All season tires

[Abn]

After a snow storm last week, I barely made it home with my 09 after literally bouncing off a curb (no damage to tire or rim) on a slight hill. I immediately started looking for an all season tire. I think I am going to go with the ultra HP AS Continental Extreme Contact DWS. They are rated as best in class by tirerack for snow and have great reviews. I need to go down to 275/40/18 for the rear. Front is stock size 255/45/18. Although the rear tire is 3/10 inch (26.7" v. 27") of an inch less in diameter than OE, I don't think it is major, plus I keep a little traction for the rear when the roads are dry by being just 10 mm narrower than stock.

 

The Michilen Pilot AS rear is actually 4/10 inch less in diameter than the OE rear and GT500 owners had no problems.

 

Any thoughts on these or other AS tires?

 

Thanks.

[Nitemare]

After a snow storm last week, I barely made it home with my 09 after literally bouncing off a curb (no damage to tire or rim) on a slight hill. I immediately started looking for an all season tire. I think I am going to go with the ultra HP AS Continental Extreme Contact DWS. They are rated as best in class by tirerack for snow and have great reviews. I need to go down to 275/40/18 for the rear. Front is stock size 255/45/18. Although the rear tire is 3/10 inch (26.7" v. 27") of an inch less in diameter than OE, I don't think it is major, plus I keep a little traction for the rear when the roads are dry by being just 10 mm narrower than stock.

 

The Michilen Pilot AS rear is actually 4/10 inch less in diameter than the OE rear and GT500 owners had no problems.

 

Any thoughts on these or other AS tires?

 

Thanks.

 

WOW!!!!!!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope you get your answers, but I havn't heard of any GT500 or SGT owners driving their babies in the snow.......WOW!!!!!!!!!! Good luck............

[Abn]

WOW!!!!!!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope you get your answers, but I havn't heard of any GT500 or SGT owners driving their babies in the snow.......WOW!!!!!!!!!! Good luck............

 

 

 

Thanks. I got caught at work with what was supposed to have been a duster, only.

[steve-s]

WOW!!!!!!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope you get your answers, but I havn't heard of any GT500 or SGT owners driving their babies in the snow.......WOW!!!!!!!!!! Good luck............

 

 

Not supposed to but it happened to me bigtime. I live in AZ. and bought my 07 GT500 from Harrold Ford in Sacramento CA. where my stepson worked as internet mgr.

Bought it in January 07, drove my 03 Mustang GT from AZ. to CA. to sell and pick up the "new" Shelby. When I got there, my stepson told me that if I wanted to avoid paying sales taxes in CA. I would have to take posession and transfer the car out of CA. So, he drove the Shelby from Sac. to Reno and I followed him in another car from their lot so he could get back. Wife was with me and we stayed that night in Reno and planned to drive the back side of Sierra's, Nev. 95 to Las Vegas then home into Bullhead City AZ. Left at sunrise and drove a couple of hours. Cloudy weather started to move in. Temp. dropped to low 20's. Started to snow. Here I was driving my NEW GT500, 500 h.p. car in what built up to about 3" of snow on the roadway. In order to keep the thing straight on the road, I had to drive about 25 m.p.h. for around 100 miles of snow and ice. Eventually made it though the rough stuff and thank God made it home unscathed, but worn out from white knuckle driving with Wife and Chihuahua. I know, tires say do not drive in freezing conditions, but I had no choice. Could not stop anywhere, cause there isn't crap on that route. Don't EVER want to do that again with that car. The Jeep 4x4 only.

[Abn]

Not supposed to but it happened to me bigtime. I live in AZ. and bought my 07 GT500 from Harrold Ford in Sacramento CA. where my stepson worked as internet mgr.

Bought it in January 07, drove my 03 Mustang GT from AZ. to CA. to sell and pick up the "new" Shelby. When I got there, my stepson told me that if I wanted to avoid paying sales taxes in CA. I would have to take posession and transfer the car out of CA. So, he drove the Shelby from Sac. to Reno and I followed him in another car from their lot so he could get back. Wife was with me and we stayed that night in Reno and planned to drive the back side of Sierra's, Nev. 95 to Las Vegas then home into Bullhead City AZ. Left at sunrise and drove a couple of hours. Cloudy weather started to move in. Temp. dropped to low 20's. Started to snow. Here I was driving my NEW GT500, 500 h.p. car in what built up to about 3" of snow on the roadway. In order to keep the thing straight on the road, I had to drive about 25 m.p.h. for around 100 miles of snow and ice. Eventually made it though the rough stuff and thank God made it home unscathed, but worn out from white knuckle driving with Wife and Chihuahua. I know, tires say do not drive in freezing conditions, but I had no choice. Could not stop anywhere, cause there isn't crap on that route. Don't EVER want to do that again with that car. The Jeep 4x4 only.

