Will this work this winter?

rgnbull1227 · #1 11-04-2007, 08:08 PM

Brought the 4.8is up to the house in NY for the winter. I expect to be in a good amount of snow this year and was thinking of purchasing a set of Goodyear Eagle RS-A tires. 285-40-20 fronts and 295-40-20 Rears. This better for the weather than the Diamaris?
Thanks

Thunder22 · #2 11-04-2007, 08:45 PM

20's in a NY snow? not good. The X will be a sled.

back off to 19's or 18's.

Just my opinion, i could be wrong.

motordavid · #3 11-04-2007, 08:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gresch

20's in a NY snow? not good. The X will be a sled.

back off to 19's or 18's.

Just my opinion, i could be wrong.

Dunno where in "NY", but real snow is gonna be tough...
I agree with Gresch: 19s at most, 18s better and, with
dedicated snows, imo.
GL,mD

rgnbull1227 · #4 11-04-2007, 09:18 PM

My house in on Long Island but I also have a home I go to on weekends in Old Forge Ny where we get feet of snow all the time. We have a 07 Yukon but wanted to bring the X up a bunch of times as well. Long Island we dont get a tremendous mount of snow so I am trying to balance dry road conditions and snow.

Thunder22 · #5 11-04-2007, 10:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rgnbull1227

My house in on Long Island but I also have a home I go to on weekends in Old Forge Ny where we get feet of snow all the time. We have a 07 Yukon but wanted to bring the X up a bunch of times as well. Long Island we dont get a tremendous mount of snow so I am trying to balance dry road conditions and snow.

Even LI is a problem. My '01 with 19's was a sled in the snow on LI. (Port Washington/Manhasset area)

vinuneuro · #6 11-04-2007, 09:23 PM

You won't be fine with 20s, or even 19s, unless you're using snow tires.

mfiver · #7 11-04-2007, 09:29 PM

You guys do any snowmobiling up in Old Forge? I used to live not far from there before I moved to sunny SoCal. With the improvements in sleds over the years, it must be a blast to rip around that area in the winter.

Re: Winter tires - If you haven't already done so, I would call Tire Rack for a suggestion on the best snow tire for dry pavement. Their phone people are usually pretty knowledgable, their prices are great, and they are a supporting vendor for this site

UncleBob · #8 11-05-2007, 04:25 AM

the type of tire will determine your traction. the diameter of the wheel has little, if any, effect on the traction.
coincidentally, the this month's auto club newspaper mentioned that on light snow, summer tires took 65 meters to stop from 50 KPH while winter tires only needed 30.
four-wheel-drive has no effect on braking distance.
i have michelin alpines for the winter and my X5 can climb anything with them on and can stop when it needs to.
get winter tires.

Secure · #9 11-05-2007, 08:50 AM

It's the area of tire in contact with the ground, when it comes to snow you want to reduce it. The higher the PSI to the ground the better. An aggressive snow tread is important as well. I would want to keep the car as far away from road salt as possible. Our cars always turned into swiss cheese driving in northern Wisconsin.

JCL · #10 11-08-2007, 04:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Secure

It's the area of tire in contact with the ground, when it comes to snow you want to reduce it. The higher the PSI to the ground the better. An aggressive snow tread is important as well. I would want to keep the car as far away from road salt as possible. Our cars always turned into swiss cheese driving in northern Wisconsin.

Close, but not quite.

For a given vehicle, and a given tire pressure, any tire (wide or narrow) will have the same area of footprint. The PSI to the ground is the same as the PSI inside the tire. What does vary is the shape of the contact patch. A wide tire will have a wide but short contact patch, while a narrow tire will have a narrow but long contact patch. They both have the same static ground pressure. Dynamically, the shapes matter because the wide tire has a longer 'leading edge' and is always climbing up out of the rut, while a narrower tire puts more of the contact patch in the rut.

Having said all that, old technology winter tires only really drove at the edge of the tread, so the narrower tire had much more traction. Modern winter tires are designed to grip across the tread, so it is possible to have wide winter tires that perform. Even two years of design evolution makes a huge difference in winter tires.