So my dad is trying to get some snow tires for his 2002 max this year and people are feeding him lines of bull. They told him there is only one snow tire for that size rim, the Bridgestone Blizzak. What are you guys using for snow tires and where did you get them?

 

I was thinking about getting snow tires also. Check out tirerack.com

 

Get yourself a set of 16" winter steel rims, or look around for a set of 4th gen SE rims. You have a better selection of winter tires in the 215/55/16 size and your speedo will still be accurate. Do a search on the Canada section of the org on snow tires, lots of good info there. I have the Nokia Hakka 1 snow tires and they are unbelievable in the snow and ice. Frankie

 

I went with 16" steel wheels and Michelin Artic Alpins. The handling is lousy (compared to my 17" summers), but the snow traction is great. If I had it to do over I would get the Michelin Pilot Artic Alpins - more money, but supposedly much crisper.

I stayed away from open-cell compound tires, because the roads are dry here for several days at a time and then we get a lot of snow for a few days. I need a tire that won't wear quickly on clear roads.

 

For what it's worth, I just bought a set of Pirelli Winter 210's from tirerack.com. They're an exact match for the stock 17" wheel on the SE, same size as the stock tire (225/50/17).

They're damn near as good as the Blizzak's (unless your roads are snow-covered all the time), but will last a hell of a lot longer. And they also handle a lot better than the Blizzaks. We had 7" of snow a couple weeks ago - my SE handled it damn near as well as my wife's Volvo. I was very pleasantly surprised.

Here's tire rack's review from a couple years ago:

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/...perftest_2.jsp

 

I bought 16" nissan 5-spoke rims and Semperit snows (which I like so far) for only $150 more than those blizzaks.