Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

[billgreenman1]

A little straying from the conversation, but it is-3F right now and I walk into my local watering hole (they see me in the summer on my bike not drinking),and they ask "are you on the bike tonight?"

And attempt at humor I'm sure, but after 14 bazillionth time I'm like;

"Yep ".

[Bill Hagan]

11 hours ago, p6x said:

My school was situated on the other side of Montmartre from where I lived. So I did have to walk uphill both ways. I walked uphill up to the tip, and downhill then. But to come back, I had to walk uphill again. You could have walked around if you had wanted to, but it was longer.

I did not catch the underlying meaning for that reason.

We are even … you got me with the “up & over hill!” 

Bill

[GuzziMoto]

Currently I have a set of Michelin tires on our car that are basically snow tires that are year round rated. They carry the three peak snowflake rating for snow, so they would qualify as snow tires. But they don't need to be removed when it warms up. They look like something you would see on a WRC racecar. They work well in the snow, especially considering what they are on. Our Jeep has off road oriented tires, they do well enough in the snow but not as well as the Michelins. We used to run a set of snow tires during the winter on our car, our Smart car had a set of snows for the winter, and our Mazda MP3 had a set of snows for the winter. But these new Michelins solve that issue and allow us to not have two sets of tires.

[Kevin_T]

I haven't been following the weather as this is typical for Michigan. I would say for people down south who might not have as much insulation in their home. If your getting sub zero temps for more than a couple days you need to run your faucets every once and a while to keep your pipes from freezing.

[p6x]

2 hours ago, Bill Hagan said:

We are even … you got me with the “up & over hill!” 

Bill

Also, remember that my native language was not English, and I am in the winter part of my life. I learned English in UK, during summer vacations; I always took it as a punishment since I was the only kid spending two months in miserable weather while all my friends were at the seashore in France. In my school days, we did not have English classes.

My father always thought that in future, speaking English would be important. He was my Jules Verne... lol... he was in WWII, so I am guessing he had had to deal with multiple languages. Actually he spoke fluent Russian and German, strangely, no English.

However, I discovered that learning UK English with British or Scottish accent did not prepare me well for working mainly with people from Louisiana or Texas, who I had a very hard time to understand. I remember that on my first job, on a rig named "The Texas Star", the company representative was from deep Louisiana, I asked what language he was speaking to me...

If you combine the misinterpretation that always occur when you type, because you know what you mean, but you need to pass it on to the reader, and if your reader comes from a different world, he may not get the subtleties.

So, Quiproquo...

Edited January 22 by p6x

[p6x]

1 hour ago, GuzziMoto said:

Currently I have a set of Michelin tires on our car that are basically snow tires that are year round rated.

As long as you are aware of their limitations, if you use them all year round.

Edited January 22 by p6x

[GuzziMoto]

13 minutes ago, p6x said:

As long as you are aware of their limitations, if you use them all year round.

They work really well all year round. They ride quietly, they offer good grip in the wet, they grip normally in the dry, and work well summer time or winter. I am sure your charts are saying something, but my experience with them is they are better than the original tires and better then the set I bought to replace the original tires when I got a nasty gash in the sidewall of one of the original tires. And unlike either of the first two sets of tires, these work pretty well in the snow. They are not full on snow tires, but they are pretty close.

Edited January 22 by GuzziMoto

[p6x]

1 hour ago, GuzziMoto said:

They work really well all year round. They ride quietly, they offer good grip in the wet, they grip normally in the dry, and work well summer time or winter. I am sure your charts are saying something, but my experience with them is they are better than the original tires and better then the set I bought to replace the original tires when I got a nasty gash in the sidewall of one of the original tires. And unlike either of the first two sets of tires, these work pretty well in the snow. They are not full on snow tires, but they are pretty close.

You are more certainly correct.

My experience with snow tires is a bit dated now. When I was in France, I was going to the ski stations for the winter hollidays, but also every other week-end. Before we got the fast trains.

I always installed winter tires on my cars, and drove to Les Alpes. My winter tires would wear out very quickly when driving on the dry highways. Today's compounds are obviously a lot better than those in the 70's.

[GuzziMoto]

Yes, I used to be a fan of snow tires for winter driving. Even when it wasn't snowing, good snow tires just worked better in cold temps. And, as I said, these Michelins are not full on snow tires. But they work surprisingly well both during the summer in warm temps and during the winter in cold temps. It is impressive that they are able to make a tire do that. I will say that their strength in the snow is in forward grip, driving the car forwards, and not as much in stopping or side grip. They are still good at the other two, but their clear strength is driving forward in the snow. If you want more grip in the snow, go with two sets of tires and full on snow tires. Then you can have summer tires for when it isn't cold and / or snowing. A full on summer tire should deliver more dry grip and more precise handling. But as with most things, it is a compromise. It is hard to have it all. These Michelins are pretty close, though.

