Winter Wheels

atgonzales

atgonzales

New member
Winter wheels coated with Mckee`s Paint Coating, gidyup

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Ah, ahead of the curve!

Gotta admit, the Winter set for the Tahoe doesn`t get anything :o It`s a set of Machined-finish GMC wheels and they stay nice enough with just Wheel Cleaner. Eh, they`re not all that great anyhow, were the cast-offs from the Yukon I used to have (put a new set on that one, kept the old ones for Winter).

BUT...now you`ve got me thinking I need to get on the Winter wheels for the A8, failed to do `em back in the Spring :o
 
Accumulator

The Blizzaks I have are sport tires made for performance cars, they are outstanding, picked them up at Firestone and they matched the prices of TireRack, total time to do the wheels, from wash, apc sprayed, and in a few spots used Wheel Brighter to remove some tough spots, dried with Master Blaster, dried again, then panel wiped and applied Mckee`s Paint Coating outside and barrels, 3.5 hours waiting for them to cure and will place in wheel covers
 
Above and beyond there, lol. We just run steelies with no hubcaps. It does look a little goofy going from 18" low pro to base model 16" steels. Not even going to mention the nagging TPMS light with the absence of the sensors.
 
atgonzales- That sounds like 3.5 hours well-spent to me! Do your Bilzzaks look OK without any dressing? All of mine do...nice to be able to just skip that. Yeah, I`ve always liked Blizzaks, but some of mine are pretty old and I bet they have even better ones these days.

Nizmo- Can`t you run the sensors on your steelies? What kind of sensors does yours take? I only have TPMS on the Crown Vic and it uses the regular Ford Band-style ones.

Heh heh, I never minded running (uncovered) steelies in the winter, did that on a few vehicles. Figured it looked like I knew from Winter Driving (and IMO keeping them really nice helped with that). Used Collinite on them IIRC, didn`t want to waste KSG and this was before I discovered FK1000P let alone coatings.
 
Accumulator said:
Nizmo- Can`t you run the sensors on your steelies? What kind of sensors does yours take? I only have TPMS on the Crown Vic and it uses the regular Ford Band-style ones.
Click to expand...

I`m cheap, at $70 a pop I can just deal with the light. Haven`t gotten everything together yet, but I`m going to have them just put in a set of regular stems.
 
Nizmo- Ah, OK...hey, if the light doesn`t bother you then I`d skip `em too.

atgonzales- Ah, wonder if I`ll end up dressing mine when I finally get newer ones... Hey, I`m using the Pinnacle too! Had two (very) old jugs on the shelf and !Gee! I really like it! Hadn`t even thought about it for ages, forgot all about it as it didn`t play nice with an interior I tried it on (~16 years ago!), but on the tires I`ve tried it on recently I think it`s great.
 
Just getting my winter wheels ready too. I am most likely getting new winter tires this year but I did a D143 (well, hot rims OTC) clean up when I removed them in the spring. Today I hit them with Iron-X and scrubbed every nook and cranny, rinsed, D143 scrubbed wheels and tires, rinsed again, degreased the hub area, rinsed.

In the coming days I`ll be hitting with Menzerna PF2500 or SF4000 (not sure yet), then Eraser, then GTechniq C5 Wheel Armor on outside, barrels, rear of spokes - everywhere.

Then I`ll be getting a set of probably either Hakkapeliitta R2s or Pilot Alpin PA4s to mount and balance. Haven`t decided yet. Hopefully the balance weights will stick OK on the C5.

BMW style 237 in 18".
 
Surly- How`re you gonna decide on the snowtires? Like...what`re the criteria you`re considering.

I had to get Dunlops for the S8 (silly waste, only used `em once before deciding I wasn`t driving that in the salt any more :o ) because its Stability Control (which I almost alyways turn off anyhow) isn`t Blizzak/etc.-friendly.

And OK...I`ll ask...why coat `em before the mounting/balancing? I`d think that just the mounting might compromise the coating in places.
 
Blizzak has lot of different versions of their tire, take a look at TireRack, do the coating after the mount and balance more then likely there will glue from the weight you will need to remove before coating
 
Yeah, if reusing the same wheels the adhesive from the old weights will need to come off..be sure to DIY that as the shops don`t always take the proper care, even when they (the local Michelin franchise no less) say they will.
 
When I had my wheels done I took pics before, took the manger out and both inspected them together and told him I was picky and i have no damage to my wheels and he agreed and understood exactly what I meant
 
Heh heh, glad he cared...the guy at my local Michelin store simply stared at me and shrugged it off as "sometimes that happens" (this was a screwdriver-gouge so severe that it actually cut my finger, on a previously *perfect* wheel). It was one of those cases where he knew I couldn`t do anything about it and didn`t mind losing my future business. I should`ve known better but they were the only local solution to a flat that needed fixed *immediately*...they had previously *turned down* the chance to sell me four new Michelins for the Crown Vic (Pilots, a >$1000 sale) when I warned them that "I`m pretty particular about my car`s finish, so I don`t want anybody touching the paint"; he said straight-out "You should probably just get your tires elsewhere".
 
