Posted by JPS on September 04, 1998 at 11:53:24:
In Reply to: What are your experiences with Winter Tires for a high performance car? posted by Ted on September 04, 1998 at 11:04:48:
I have used snow tires on my Mustang for the last 3 winters in Wisconsin. They were cheap house brand (fleet farm) 215/60/16 tires. One of the most noticable snow driving improvements was that when applying throttle with the snow tires, the tail will still come out, but as soon as I lift the tires grab and the tail comes right back in line. When I have been caught in the snow with the regular all season-tires (Yoko AVS-S4Z) or summer tires (GY ZR) once the tail comes out it either keeps sliding or you end up wagging back and forth. Obviously, braking is greatly improved as well. Overall, I feel that with snow tires I do better than small front drive cars with all season tires, but not as well as a large car in snow. I found dry/wet performance to be greatly reduced though. Dry performance is not so bad as to be dangerous in everyday driving, but it is easier to overpower the tires if you try to drive aggressively. Better snow tires probably would behave better on dry pavement, but I felt that for the 3-4 months a year of use didn't justify the extra cost.
Joel