That said, where you live snow grip may not be important at all.

[Scud]

I got a set of 3-peak-snowflake rated tires for my F150. The truck had 20 inch wheels with short sidewalls, and I got a set of 17 inch wheels and the BF Goodrich KO3s that were almost same size as stock (10mm wider but same height). They are much better on snow and ice than the stock tires. They are a bit noisier, and probably a tad less fuel-efficient. But they are safer and more versatile, as they are also really good for traction on dry dirt and rocks.

I did quite a bit of research on pure snow tires, vs the 3-peak rated all-terrains, vs those simply rated M&S. The snow tires performed best in snow, as you would expect. But the 3-peak were good enough for a conservative driver with 4WD. And the 3-peak significantly outperformed the M&S rated tires. So the 3-peak, at least for my needs, was the clear winner in terms of safety + versatility. They enabled me to have just one set of tires I could confidently use year-round in desert, snow, highway, around-town, etc. Plus they look tougher and more rugged than the stock tires.

[p6x]

Since we are having a tire discussion, I thought you might be interested, if you did not already know, how tires came about, and why Michelin got to be behind a lot of innovations.

I am posting this video, that you can get autotranslated in your preferred language if you watch it on YouTube, because sadly, Michelin is shutting down more plants in France and in Europe, because of the competition from countries where labor is a lot cheaper.

There is a lot of interesting facts in this video. For your information "Les Echos" is a financial newspaper.

 

[GuzziMoto]

22 hours ago, Scud said:

I got a set of 3-peak-snowflake rated tires for my F150. The truck had 20 inch wheels with short sidewalls, and I got a set of 17 inch wheels and the BF Goodrich KO3s that were almost same size as stock (10mm wider but same height). They are much better on snow and ice than the stock tires. They are a bit noisier, and probably a tad less fuel-efficient. But they are safer and more versatile, as they are also really good for traction on dry dirt and rocks.

I did quite a bit of research on pure snow tires, vs the 3-peak rated all-terrains, vs those simply rated M&S. The snow tires performed best in snow, as you would expect. But the 3-peak were good enough for a conservative driver with 4WD. And the 3-peak significantly outperformed the M&S rated tires. So the 3-peak, at least for my needs, was the clear winner in terms of safety + versatility. They enabled me to have just one set of tires I could confidently use year-round in desert, snow, highway, around-town, etc. Plus they look tougher and more rugged than the stock tires.

I really like the KO2's, they have fantastic grip in all situations and good ride quality, and am looking forward to the KO3's. My big question is, do the KO3's run undersize the same way the KO2's do? I have run KO2's in a 37" size, but since they really were just over 35" in diameter it was more of a 35" tire on steroids. Where as the current 37" tires I have on our Jeep, tires that do not have the grip and ride quality of the KO2's, are much closer to the rated size of 37". Most tires are smaller then their rated size, but the BFG KO2's were always more smaller then other tires. For example, a KO2 rated as 35" in diameter would typically be closer to 33" in actual measured diameter. I am curious if the KO3's are similar in that, do they run small the same way the KO2's do? Or are they truer to size? This would possibly affect whether I go with the same 37" size or swap down to a 35" size.

As with you, I am dealing with 17" wheels so the tires have a proper sidewall. Short sidewalls and offroad don't mix well.

[Scud]

@GuzziMoto I wasn't aware of the undersize issue, so can't help with your question. I didn't measure the physical tires. I used a tire size calculator and also the advice of technician at Discount Tire store. I went from 275/60R20 to 285/70R17. 

[GuzziMoto]

25 minutes ago, Scud said:

@GuzziMoto I wasn't aware of the undersize issue, so can't help with your question. I didn't measure the physical tires. I used a tire size calculator and also the advice of technician at Discount Tire store. I went from 275/60R20 to 285/70R17. 

So, a 285/70-17 KO3 is supposed to be 32.8" in diameter. But the same size KO2 was also supposed to 32.8" in diameter, and invariably it would be measurably smaller then that. As mentioned, tires tend to run smaller than their published size, and an actual inch smaller than actual size would be fairly normal. But the KO2 ran smaller then other tires compared to its published size. That is partially why I went to a 37" KO2 originally, the 35" KO2 tended to run just over 33" in diameter actual size, while the 37 is just over 35". I would be curious what the KO3 actually measures as installed on your truck. It doesn't have to be super-precise measuring, within a quarter inch or so should be accurate enough to get an idea of how they run.

[Scud]

Being the curious sort, I went to measure. If I measure from the outer tread blocks horizontally, the diameter is only about 32". However, the tread is curved and the center of the tread bulges almost 1/2" per side. I don't have a proper caliper to measure the maximum diameter, but If you were to measure the diameter at the center of the tread, I think the expected 32.8" measurement is realistic.