Do you downsize for winter and is it really worth it performance wise?

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OEM 18" HFPs
Possibly new rims next season
 
SgtMecca said:
OEM 18" HFPs
Possibly new rims next season
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Nice! I was researching 18 or possibly 19s for mine. I read that the 18 HFPs weigh just as much as the stock 17s. Basically I want to go to a wider lower profile for more road feel wheel but without sacrificing performance or adding weight to the wheels.
 
spicy said:

Untitled by spicydicy, on Flickr


Untitled by spicydicy, on Flickr

I tossed dunlop graspic ds3s on my stock rims, stock size, and have had ZERO issues, even being lowered, i just snow plow. i love it.
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hahahaha i agree with spicydicy, stock rims are for snow tires, bigger aftermarkets are for summers...... i havent even been on ice or snow yet with my civic this season.... of course it has to snow first..... and i live up north in Canada near alaska..... :P
 
weve got dumped on twice already, and a third coming down right now. The first time i hadnt put the tires on yet, so that was fun. The second time i went out with some AWD buddies and had some fun, they were surprised i managed to keep up and play just as well in the snow. Just gotta know how to drive.
 
spicy said:
weve got dumped on twice already, and a third coming down right now. The first time i hadnt put the tires on yet, so that was fun. The second time i went out with some AWD buddies and had some fun, they were surprised i managed to keep up and play just as well in the snow. Just gotta know how to drive.
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You can keep your snow. I've got my winters on but no snow yet thankfully.
 
spicy said:
weve got dumped on twice already, and a third coming down right now. The first time i hadnt put the tires on yet, so that was fun. The second time i went out with some AWD buddies and had some fun, they were surprised i managed to keep up and play just as well in the snow. Just gotta know how to drive.
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I can tell you from first experience that a A4 3.2 cannot keep up wit my Si on hardened snow, and believe me they tried. I looked up the specs and considering the A4s weight it is under powered compared to the Si but it is Quatro. So AWD is not a solution for everything. I like the Subaru AWD, which really pushes all the time though :) I cannot keep up with any WRX on the stock car i have.
 
Here is an update for my downsized winter tires. We still didn't get real deep snow but but we surely got ice, freezing rain and snow covered ice. I have to say the Hakkas have a great grip, you barely feel that you're driving on ice. I am not driving like I do on dry roads but I was not yet able to slide on an icy patch at regular traffic pace. The traffic is generally slower then me so I cannot really explore the limits too often since I try to be safe. This morning I intentionally hit the brakes in the parking lot at work and no sliding, I just stopped. When I got out of the car I almost fell under the car since there is clear glassy ice all over the lot :) Doing that on my other car with X Ice i get a bit of sliding.
ABS kicks in sooner though so there is some slippage happening but you have to intentionally do it. Over all I wonder why Nokians do not have a bigger exposure and customer awareness since they seem to be really delivering an amazing ice and slush grip.

Will provide more feedback once we get real snow not the 2 inches we got.
 
Finally got some real snow and due to holidays they seem to be late cleaning the roads so I got a very cool ride to work today so here is the snow part of my review.

Snow handling seems very confident, they do break loose but not too soon and until the loose point the grip is surprisingly good. Basically it feels like driving on asphalt until they loose grip. They skid very little when trying to get out of a snow bank if not going crazy on the throttle. Lateral handling is where I really find them way better than X Ice start drifting a bit and they will actually stop the drift while X Ice will keep the drift, fun factor looses a bit but I find them great. I guess one can drift at higher speed if really wanting to drift though it becomes unsafe on public roads :)

Overall I highly recommend them, I got them at the same price as a X Ice and they're a great tire to have in the winters we have here.

I also noticed that driving with the traction control is counter productive in deep snow. If you want to move fast no luck with it on, tires will only move at a speed where they can hold grip. With it off you can skid them a bit and they actually respond very well and pull you out of snow, too much throttle can get you stuck but with just enough of it you fly out of a snow bank :)

Another thing I found is that it is very easy to engage the ABS at least today it was almost on every foot down braking, which makes for great times for practicing threshold braking, easy to press only until you start hearing the clacking of the ABS and then back off a bit, or press only before it starts clacking.

Again when I got out of the car I discovered I drove on ice covered with 4 inches of snow, that must have been why half of the SUVs on the road were driving 20 mph :)
 
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