Originally Posted By: wbwanzer
I posted earlier today about it snowing and not being able to get out. I got to thinking even more about tires and snow and came up with this question: given the same tread pattern, such as the Yokohama H4S and W4S share, would you expect the 'H' or the 'W' to be better in the snow, or would they perform the same, theoretically? And we're talking about the same size tire( my car uses 215/45/17), just different speed ratings. I would expect the 'W' rated tire to be built differently and have a different rubber compound to allow it to sustain a higher speed level. But would that make it worse in the snow or better? Any ideas?
I have only had two models of Yokohama tires on my vehicles. The Avid T4 were really bad in snow. The "V" groove would fill up with snow and then "snow on snow" action would have no traction.
Right now I have Yokohama Touring, and they are better in the snow than the T4's were. But nowhelre close to the snow performance on Bridgestone Potenza RE950, or Michelin Energy MX4. However, none of those tires can match the wet performance of Yokohama Tire. Since most of the snow here is salted into slush, wet performance was more important to me than pure snow driving. I just drive more cautiosly when the plows have not made their way through. Plus I have AWD, which does nothing for braking, but helps a lot with acceleration and cornering (switching from understeer to oversteer with some throttle)