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Here on the east coast of Canada my family has always run dedicated snow tires. Most commonly they are whatever is on sale that month and we swap them off for 3 seasons of the year. We don't get massive ammounts of snow here very often but we get lots of days where it's bad driving because of a little snow.

 

On my 94 t-lego wagon I've got a set of Micheline Arctic Alpins (I believe is the name on them) and I would rate those as a GOOD snow tire. The 99 lego wagon came with some generic wankerdoodle brand tires which say M+S on the sidewall and seem to do well enough. I rate those as FAIR. Last year my wife lovingly kissed a curb with enough force to sidewall-puncture which doomed a set of ultra-cheap re-treaded winters. They were cheap, they were noisy, and they probably wouldn't have lasted the longest but for winter performance I rated them as AWESOME. I reckon it's because the tread was just so gummy on them. they were amazing.:clap:

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I got X-Ice's this fall, and they've been great. They are a better than average snow tire. Not the same as having studs on, say, wet ice, but the tradeoff is big. I commute 60 miles a day, and the trucklike drone of studs would piss me off, and the poor handling would as well -- not to mention trashing the roads.

 

Anyhow, my last dedicated snow was a studless Hankook (which? don't remember), and that was great for the money. They were truly excellent in snow, and nice and quiet on dry pavement. But they were really squishy in the corners on dry roads. The x-ice's are much better in that regard. Road noise and cornering on dry pavement is excellent, and better than many, if not most, "all season" tires.

 

The tires I most recently replaced were Dunlop A2 Sport (which is a "high-performance all-season" tire), and...I'll never buy another Dunlop ever. They cornered quite well, but they refused to stay in balance, and also refused to track straight. I'd have them balanced, and bring them back and have them balanced again while I watched, and they'd be good for a week or two, then start vibrating again. And the car **always** pulled. Maybe a little bias towards the left, but more like: anything but straight. Any little imperfection or camber in the road would make the wheel pull strongly to either side -- very disconcerting. Tried rotating with and without crossing, etc. This was to the point that I was **sure** I had a bad bearing **and** something like a bad tie rod end. However, put the x-ice's on, and not only are all those handling issues completely gone, but road noise is actually much reduced (crazy, seeing as I went from performance all-season to dedicated snow). BTW, those Dunlops still had like 75% of their tread left. I was going to sell them used, but I just could not to see fit to putting those shiitty tires back on the road in any fashion -- threw them out!

 

 

$60 apiece is indeed a great price for X-Ice's. You'd do well to snap them up.

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I didn't read the whole thread, but I'll add my two cents...

 

Even the cheapest snow tire will be GREAT on an AWD Subaru. I ran Hercules Polar Trax for 3 seasons on my Impreza, and I am on my second season of Winterforce tires on my Legacy wagon. Cheap (As in around $300 mounted), they wear well, and plenty sufficient for fun and safety as long as you keep that little thing called common sense.

 

Kevin

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