need mag-article input re. snow tires

[Formerly Steve Wilkinson]

For a piece I'm helping the writer/researcher with at Popular Science Magazine, I'd love to hear any input on recent winter-tire development for Porsches and other performance cars. I'm particularly interested in anything our European Pelicans have to say--the people who live in Switzerland and Austria, etc. and use their 911s year-round.

I'm not so much interested in hearing that winter tires are great and should be put on all four wheels, etc.--with a barn full of four sets of snowtires on dedicated rims, including two sets for Porsches, I already know that--I'd like to find out if there's anything coming along in terms of new technology, or of driver experience with recent-technology tires like the Pilot Alpins.

Let 'er rip.

Stephan

[Noel]

Sorry Stephan, mine stays in the garage all winter, but here is a bump for your thread.

[Bill Verburg]

The biggest advancce I've seen is the silca tread compounds, I have been using 17" Pirelli versions for several years on my Audis in upstate NY, Vt. and N.H. The tires have proven to have great dry, wet and snow characteristics. Only down side has been some tire whine, but nothing as bad as the previous generation of snows.

[emcon5]

Sorry for the hijack, but I would really like to see a magazine like P.S. do an article comparing the various racing head/neck restraint systems, Hans vs. Isaac vs. Hutchens vs. G-Force vs. D-Cell vs. Wright vs. any others I haven't thought of.

Tom

[Randy Webb]

Yes, the hydrophilic stuff is the neatest technology advance I can think of. R&T has a technology update every so often on toires, but you don't want to parrot another magazine...

If Dawn Stover (Sci. editor) is involved, tell her I said "hi."

[KobaltBlau]

Hi Stephan, I had a very positive experience with Dunlop Winter Sport M2s. Very good in the snow and as good as Ultra High Performance tires in the dry (not as good as Max performance)

My biggest surprise with these was that My experience with snow tires has traditionally been that the dry performance leaves very much to be desired. These new technology performance tires provide a compromise that I didn't realize was possible, with very good performance in dry and snow.

I recommended these in a couple of other places:

Winter Driving Advice
Snow tires

I live in colorado and I do drive my porsches in the winter, including up to the ski areas, on mountain passes in snow and ice.

I would be happy to answer any specific questions as well.

[thabaer]

I was at a tire talk at Meadow Creek here in Denver over the summer and Gary Bergman showed us a performance oriented Nokian prototype called the RSI (rain-snow-ice) that should be available soon if not now. I've been running Vredestein Wintrac V rated snows for a few years with great results but am thinking about trying the RSIs on some extra rims, just to see if they've succeeded in hotrodding the Hakkas.

I used to just run P7s all year and never skipped a ski trip, I-70 and most of the roads to areas are so heavily maintained (especially with 300 sunny days/year) it's rare to have to turn back. The dedicated winter pieces let me do the lonely no-cellular-service night runs down to Wolf Creek via 285 or Leadville if I feel like it, even with crappy ground clearance.

[Fishbulb]

Definitely look to the Finns for cutting edge winter tires: Nokian produces the best stuff out there. I run them on everything from the Wifey's Highlander to my 323 GTX rally car. And I live at the same latitude as the Finns; We have 9 months of winter and 3 months of bad skiing....

They have a good website. They continue to innovate.