Originally Posted by WishIhadatruck
Originally Posted by krzyss
I think you are asking for impossible.
Good slush performance seems to be at odds with snow and ice performance.
I think I saw tests where ancient winter tires (with plenty of voids) and performance winter tires outperformed all other types in the slush.
Krzys
I'm not asking for the impossible at all. The GW-2's I had were amazing in the slush, and most Blizzak's I've had were perfectly fine other than some Blizzak MZ-02's I had long ago. I have not owned any Blizzak's any newer (of the WS line) more recent than the WS-50's. The WS-90's look better than the WS-80's and the 80's looked like they had a LOT more void space than the Xi3's so I'm guessing I would have been much happier with the Blizzak's for my last set. This time I get to try some GY Ice WRT's for free so we'll see how they work. They likely aren't quite as good on ice as the other tires but they are good in snow and look to be pretty good in slush and my dad said they worked really well in slush, snow, etc.
You are right that any old tire with lots of voids will probably be fine in the slush even if they are no good in the snow and ice compared to modern tires. My Buick wagon has BFG Slalom Ksi's that are amazing in the slush, and great on ice and snow but no fun to drive on dry/wet roads. They are a modern tire (sort of) but not up to the level of performance of the better winter tires. I had actually never heard of them until I needed to replace my winter tires on the wagon and found these on clearance super cheap on tirerack.com. For the price I had to try them.
Of course void is important for slush. But, all winter tires are compromise. Xi3 is really good tire in ice, dry, wet, snow. Slush is not strong attribute. However, yes, you did not have WS80, as that tire has some really dangerous breakaway behavior on ice during lateral handling.
Also, after 5 seasons, I throw away summer tires, let alone winter tires where flexible compound is the most important aspect.