Prepping (and personalizing) my winter wheels

Which tires came with your car, Rog? I found the Goodyear Eagle F1s to be "ok" in the heavy rains we had a couple of weeks ago. If you don't plan on much driving when the temperatures drop below 7º for a few days at a time, you might be able to get away with the summer tires, but I'm still an advocate for having tires appropriate for the conditions. I think of the "all-weather" (ie, triple-peak/snowflake) tire options for this car, the WR-G4 is likely your best bet. I find my Eagles loud, so I'm actually hoping my Hakkapeliitaa R5s are quieter!:cool:
 
About those noise concerns - I've found that the type of pavement makes a huge difference in the noise. Blacktop makes one sound, and patched blacktop another. Concrete is different - and different paving techniques another. There's one road near the airport that has some kind of grooving that sounds like a jet is landing over the car. The first time I heard it, I was looking all over for the plane. Same sound every trip. And loud, compared to other concrete on the same road. Winter or summer tires, same sound.
 
Puppethead said:
Based on that I'd probably run on all-seasons year round, except for performance or noise issues.
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I've never had summer performance tires before and I find my Hankooks so wonderful that I'll always have them on my SE during the non-snowy months. The reduced cornering power of my Michelin winter tires reminds me daily how great the Hankooks are. I assume good all-season tires would corner better than my Michelin winter tires, but certainly not as well as summer performance tires.
 
SameGuy said:
Which tires came with your car, Rog? I found the Goodyear Eagle F1s to be "ok" in the heavy rains we had a couple of weeks ago. If you don't plan on much driving when the temperatures drop below 7º for a few days at a time, you might be able to get away with the summer tires, but I'm still an advocate for having tires appropriate for the conditions. I think of the "all-weather" (ie, triple-peak/snowflake) tire options for this car, the WR-G4 is likely your best bet. I find my Eagles loud, so I'm actually hoping my Hakkapeliitaa R5s are quieter!:cool:
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The Hankooks - they are fantastic! I don’t want to risk my Power spokes during the winter, so I think you are right - all weather tires for the wet winter! I will wait until the discount code for those tires goes live. Thanks for sharing those codes.
 
revorg said:
About those noise concerns - I've found that the type of pavement makes a huge difference in the noise. Blacktop makes one sound, and patched blacktop another. Concrete is different - and different paving techniques another. There's one road near the airport that has some kind of grooving that sounds like a jet is landing over the car. The first time I heard it, I was looking all over for the plane. Same sound every trip. And loud, compared to other concrete on the same road. Winter or summer tires, same sound.
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My experience exactly - except different airport:)
 
revorg said:
Some of my earlier Mini's came with Hankooks. The handling was good, but the lifespan was horrible. When I complained, my MA agreed with me.
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Having winter tires on my SE part of the year has extended lifespan of my Hankooks. I like them so much that I'll be looking for another set when these wear out. I hope Discount Tire can get them, but will go the distant dealer route if I have to.
 
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insightman said:
you're obviously a pro.
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I thought about taking my hobby-that-became-a-sideline to the next level, but then, what I had previously always enjoyed started becoming a “job.” Remember the adage that one’s “perfect job is that which they’d do for free”? Yeah nah, I wasn’t charging enough for my… meticulousness… and it was more work running a business than actually doing the job. I slowed way down with car stuff, and stuck to my day job working for The Man (happily).
 
SameGuy said:
Yup yup!

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But if you’d like to imitate it, please be sure to post pictures!:)
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I order from Amazon Oracal651 vinyl 1/4 Brimstone Yellow and was fishy as roll of striping was clean inside from who manufactured but any way I went ahead and did two wheels .As I did some vinyl before I don’t believe this is going to hold for so long but a time will be an answer .Tomorrow next two I have to back up a car to garage to make room on one side to work on it.As I have two beer’s only I can do one side today .I buy two for tomorrow to finish a project.As I paint my calipers with only 100 miles on a car and today as I’m seeing them first time after 9 month and clean one on front I put a picture how looks ,I’m happy what I see no peeling a paint I used hold very well and I paint them with brush from spray can. You may wander my rotors so clean I use that staff on every car /new/ before I drive to coat rotors and bolts to prevent rust and seize a wheel.418DE10F-E811-498E-A887-44BF9AB5CBBF.webp8372807E-1A89-4302-A0F3-272D4491FBF8.webp5EE032F8-D3D3-4116-9494-84C17AD5710E.webpBABB8C0A-7498-4E4D-B51D-0C5C78E5B1FF.webp63C372CC-2321-435E-8446-F77574438382.webp427C475F-CF1A-4161-9B07-5F196A25B767.webp
 
SameGuy said:
Yup yup!

View attachment 18728 View attachment 18729

But if you’d like to imitate it, please be sure to post pictures!:)
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As I’m looking on your winter tire you did excellent job using the tool to apply striping but what is going to happen when you try to dismantle a tire once you over a leap of the rim looks like after that you have to do striping again .I did my striping 1/8” away from top of a rim hoping a striping survive when I dismantle a tire .Let’s see in a future how this works with different design . As I did my 5 th wheel bc I own 8 of them exactly the same you did but lack of tool was not easy to do perfect job as you did .A yellow wheels looks really good with my yellow calipers and center cap .Still waiting for silicone covers of my center bolts .93858BCA-98D2-44DF-96A2-A179FB24F2C4.webp47982BA1-F530-4B6A-ACE6-8161F0932321.webp279687E5-C296-4341-9514-ED6536DDA50D.webp
 
My WRG4s are a bit noisy on my SE. Don't really notice on my R53, but that has a header and makes a godawful racket.
I put some Conti purecontacts on my ex's car. They were fairly decent on snow for all seasons, though not as good as WRG4s. I hear good things about extremecontacts.
 
The Hakkaloogey 5s will be going on next week. The long-range forecast is finally showing seasonal temps with daily highs quite a bit lower than “you oughtta reconsider driving on straight-up summers” degrees, though I don’t expect snow any time soon. I’ll report how I perceive the noise as compared to the stock Eagles on the various road surfaces around here.
 
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