Yes You Need Snow Tires

[Milo Maltbie]

I said this before and I'll say it again, all season tires work great for all seasons with the exception of winter. I don't care where you live, if you plan on being a skier, YOU NEED SNOW TIRES!

FACT

I've been skiing for over 50 years. I've been there when the lifts open hundreds of times, but I've never been to a ski area before the parking lot was plowed. Snow tires are useful for early starts when it's puking snow, but powder day are few and far between around here now.

mm

 

[Cork]

WORD
I'll add studded, why not? Once you're wet, you're wet.

Yes, studded Nokian's are my weapon of choice

 

[x10003q]

I said this before and I'll say it again, all season tires work great for all seasons with the exception of winter. I don't care where you live, if you plan on being a skier, YOU NEED SNOW TIRES!

FACT

If you spent your weekdays driving in the flatlands and driving on clear highways to get to/from the mountains, you might have a different opinion. Here in NJ, roads are usually cleared pretty quickly and with WFH, there is no real need to go out in snow unless you are headed north for skiing.
I started putting snows on the main ski vehicle when I started spending the bulk of my skiing in VT due to more snow than North Creek. For the 25 years I was heading to North Creek it was all seasons and AWD. I never had a problem.

If I ever live in the North Country, snows will be mandatory.

 

[Harvey]

As a public service I changed the title of the thread! ??

 

[Milo Maltbie]

If you spent your weekdays driving in the flatlands and driving on clear highways to get to/from the mountains, you might have a different opinion. Here in NJ, roads are usually cleared pretty quickly and with WFH, there is no real need to go out in snow unless you are headed north for skiing.
I started putting snows on the main ski vehicle when I started spending the bulk of my skiing in VT due to more snow than North Creek. For the 25 years I was heading to North Creek it was all seasons and AWD. I never had a problem.

If I ever live in the North Country, snows will be mandatory.

That's about right. Gore is almost always an easy drive, but I live north of Albany and I can catch a powder day now and then, so I use snow tires. IF I lived on up high I'd always have snow tires, but in NJ I wouldn't bother.
Vermont and the Catskills are others places where I really want winter tires, mostly because I use a lot of county roads to get there.

mm

 

[Cork]

Again, my point is if you're a "serious" skier, you will be driving on snowy and icy roads. So, go ahead and drive on your wonderful AW/AS tires and enjoy life in the big ciites, and don't whine when you get stuck, because it's only a matter of time...

 

[G.ski]

Again, my point is if you're a "serious" skier, you will be driving on snowy and icy roads. So, go ahead and drive on your wonderful AW/AS tires and enjoy life in the big ciites, and don't whine when you get stuck, because it's only a matter of time...

All that matters is that you get stuck at the ski area.

Then you can justify staying over and skiing another day.

 

[Campgottagopee]

because it's only a matter of time..

Right
It's not a question of if but rather when it will happen

 

[Low Angle Life]

In college I drove a E36 BMW 318ti with full winter tires and sand bags in trunk, that was in northern VT and I can assure you I would have dumped the car off i89 somewhere between Burlington and Waterbury had it not been for the combination of tires and added weight. Up in that neck of the woods the interstate would often be snow covered even if not immediately after a storm, In those conditions I still found I would start fish tailing over 55mph regardless. I learned tons of great winter driving skills in that time but what I've learned since purchasing a modern pick up truck is how much of a help driver assistant features are for poor conditions. I made an overnight trip to Stowe during a big storm in 2019 driving through the night in a blizzard on a set of Hankook Dynapro HT RH12. The added confidence of a "snow mode" to keep the tires rotating slowly despite how I pressed the gas pedal was noticeable even without a dedicated set of snow tires. I've just switched over to a set of KO2's and and very curious to see the snow performance on those.

Take away message, there is no substitute for real snow tires but we are far better off regardless of tire choice in modern vehicles.

 

[Campgottagopee]

E36 BMW 318ti

Fun!