Canada - winter tires

They are perfect in their simplicity.

 

I got Crossclimate 2s at the closest size they come in, which gives us a 2 percent difference upward in rolling speed.

It fared fine as a combo during the BC storms, also dynamic traction is pretty swell.

I figured it would work out fine since it's the same setup TFL got on their car.

 

Late to teh discussion but looking for snow tires…preferable studded. Cant find any. I need 205/45r17 if i dont get new rims. I did look on tire rack and discount tire for 16” studded and found none. Nokian discontinued the hakk 8 which I wanted.

 

Hakka 9 and 10 come studded in 195 55 16. not much choice of anything in 17” so downgrade to 16s

 

Found them on the Nokian website. Might have to special order…none found on basic search.

I did find some used rims with Toyo snows for 750, but they weren’t studded and I think we really want the studs…we are at 8100 in Confer Colorado.

 

Another Question - none of the Hakka’s are run flats. Do you just throw a can of fix a flat in the car and go for it?

 

Your SE should have come with the tire mobility kit, which includes an air compressor and a bottle of goo to inject into a flat tire, basically like Fix-A-Flat. I have runflat winter tires on my ICE Clubman, but for the SE I stuck with standard winter tires (Hakkapeliitta R3s) for lower rolling resistance and less noise. And I did indeed get a nail in one of them last winter and drove around half the winter on a slow leak because I couldn't find a replacement. This winter I'm all set with a spare winter tire just in case, since they're basically only available at the start of the season.

 

Gotcha, I vaguely recall this mobility kit. Im sure its still there.

I think we gotta have studded tires here…our main access road is a CF of epic proportions for days after a storm. Days after the last storm there were 4 cars in the ditch within a mile of each other. It’s a narrow canyon that get little to no sun.

 

Being reminded of the mobility kit begs another question - do most of you buy run flats or just normal tires? Normal ones would be much cheaper

 

Normal tires. If you have a blowout ur SOL either way and if you drive on it flat

 

I looked for 4 hole rims a few weeks ago, and saw a few sets of 5 hole Mini rims on the FB marketplace relatively local.

 

Just make sure you get the correct bolt pattern. Some 5 bolt mini wheels are 5x120 vs 5x112 which we need

 

Yeah in November I was helping a fellow Montrealer on the UK forum (in DM) find some rims and we found loads of local F6x alloys (5x120) at great prices, only one set of original F56 rims, at a retailer in Laval. CA$500 cash with TP sensors, though, pretty great.

 

Quick post on winter tire options from the Vermont mountains. For anyone else out there with the weird size mini winter wheel/tire combo (175/60R16 on 5.5 inch wide rims), I can report that 185/55R16 Blizzaks fit the wheels fine, and handle as OK as such tires ever do. The 1-2% reduction in overall diameter does have the predicted effect on speedo and odometer accuracy. (Note that the speedo on stock wheels reads 2-3mph high but the odo is spot on.) Not sure yet whether range will be much different than the Dunlops.

 

Norway here, we have to fit winter tyres, on my car I ordered factory 17” wheels they came fitted with Continental Winter Viking 7’a, I’ve always liked the Winter Viking, the Audi A1 Sportback the Mini replaced had Winter Viking 6’s, our previous A6 also had Winter Vikings, our current A6 has Nokians, I will replace these with Winter Vikings when they need to be replaced.