On choosing tires - well. I`m honestly waffling on how "severe" to go. In the greater Toronto area, a snowstorm is usually heavy wet snow, rain and freezing rain - not 2 feet of fluff. Sometimes the mercury plunges really cold, other times we hover above and below freezing for weeks. All of the winter tires I`ve had in the past, both "performance winter tires" and "full winter tires" have always had some kind of glaring negative beyond the obvious.

Examples:
- My Arctic Alpins had no `high speed` control. Above 50-55mph they had ballooned so much they did not feel safe, wet dry or otherwise
- My Dunlop WinterSport M3s solved the above problem, but had NO winter traction after the first couple of months. Lots of treads depth but all of the sipes rounded off leaving me nothing
- My Hakkapeliitta RSis acted like there was oil all over the road if it was wet and the temp was above 5C or so. Never found another owner with the same complaint, but every time a front went through with a "warm" rain component they were dangerous. Overall I`d say our winters weren`t severe enough for the Hakkas
- (My SO got Hakka R2s on her van and loved them - no hint of my complaints)
- My Blizzak WS60s actually had no major negative now that I think of it, other than only having "magic" tread compound for a few 32nds of an inch.
- My current Dunlop 3Ds exhibit a disproportionate lack of braking ability in various winter conditions and temperatures. It isn`t all the time, but I have often noticed that while exploring available grip, accelerating and turning has dramatically more grip than braking. They also got noisy very quickly in the wear cycle.

So right now my short list is Hakka R2 for "full" winter and PA4s for "performance" winter. Maybe I should put WS80s on the list...

On the coating - I`m dealing with a very large and complex fall todo list and I was planning to coat in the nice weather any time now and `git-r-done`. I`ll think about re-ordering my process.
 
Surly- I feel so strongly about this that I can`t help basically repeating myself :o

If freezing rain/ice are a significant factor I`d go with something that will handle that. I`m basically all about Blizzaks, but that`s just because I`ve had so many sets of them. Yeah, I have to dial it back a bit when conditions aren`t all that wintery, but being able to turn and stop when I want/need to regardless of weather conditions is utterly essential to me..."never lose control of the vehicle, EVER" is my goal, and I don`t consider Black Ice or the actions of other drivers to be valid excuses. Being forced to drive a bit slower some of the time (and it`s never like the snowtires compromise things so much that I have to drive the Speed Limit or anything like that; reckless-op-citation speeds are perfectly doable) basically doesn`t matter to me, but eh...that`s just me.

All tires are compromises in some way, what do *YOU* value most? Go by that.
 
At present my #1 choice for "full winter" is the Hakkapeliitta R2s. The Finns know how to build winter tires for extreme situations. A catch is that sometimes my weather isn`t "extreme enough" for them. They test better than the Blizzaks, and perform all the way through the tread compound. They are, admittedly, not one of the best known manufacturers in the USA but don`t confuse them for some bargain off-brand. To the contrary, they top the charts.

https://www.nokiantires.com/winter-tires/nokian-hakkapeliitta-r2/

I don`t consider them a compromise in winter grip (as long as they don`t do that thing in the warm/wet that the RSi variant did to me - ugh. Like I said I have first hand accounts from R2 owners I know in face-to-face life with none of those issues).
 
Ws80s are nice. They say at 50% there is 10% multicell compound left. And I get it cause at 50% tread on a winter tire you are less than 6/32. Cause they start at 11/32. 6/32 starts to get a little less than optimal in severe weather. You want the most depth you can get obviously.

I had a couple sets of x ice michelins. They weren`t bad really either not as good as the ws80 though

Had the Dunlop 3D on a vw thought these were a good tire for a "performance" winter

Had Yokohama w drive on a wrx and they were pretty much all seasons.

Ws60s I had on a Camaro years ago were my first winter tires and they were fantastic.

R2s is what I wanted before the ws80 for last winter but I got a very good price on the ws80 so I couldn`t pass and being blizzaks I knew they would be good

Budget sometimes trumps overall pick if it`s close.


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Surly said:
Just getting my winter wheels ready too. I am most likely getting new winter tires this year but I did a D143 (well, hot rims OTC) clean up when I removed them in the spring. Today I hit them with Iron-X and scrubbed every nook and cranny, rinsed, D143 scrubbed wheels and tires, rinsed again, degreased the hub area, rinsed.

In the coming days I`ll be hitting with Menzerna PF2500 or SF4000 (not sure yet), then Eraser, then GTechniq C5 Wheel Armor on outside, barrels, rear of spokes - everywhere.

Then I`ll be getting a set of probably either Hakkapeliitta R2s or Pilot Alpin PA4s to mount and balance. Haven`t decided yet. Hopefully the balance weights will stick OK on the C5.

BMW style 237 in 18".
Click to expand...

Your BMW may enjoy the Blizzak LM-32`s. I run them on my S4 and love them. They are 8/10 in deep snow but I was more interested in the 10/10 for dry cold road performance B) I lived in Mississauga for a couple years when we got dumped on but even then, I ran Blizzaks on my cars and loved them.
 
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