cut through snow to grip the ground much easier then a wide tire.

Nokia got me in 4x4 across blizzard conditions from St. Louis
to Pocatello in worst road conditions I've
ever seen.