buckwilly4

I am about to buy some blizzak ws-50 snows. My question is:

There are three options for the sidewall in these tires....They come in
205-70-15
205-65-15
205-60-15

The cheapest of the bunch is the 205-70-15
The most expensive is what is "recommended" whcih is the 65 profile tire.

I would prefer to buy the lower profile one and (have better handling in dry) save 20 bucks and use it towards shipping.

I was wondering would I be ok with the lower profile tire without much loss of performance in the snow and ice...ie - does sidewall size really matter for snow performance when it is such a small difference?

PS- I dont care if my speedo is off because of the tire profile

Any ideas?

Vinipux

just get what is recomended, if you get anything but 65, your speedometer will suffer, unless you take your corners at 100 miles an hour, it should matter if you have 60,65,70, the only that matters in the snow is the width of the tire, and 205 is fairly narrow, that's all you need to worry about

Jeff92se

iTrader: (82)

Since the tires are not on very long, I would say it doesn't matter that much. Yes, the speedo and od will be affected but not that much. As long as there are no rubbing problems w/ the bigger aspect ratio. Or I guess you could go smaller also. For dry handling, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Blizzaks are very nice tires in the snow, but from what I read, they have terrible wear ratings. So I wouldn't push them in the dry anyway.

buckwilly4

I thought that these were the best snows for the money. Does anyone know of any winter tires that are better for the money? I would prefer that these tires lasted at least 4 months, I didnt plan on peeling out with these tires or autocrossing...upstate ny is hell once december starts with snow and ice.

MaineMax

As a rule of thumb a narrow tire will work better in the snow than a wide tire.
As far as 70 series vs 65 series your speedometer will only be off by 3.2% with this change.

As far as blizzaks, they are ok, but check out the Yoko Guardex line. I'm running them on 3 of my cars and they are great tires for our Maine winters. www.tires.com is offering free shipping on all winter tires through the end of the month, plus they have great prices.
Check it out.

buckwilly4

Has anyone else heared anything about the guardex tires for the winter. I just read about them and they seem like they are good. How do they wear? Have you had them for a long time? How many miles should I expect to get out of them or how many seasons? The free shipping and low price are a definite plus.

MaineMax

They wear just fine, fairly quiet for a winter tire, good ride, I run them 4 - 5 monthes & expect to get 3 maybe 4 seasons.