[johnschlemmer]

I have an iX on order that I snagged from a cancellation, delivering next month. One main concern I have is that it comes with performance tires on the 21” wheels. So, two questions:

1) Will these perform terribly in the winter? I live in Seattle and get a couple snow storms every year. My model Y with performance tires are horrible in even just a dusting, so I imagine it’ll be similar.

2) Where can I get all season tires in the US? It’s a new car and these tire companies don’t have much info.

 

[carchase54]

Can you please check the following links and see if they are of some help?

Are All-Season Tires Okay in the Snow? - Les Schwab

There is a difference between all-season and winter tires. Know the difference and when to get a set of snow tires for your vehicle.

www.lesschwab.com

Find Cooper Tires Retailers Near Me | Cooper Tire

Find Cooper Tire retailers near you with our tire retailer store locator. Shop online, have your tires installed at the Cooper Tire retailer near you.

coopertire.com

 

[johnschlemmer]

The links are helpful for understanding the difference between All Season and Winter tires. But I also know that all season and performance tires come in all sorts of styles, some grippier than others. I live in Seattle, where it snows a couple times a year and usually isn’t a lot, so the number of days actually driving on snowy roads is like 2-3 per year. The temperature also is fairly mild, winters rarely get cooler than 30 degrees during the day when I’d be driving. To me, this sounds like All Season year round would work well for me, but I’m curious if performance would make much of a difference. I don’t think it’s worth getting winter tires for such mild winters.

 

[Electric Sloth]

Unfortunately this article doesn’t give temperature information, but it at least gives distances.

 

[johnschlemmer]

Unfortunately this article doesn’t give temperature information, but it at least gives distances.

These distances are super interesting and it’s definitely helpful info. Basically, summer tires win out on dry and wet surfaces, snow tires win out on snowy surfaces, and I honestly didn’t realize how poorly all season tires performed on wet surfaces.. the challenge is, summer tires just aren’t drivable in even the lightest snow - acceleration and stopping were abysmal.

 

[hilld]

Basically, summer (performance) tires are awful below about 40-45*F as the rubber gets hard and loses grip. My brother put his AWD A6 in the ditch with just a bit of snow dusting. If you are running summer tires in the PNW winters, you are asking for trouble. Once you have experienced dedicated winter tires, you will wonder why you waited so long. I live in the general area (I go between Vancouver, WA and Friday Harbor twice a month) and always have dedicated winter tires for the Oct-Apr period. Having traction is a good thing.