New winter tires for the Durango

[OVERKILL]

Just got back from Michigan and my wife has ordered her winter tires, which should be here this coming week. We went with the Michelin Latitude XI2's on 17" OEM (Mopar) steelies.

After my experience with the i-Pike on the Charger, I was certain that going back to an ice tire was the way I wanted to proceed. While their performance in snow was excellent, their ice performance was, in my opinion, awful. My sister has the X-ice XI3 on her BMW and they are not the best in snow, but their ice performance is superb. Given the way my wife tends to rip around, and the fact the Durango is AWD, I am much more concerned with her ability to slow, stop and maneuver on potentially icy surfaces than I am with getting her the best snow traction.

This is the tread pattern:

Definitely an ice-biased tire. I doubt their snow performance will be any better than an LTX M/S.

 

[Rolla07]

I tend to agree that ice traction is more important than snow grip. A friend of mine had the xi2's on his buick and he thought they were great! Confident they will serve you (your wife) well.

 

[OVERKILL]

What sold me on the X-ice was that a couple of years ago we had a pretty wicked ice storm. One of our local streets, which has a big hill on it, was a sheet of ice. There were a myriad of accidents, people unable to get up the hill....etc. My sister went scooting on up that hill in her RWD 330i like it was summer. Had no problem stopping either. She couldn't understand why people were having such problems, as she was having no issue whatsoever. I was with her. The ice performance was absolutely incredible. I had an earlier version on my Lincoln, and they were also excellent, but their snow performance was awful.

 

[53' Stude]

X Ice's are good. Got em' on the 97' Saturn

 

[Chewie]

Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
My sister went scooting on up that hill in her RWD 330i like it was summer.


RWD cars have an advantage over FWD cars when going uphill since in those situations you have more weight and hence more traction over the rear tires. That's why sometimes people with FWD have better success getting up slippery hills by going backwards.

Just picked up a set of X-Ice XI3s myself. Only marginally louder than my MXV4s, I was expecting them to be even louder.

 

[userfriendly]

Can you use studded tires in Ontario? My winter tires out west are 275/65/20 Hankook studded RW-11s. Check the price of them @ CT.
Hankook Optimo S-4, 225/50/17s on a 2013 Matrix. Typical of 3PMS rubber, they do not last very long summer driving.
And if you run them over the summer, they will be useless the next winter.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: userfriendly
Can you use studded tires in Ontario? My winter tires out west are 275/65/20 Hankook studded RW-11s. Check the price of them @ CT.
Hankook Optimo S-4, 225/50/17s on a 2013 Matrix. Typical of 3PMS rubber, they do not last very long summer driving.
And if you run them over the summer, they will be useless the next winter.


I don't believe we can, no. I know you can out east though.

 

[edyvw]

Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
Just got back from Michigan and my wife has ordered her winter tires, which should be here this coming week. We went with the Michelin Latitude XI2's on 17" OEM (Mopar) steelies.

After my experience with the i-Pike on the Charger, I was certain that going back to an ice tire was the way I wanted to proceed. While their performance in snow was excellent, their ice performance was, in my opinion, awful. My sister has the X-ice XI3 on her BMW and they are not the best in snow, but their ice performance is superb. Given the way my wife tends to rip around, and the fact the Durango is AWD, I am much more concerned with her ability to slow, stop and maneuver on potentially icy surfaces than I am with getting her the best snow traction.

This is the tread pattern:

Definitely an ice-biased tire. I doubt their snow performance will be any better than an LTX M/S.

As far as I heard from skiers here that I hang out with, they are good up until 6-8in of snow. They are not that superb in deep snow and slush, but again, I have Bridgestone Blizzak DM-V2 and their performance in slush and rain (hydroplaning) is abysmal although they start at 13/32 depth.
It is DM-V2 very busy design in the middle that is a problem. Also, DM-V2 ice performance is mediocre. I enter curve with BMW and they hold road like crazy in ice. You just come to point where you think: OMG this is best tire in ice, and then out of nowhere tire completely looses grip on ice. I never had winter tire that so suddenly losses ice grip.
Everyone I talked to said that Xi2 is superb in ice, rain and dry. Pretty much they do everything good in 95% of cases. Those 5% cases (deep snow) what I got from people is that you just have to be aware of performance.
So, next year I think I am moving to Xi2 since I still have 8/32 on DM-V2.
Let us know how they behave. Especially deep snow traction. Is that something that is really bad or something that you just have to be careful about. If deep snow is an issue, I might downsize to 235/60 R18 instead of 255/55.