 

 

"but worn out from white knuckle driving." Man, I know that feeling!

[08ragtop]

I don't know about the all season Continental, but I have the summer version and love them. You may find that the 275 looks even narrower than it is. My 285/40 extreme contact DW definitely has a narrower look to them than the old Goodyear's that came on the car. The slightly smaller diameter of the 275 doesn't look like much on paper, but it may be a signficant amount on the car. The rear tires already seemed to look smaller around than the fronts, now yours will actually be smaller.

I did a lot of looking trying to find an all season tire for my Shelby. I finally concluded that I would need to go to 20 inch wheels to maintain proper diameters. I am not sure I want 20 inchers so I got summer tires for the stock wheels. I don't want to try and drive in snow. I just want to be able to drive when it's below freezing. I've owned a couple Mustang GTs with all season tires and they were horrible enough in the snow with their narrower tires and under powered motors. :P

 

What about just putting on a set of snow tires? I saw some in 285/40/18 at the Tire Rack last year.

[SSGT500]

I've got Pirelli P Zero Nero all seasons on one of my Mustangs and they're good all year round. They were original equipment.

[dlangvardt]

I put on Michelin Pilot Sport AS Plus 275/40-18 on all four corners last winter and I think that they are a great tire. I haven't driven in the snow with them but have driven in temps as low as 17 degrees and the traction was just great. The tires never broke loose while taking corners, the Goodyear F-1's as you know were really bad. I left the Pilot Sports on all summer and intend to keep using them all year long, the wet weather traction is outstanding also. The Michelin's do break loose easier and do make more noise when cornering hard during summer driving but that is to be expected with a all season tire. Unless you like to do burnouts a lot during the summer time I don't think It's a problem to be worried about. The difference in tire rpm is only 5 rpm per mile which means the speedometer reads about 1 to 2 mph slower than actual speed. When the speedometer reads 70 the actual speed is 71-72 mph. I was going to have the computer re-programed but a Ford engineer told me not to bother it wasn't enough to worry about.

[one_quik_pony]

After driving my 944 Turbo to Montana on a brand new set of Yokohama AVID W4S "all-season" tires through a light dusting of snow...and white-knuckle drifting the car for nearly 600 miles...I decided to do some tire research before my return trip to Arizona.

 

Apparently, "All-Season" doesn't include SNOW. They are a good compromise between a performance tire and a snow tire, and sometimes even a poor compromise at that.

 

I visited a family friend who operates a tire store in Great Falls. He explained the differences between all-season tires and tires rated for snow. I had suggested the Bridgestone Blizzaks for the Porsche. He said there was a much better tire made by Nokian, that was designed to be a extreme-service rated winter performance tire that would be a great compliment to my Porsche. I purchased a set of Nokian WR radials, and shipped the Yoko's back to Phoenix.

 

http://www.nokiantires.com/

 

I left the next morning for Phoenix, and it snowed non-stop for the next 800 miles. Once I reached Salt Lake City, the interstate was closed due to a fatal accident. It had continued to snow for the next hour while we waited for the accident to be cleared. Once moving again, over a foot of new snow had accumulated, and many SUV's and pickup trucks were pulling off the interstate. I kept going. Throughout the night I was driving through the nastiest blizzard I have ever seen...following only the taillights of a few truckers I could see, and pushing snow over the hood of the car. The car's handling was fantastic! I could safely maintain speeds of 45-55 mph through over a foot of fresh snow. I could still get over-zealous and kick the rear-end out, but it was still quite easy to control with the throttle. That was easily the best set of tires I have EVER had. I have since stepped up to a new wheel/tire combo, and bought the Goodyear Eagle F1 All-Season tire. They are a great tire, excellent performance in the rain, and work pretty good in the snow. Some say they can be noisy, but I haven't found that to be the case...yet. They are incredibly sticky on dry roads too.

