i recently bought a set of Hankook Icebear W300 tires (16") and new set of koenig wheels and they work great in ice and snow. It doesnt snow that much up here in Seattle but it has been this season for some reason, but i use it when i go up to the mountains for ski/snowboarding.

I went with 16" tires instead of 17" cause its way cheaper.

 

If you plan to see consitant snow fall I recomend a set of good snow tires. I had 18 inch brand new all season tires and I would spin my tires everytime I stopped in the snow /ice we get. Since I've bought the yokahoma ice guard tires I have zero problems regardless how much snow or ice there is. They were expensive ($800 with warranty 17'') but I have no regrets at all. Not driving like a maniac is also a big help!

 

just realize that your speedometer is now out of calibration, aka. not correct. no biggie, but still.

i bet LSD tc's handle a lot better in the snow. the few there are that actually drive in the snow.

long story short, my car got blocked in after hours at a truck rental place in jersey. only way to get it out was to drive over a grassy hill/patch and onto the sidewalk. My lowered car chassis got stuck on the hilly grass patch and the wheels were basically dangling over the sidewalk. One wheel was basically not contacting the pavement. So every time i gave throttle, that one wheel would just spin furiously, while the other didn t budge. was pretty funny. The one definite disadvantage of having a FWD open diff car.

but in general, i can drive my tc pretty well in the snow. save for one time i was trying to be cool/funny and spun out/180'd in the middle of a major road, almost backing into a curb. thankfully, it was a blizzard and no cars were coming.

torque steer is the only thing you really have to watch out for.

 

Yea - there's a great set of calculator tools on 1010tires.com that lets you figure out how much difference. I think in this case, it was 2 or 3%

 

I put the bridgestone potenzas on my car this week and I drove up to snow today. So far the car is handling much better than with the stock tires. They also do well on dry pavement. These are all season tires so they are a good price. I'm happy with the purchase.

 

wait, you swapped from stock yokohamas to potenza's?

i agree, they're not a Bad all season (the re92's) but they are RIDICULOUSLY overpriced, like 200/tire! take off tires from the dealer are about 100. you can get nice aftermarket tires for 100ish.

definitely better tires for the price than the potenza's. but like you said, yeah, they do okay in snow and rain too. not really rain though, they break loose so easily, you really have to keep the rpms under 3000.

 

I didn't switch to the re92s, I switched to the G009s. They are also all seasons but harder to find, and I think they are supposed to be better in the snow than the re92s. You can get them off tire rack for 120 and I had them put on for 134. So far they are out performing my stock tires but my stock tires wore down really fast because of my driving so they hadn't performed well for a while.

 

So far the Scion handles great in the snow. At least compared to my GTO. Yesterday I ordered 4 Dunlop Graspic DS-2's(17" to fit the stock wheels). I can't wait to see how she handles with those.