Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2008 08:42:57 -0700
Reply-To: Brendan Slevin <totorovan@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Brendan Slevin <totorovan@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Snow newbie needs snow tire recommendation
In-Reply-To: <48B5151B.70906@verizon.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
I have to add here, living in Bend, we do see our fair share of snow. Last
year we had 22 inches of snow in our front yard, middle of town, for about
two weeks, and we had the lead up and melt off of said white sh*t. Easily
over two months of snow on the gound. It was pretty brutal for Bend. That
said, Totoro wore Hankooks (studded only because they were given to me that
way.) Not a problem. I took the studs out this spring, easy job really.
We see some regular ice, more black ice than you think, and lots of hard
packed, glazed snow. When they sand it works for about 30 minutes and then
then gravel all turns to little ice marbles. The de-icer they use works
early in the winter, but by the time we're down to 10 degrees in the
daytime, nothing really helps.
91 (I think) was the year of 10 feet in town, snowed on the 4th of July in
97 I think, Syd's b-day April 22nd two years ago we got snow. When it snows
a lot we usually follow that with weeks of single digit temp so it stays a
long time. I'd say on average we have slick snowy roads for a solid month
in January and late into February. Then, some winters we get very little
snow at all.
Totoro REALLY impressed me in winter driving. A little lack of traction
getting started, but other than that, not bad at all. I had a set of
Observe (Schwabies?) studless snow tires on our old Subaru, they were crap.
On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 1:49 AM, Jeffrey Lubin <visionwizard@verizon.net>wrote:
> I'm in the Nokian crowd too:
>
> Nokian Hakkapeliitta CS
> Size: 195R14
>
> It's a great all-weather tire.
> Love 'em
>
>
>
>
> Mike Elliott wrote:
>
>> Now that we've moved to Bend, Oregon, we are looking ahead to when, not
>> many months from now, we will need to give our cars new shoes. Mrs
>> Squirrel is still without car since her Volvo sedan's computer registered
>> that the transmission was due to fail. so we sold it. In the meantime,
>> she's putting around town in Mellow Yellow (my 84 Westy).
>>
>> We're from SoCal where that white stuff that falls from the sky simply
>> doesn't happen so I have never needed to look into the subject of snow
>> tires. I looked at Larry Chase's Roadhaus page to see what tires others
>> have found to be good, but I couldn't easily tell which of them were of
>> the studded snow tire category.
>>
>> The local dealer (and employer) is Les Schwab so I reckon it would be a
>> fine thing to buy from them.
>>
>> Could someone more familiar with this subject take a look at the
>> offerings
>> from Les Schwab here: http://www.lesschwab.com/tires/winter.asp and
>> advise
>> a Pretty Good Tire?
>>
>> (Note: I just passed the written (actually computer) test to get my
>> Oregon
>> driver's license. It was from a 16 year-old kid sitting next to me in the
>> waiting room that I learned that studded snow tires are not legal here
>> from April 1 to November 1. Good thing he knew that, it was on the test.)
>>
>> --
>> Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
>> 71 Type 2: the Wonderbus -- NOW SOLD TO THE BUYER OF OUR HOUSE
>> 84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
>> 74 Utility Trailer. Ladybug Trailer, Inc., San Juan Capistrano
>> KG6RCR
>>
>>
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