Winter roads and no winter tires yet ... crazy

[inottawa]

I still have my summers on.. I didn't get around to calling Frisby until a couple weeks ago and my original apt was Nov 25th. I totally thought it was fine until....


Needless to say, I've now gone to pick up my tires from them and will be installing them myself next week once it hits high digits again. Until then, she's beached in the driveway.

 

[Cottonwood]

Thanks all for your input!

Guess it depends on the road situation: when very slippery like yesterday = Low Regen and when good condition = Standard Regen...

I have the Nokian Hakka 7's and have never felt the need for low regen. My driveway is 400 meters has gone from snowy to icy to slush. Just to test it, I have tried to create problems letting up on the accelerator abruptly from 75 km/h in the worst spots through all of these conditions and have not been able to create a problem in standard regen.

 

[jerry33]

I have the Nokian Hakka 7's and have never felt the need for low regen. My driveway is 400 meters has gone from snowy to icy to slush. Just to test it, I have tried to create problems letting up on the accelerator abruptly from 75 km/h in the worst spots through all of these conditions and have not been able to create a problem in standard regen.

I've never had a problem on ice days* with the Michelin Primacies and standard regen when the tires were new. They are no longer new so I have a set of WR-g3 tires on the way.

* Ice days in DFW means 3mm to 5mm over everything. And because it's not that cold (hovers around freezing) it's very slippery.

 

[FrozenCanuck]

Hey everyone - update time. I got my winter tire package from Tesla installed yesterday (Wednesday, the huge snow day in the GTA area). During the day I had a P85 loaner and it was great while the roads were dry. I didn't even notice that it had all season tires on it until around 5:30pm when I made my way back to Tesla to return the car and get mine back.

Same experience. The roads were snow covered and it was practically impossible to get the car to start moving. I'd say 15 seconds just to ramp up to 10-15 km per hour, and just a disaster.

Then I got my car back. It was simply STUNNING to me how much different driving is with snow tires. I'm coming from 9 years of past history in a Lexus RX330, so AWD all the time and I just used all seasons. They were fine.

Tesla with the winter tire package is just as good as my AWD Lexus. I'm totally confident the car will perform brilliantly through the winter season now. For a couple of days I admit I was worried. No longer.

 

[Oyvind.H]

As a Norwegian i must say that driving on snow with all season tires (or even worse - summer tires) is soooooo wrong
And even if you can accelerate with 4wd, you still have to brake. The all season/summer tire brake performance compared to winter tire brake performance on snow is enormous.

I understand that winter tires are uncommon if snow is something you see maybe once a year, but here in Norway everyone change to winter tires in november, and back to summer tires in april. Tried summer tires on snow once. Quite scary and dangerous.

 

[Cottonwood]

Ice days in DFW means 3mm to 5mm over everything. And because it's not that cold (hovers around freezing) it's very slippery.

I have grown to hate the Rice Krispy sound of the studded Hakka 7's, but a coating of fresh ice near freezing is where they do help a lot. On cold ice or fresh show the studs are not that big an advantage, but on wet ice they shine!

I'm putting studless, Nokian Hakka R2's on my P85D when it arrives in a few weeks, and I anticipate they will work very well and quietly.

 

[Doug_G]

I used to be a "use all seasons on AWD" guy, and I'm converted. If you have real winter conditions, it's dumb to run all seasons. The AWD gives you a false sense of security. As soon as your foot moves from the gas to the brake you're no better off than anyone else.

 

[Roddy]

Put the winter tire package on the car two weeks ago, here in Vancouver. Now I am just waiting for winter to come.

On a side note, I was quite impressed that the Tesla App and the car dash now show the new Aero Wheels I bought with the winter tires.

 

[green1]

Winter tires on a RWD car will pretty much always beat all seasons on AWD... of course winter tires on AWD is pretty close to unstoppable (unless you're trying to stop of course... that works pretty well)

 

[jerry33]

I used to be a "use all seasons on AWD" guy, and I'm converted. If you have real winter conditions, it's dumb to run all seasons. The AWD gives you a false sense of security. As soon as your foot moves from the gas to the brake you're no better off than anyone else.

I always ran four winter tires when I lived in Canada. However, if you haven't tried the Nokian WR-xxx tires, they are unlike any other all-seasons I've used with the exception of the Yokohama Y370. Both actually work well in snow and ice conditions. Now I'd still run four R2s or X-Ice if I lived where there was a long winter with weekly snowfalls, but the WR-xxx tires are better than all but a very few winter tires. The ideal condition for them is if you wear out a set of tires in a year--then you just put them on in every fall and don't worry about it as they won't melt when it gets hot.

 

[hpjtv]

@jerry33 I plan on doing the same thing. Haven't gotten the WR's yet but glad to hear someone else here approves of them. One less set of tires to deal with all year.

 

[sundoc]

Have been running dedicated winter sets on my Subaras for years... unreal

I've got my STi all winterized and just waiting on my P85D to come in next month... have a winter set for the D setup as well.
I figure I'll drive the D around for a few days and see how the DD works in relation to the Suby's AWD system. To be truthful I have no idea what to expect as the Suby on winters is phenomenal.

 

[evp]

I've heard that other users do this, but I do a lot of winter driving (this is my third winter) and have never had an issue with regen in standard. I have had problems with downshifting in an Audi Quattro years ago, but have never had a problem in my MS, I believe that the stability control let's up on the regen automagicly, but have not done any controlled experiments to prove that.

I actually had occasion to test this, and it does indeed let up on the regen but not as gracefully as I would have hoped. That is to say, not as well as traction control while accelerating. I also had an opportunity to discover that if traction control is unable to do its thing when hydroplaning, it turns off the cruise control. Fun times!

 

[Doug_G]

Have been running dedicated winter sets on my Subaras for years... unreal

I've got my STi all winterized and just waiting on my P85D to come in next month... have a winter set for the D setup as well.
I figure I'll drive the D around for a few days and see how the DD works in relation to the Suby's AWD system. To be truthful I have no idea what to expect as the Suby on winters is phenomenal.

I'd be very interested to hear how it compares. I've only ever driven a Suby in ice racing, and I gotta say with decent winter tires that junker was pretty awesome. Last season the top five or six teams were all driving Subies.

 

[sundoc]

I'd be very interested to hear how it compares. I've only ever driven a Suby in ice racing, and I gotta say with decent winter tires that junker was pretty awesome. Last season the top five or six teams were all driving Subies.

Subies with winters are awesome! I'll make sure to report back as soon I've got something to report back! haha... stinkn' delays!