[roastpuff]

Originally Posted by roverT

I feel you on the PA4s. They have their strengths and weaknesses. As long as you can find a tire that ticks most of your boxes and you can accept or find your way from the unchecked boxes, that tire you chose will be ideal for you.

Yeah, the PA4 is "good enough" for my use case, especially with AWD. I can live with the reduced deep snow performance given than I'm in Vancouver and won't see that many dumps per winter.

Originally Posted by supafamous

https://www.tyrereviews.com/Article/...-Tyre-Test.htm This review has the Pilot Alpin 5 and the WinterContact TS870 coming in first for winter tires (what we call a performance winter here is a regular winter in Europe). It's a bummer that the newest winter tires don't make it here right away - the Pilot Alpin 5 was available in Europe for almost 2 winters before it came here.

I have the WinterContact TS850P on my RDX and, like the Pilot Alpin 4, I do have to pick some battles but I like the tradeoffs since I'm not going into really woolly situations as a city driver. I do enjoy lighting up all 4 wheels from time to time though.

I think they've released the PA6 in Europe too... we really do get slow releases of the newest tires.

Originally Posted by Eff-1

Can you guys comment on the average lifespan of winter tires these days?

My set of Blizzak ws80s are on their 4th winter now. Purchased in Nov 2018. We spend a lot of time in Whistler and so they've seen quite a bit of true winter roads since new. Visibly they still look okay, still lots of siping left. But this is the first year i've noticed far less traction when cornering. You can feel the car slide when taking low speed turns especially. Stopping and starting on hills is still no problem at all. I'm guessing i've put 15k - 20k kms on them since Nov 2018. I'm just curious what the actual lifespan of tires is these days and how much longer I should expect out of them. Thanks

4 seasons and 15-20K KM out of Blizzaks are about what you should be expecting. After that they drop off dramatically.

Originally Posted by twitchyzero

what's the sweet spot medium tires for winters then? that will get you the balance of performance and mileage

i recall people suggesting all-weathers wear like DWS that performance changes as tread wears, has there been a design that overcomes this or the companies want them disposable way before warrantied mileage/tread to be considered end of life?

Stuff like the X-Ice 3, Continental WinterContact series (Viking series I guess now) tend to have the longevity and performance in a sweet spot IMO. I haven't used the Pirelli tires enough to say one way or another.