the only loss of grip I have is extremely hot days where the soft compound wears off enough to allow me to drift up offramps.

I didn't consider the granstrek "studless" because they don't have the water grabbing outer layer of rubber like blizzak (which effectively makes their real lifespan less than half).

Unless they have changed the design, only the outer third of the tread on blizzak b has the stupid amazing grip. Once you wear through that you have normal winter tires.

The sipes on the grandtrek are the full depth of the tread blocks and the tread wraps around the side to grab in deep snow so you get good ice grip until the end.

They also have "winter wear bars" which indicate when you are down to the point you can't expect them to handle snow and more importantly, water which I think is a fantastic feature all cars should have.

PS. Love pirelli company. If my car had originally come with pirelli I'd likely be as diehard about them as I am now about Dunlop.

Keeping winter tires year 'round has kept me out of at least four collisions. I'll never put "all season" (should be called 3 season) tires on my car. The added steering and stopping power on dirty, oily, wet leaf covered pavement is well worth the quicker wear and more frequent replacement.

I'm only going on my second set in five years. I'll probably have to replace right about 6 years and the first set were worn when I bought the car, so about 35-40,000 miles I'm getting which is just as good as I got with my performance tires on my Z28.

With that kind of longevity on winter tires, I see no point in using 3 season tires.

Last winter when the side roads were the exceptionally slippery polished ice/packed snow, I watched a front drive car with 3-season tires spinning his tires like free crazy to get away from the curb where I couldn't even tell the road wasn't bare asphalt.

I re-parked and videoed my left front wheel as I pulled into the polished ice center of the road: there was about 60-90° of wheel slip when the tire hit the wet ice, that was it.

I found a fantastic video comparing 3-season tires (and highly rated), compared with winter tires (and in don't think even studless). It is shameful they call them all season, they really should call them 3-season.

If I lived in FLA or TX I would try to find a harder compound tire but maybe a non studless winter tire.

The main point for me is the 340 days a year my tires don't see snow but do see oily roads from traffic, that is where winter tires have twice the traction of ANY summer tire and will regularly keep me out of trouble. The extra wear is just cheap insurance to have the extra grip every day.

I drove a friend's X5 once and tired to demonstrate how they can handle like a sports car, and he had duellers; turns out with those tires, can't even handle like a Camry. I drifted though every corner and had to go 7-10 mph slower on 270 ramps than I'm used to.

Here's the thing: people will say "but I don't drive performance style".

Not until you *need to*.

I rest my case.

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2011 E70 • N55 (me)
2012 E70 • N63 (wife)