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Originally Posted by Dean
OK, "beyond reproach" may have been to strong, but I would say that there data is far less likely to be biased than TireRacks, whose sole purpose is to sell tires.
I don't have the energy to scan The CR test, and it is not freely available on-line. Feel free to go look it up at the library, or better yet, subscribe yourself...  Oh, and I won't tell you which car batteries they liked either...
Studs are an option, but from what I have read, they only have value on ice, and can actually harm performance in wet/dry as well as being noisy.
Oh, and my extrapolations and interpretations of the data are far more supect than either the sources I used.  |
I'm certainly not going to waste my time or money trying to get the Consumer Reports data... frankly, I trust CR about as far as I can throw their rag. I'd much rather get my reviews from people that are experts on the product, rather than from an editorial magazine that considers itself an expert on *everything*, who's real goal isn't to give unbiased reviews, but to sell magazines. If I want to know what microwave works the best, I'll ask a chef that uses one 10 hours a day, 5 days a week. If I want to know what tire works best in the winter, I'll ask over at the
Swedish Subaru Club, etc.
And, I understand that studs "actually harm performance in wet/dry" conditions. But you started this thread saying you were
"looking at what the ultimate in ice/snow tires are. Please note this has nothing to do with dry performance, only pure snow and sheet ice..." If that's actually your goal, then studs are exactly where you should be looking.
Otherwise, you need to include wet and dry performance in your conclusions, which is why I wonder where tires like the M2/M3/LM-22 are, since they're (AFAIK) still some of the best snow/sports tires around. Although, I would suspect the wintersports are probably *not* what the doctor ordered in Debbie's case... since they probably compromise snow/ice for wet/dry too much for those hills you mentioned, but I'd guess for the majority of the people on the board with WRX's and STI's, a set of M3's are just about right when it comes to wet/dry performance, adequate snow/ice handling, and value for the dollar. At least that's what I concluded last winter when I did similar research.