 

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Goodyear&tireModel=Eagle+F1+All+Season

[Abn]

I don't know about the all season Continental, but I have the summer version and love them. You may find that the 275 looks even narrower than it is. My 285/40 extreme contact DW definitely has a narrower look to them than the old Goodyear's that came on the car. The slightly smaller diameter of the 275 doesn't look like much on paper, but it may be a signficant amount on the car. The rear tires already seemed to look smaller around than the fronts, now yours will actually be smaller.

I did a lot of looking trying to find an all season tire for my Shelby. I finally concluded that I would need to go to 20 inch wheels to maintain proper diameters. I am not sure I want 20 inchers so I got summer tires for the stock wheels. I don't want to try and drive in snow. I just want to be able to drive when it's below freezing. I've owned a couple Mustang GTs with all season tires and they were horrible enough in the snow with their narrower tires and under powered motors. :P

 

What about just putting on a set of snow tires? I saw some in 285/40/18 at the Tire Rack last year.

 

 

 

I wanted all season in order to maintain quality performance for road trips down south. The DWS is a tremendous tire, but the rear 275s are a little smaller than the front 255s. The width difference between the 275 and 285 is really not that much. I can live with it b/c I will only keep them on for several more months and then the Goodyears go back on. I have driven 600 miles on them so far and they are great.

[Abn]

I put on Michelin Pilot Sport AS Plus 275/40-18 on all four corners last winter and I think that they are a great tire. I haven't driven in the snow with them but have driven in temps as low as 17 degrees and the traction was just great. The tires never broke loose while taking corners, the Goodyear F-1's as you know were really bad. I left the Pilot Sports on all summer and intend to keep using them all year long, the wet weather traction is outstanding also. The Michelin's do break loose easier and do make more noise when cornering hard during summer driving but that is to be expected with a all season tire. Unless you like to do burnouts a lot during the summer time I don't think It's a problem to be worried about. The difference in tire rpm is only 5 rpm per mile which means the speedometer reads about 1 to 2 mph slower than actual speed. When the speedometer reads 70 the actual speed is 71-72 mph. I was going to have the computer re-programed but a Ford engineer told me not to bother it wasn't enough to worry about.

 

 

 

I had considered 275s all around as I had a SVT cobra before. But, I decided to keep the stock size front and rear. As I explained above, the size difference is noticeable to the trained eye, but only temporary. I am more concerned with performance, and the DWSs are excellent.

[glroy]

Buying all seasons are like buying a pair of cross trainer shoes they really don't do anything well.

When I drove my mustang gt in the winter I bought rain tires they worked great 99% of the winter, when It snowed I rent a car for the few days.

Now that I drive my Shelby in the summer only I buy summer tires.

If I were to drive a mustang in the winter with snow it would have snow tires all around.

If I were able to run a marathon I would not do it in tennis court shoes.

I would not try to drill a hole in steel with a wood bit.

Catch my drift.

[08ragtop]

I wanted all season in order to maintain quality performance for road trips down south. The DWS is a tremendous tire, but the rear 275s are a little smaller than the front 255s. The width difference between the 275 and 285 is really not that much. I can live with it b/c I will only keep them on for several more months and then the Goodyears go back on. I have driven 600 miles on them so far and they are great.

 

 

Glad you got something you like! Did you do just the rears?

[BIKEBOY]

Buying all seasons are like buying a pair of cross trainer shoes they really don't do anything well.

When I drove my mustang gt in the winter I bought rain tires they worked great 99% of the winter, when It snowed I rent a car for the few days.

Now that I drive my Shelby in the summer only I buy summer tires.

If I were to drive a mustang in the winter with snow it would have snow tires all around.

If I were able to run a marathon I would not do it in tennis court shoes.

I would not try to drill a hole in steel with a wood bit.

Catch my drift.

 

Ahhhhaaww!!!! I get it......drift!!

 

edit- talkin' about snow tires!!

[Abn]

Glad you got something you like! Did you do just the rears?

 

 

 

I went with the DWS all around. Stock Goodyear Supercar tires are 1/10th inch diameter taller than rear. The DWS is 3/10th inch taller than rear. So, they do look a little smaller in the big wheel well of the 07-09 Shelby, but it is only temporary. I just put 1000 miles on them. Great tire. No slip, hooked up every time even in below freezing weather. Ride was a lot firmer than I expected. I had Pirelli Zero M&S on my 03 cobra and they just plain sucked compared to these. I just may get the summer version instead of putting the GYs back on. They come in 285 40 18 for the rear.