A/T tires vs Winter tires

Hi all, I live in Denver, CO and had an Outback for the last 10 years before it was totaled in February. I used all season tires on the Outback and never had an issue; but, I did run winter tires last winter, before the car was totaled, and found they had better traction. Instead of buying another Outback, I bought a '20 4Runner in March and have been running the stock tires since. My wife and I have gone off road a couple times a month, would like to do more, and we make regular trips to the mountains. Now with winter approaching, I'm trying to decide whether to replace the stock tires with a set of A/T tires or Winter tires. Is it possible to run A/T tires year round? Will A/T tires do well in snow and ice, especially over mountain passes? Are winter tires necessary/helpful on a 4Runner? Or, should I just stick with the stock tires and trust the 4wd? I would appreciate anyone's thoughts to my questions. Thank you!

 

I run A/T tires year round with the exception of winter. I have winter tires I run in NC from November 1 to March 31. Keep in mind, winter tires are SPECIFICALLY designed to provide traction at 45* and below. If I were in your shoes, I'd buy a set of wheels and put the winter tires on whatever wheels you don't care about. Put the stock tires on the good wheels and run them till they wear out. Then you can replace with A/T's if that's what you want.

 

Welcome to the forum.

 

I think this is good advice. It's key to remember that the 4WD won't help you brake or turn corners in slippery stuff. It won't help keep you from sliding off the road. Only tires can do that. To me then, the best choice is either between what Archangel is suggesting -- a dedicated winter tire and wheel set just for the winter months -- or going with an AT tire that is biased a bit toward the winter side of things. In this regard, the new Toyo AT3 has a "severe snow" rating despite being an all season tire. But if you go that route you should just know that while it should be better in snow than what you have now, it won't match something like a Blizzak.

 

Welcome to the forum, @JS_82 !

I agree with these guys.

A good all terrain with a snow rating will be good in the snow. But, a winter tire will be WAY better!

I use snow rated AT's year round, but I don't drive in the mountains. If I were going to remote places and in driving through the mountains in winter, I would prefer a winter tire.

 

Look from experience nothing beats a dedicated winter tire in anything over 2 inches of snow also icy roads A/T suck I had a 1986 944 turbo with blizzak and the only thing that stopped it was 5 inches of snow because I would plow but that thing was a hoot and never kept me from climbing Snowy/icy roads here in NY
J

 

Welcome from Canada. I run winter tires - Blizzaks in winter and K02s for summer. I live in a snow belt.

 

If you drive in the Colorado mountains during winter ya gotta have winter rated tires. I always ran studs on my Ford 4wd pickups and switched out in the summer. With my Ford Edge AWD I go with Blizzaks in winter and switch to summer tread in late March (Montana). They are wonderful.

On a 4Runner? I am going to go with a non-stud option. Studs are better on ice and really deep snow but Blizzaks give better rain/slush/dry ride and traction. On my '95 4runner I am going to go with some Cooper Discoverer A/T All-Season 235/75R15 105T. I do not plan extended mountain trips. Mostly around town.

 

Studs are great in ice and hard packed snow, but they’re not great on dry roads, and tend to have longer stopping distances.

 

Thank you all very much for the responses and for the welcome to the forum. I think I'll go with Winter tires and then switch my current stock tires, when they wear out, to A/Ts in the summer months. One last question, what is the reason to run two different sets of wheels?

 

Just the ease with which you can switch between winter and all season tires. Most people can even do the switch themselves in their own driveway. Saves not just hassle of going to the shop for the tires to be switched, but money too over the long term. There's a lot more involved in mounting and balancing tires than in simply bolting on a wheelset with tires already mounted.

 

Not to mention the time involved in taking them to a shop to swap them, possible damage to the TPMS sensors, ripping a bead on the wheel, scratching your nice wheels with all the dismounting/mounting, etc. The easiest way to think of it is this: you can probably find a set of scratched take off wheels for $2-300 max. Most tire shops will charge you that in ONE season for dismounting, mounting, and balancing. Not to mention the potential hours of time sitting there waiting, dropped off, however you choose to have the work done. Also invest in a set of 1 piece aftermarket lugnuts. The OEM lugs have a sleeve that will swell over time

 

I had a dedicated winter tire and wheel set for my Bimmer. Took less than an hour to make the switch each fall and spring. Just used a floor jack and a lug wrench. Have to do one wheel at a time that way (having a lift would of course be easier) but it was still quicker and easier than taking it to a shop.

if you can’t see doing it yourself, the next best thing would be to find a shop that will mount the wheel set for you and store whichever set you aren’t using.

 

Just easy and winter tires always have a market especially with Toyota world
J

 

I have my winter tires mounted on steelies with open galvanized lug nuts. They have Toyota tpms in them that were set up by the tire shop that supplied the tires. Switching is easy.

 

I don't know a whole lot about winter tires, living in South Carolina, but I've been researching A/T tires a lot lately and there are a good many of them now that are rated for winter driving. They signify that with the little 3 mountain peak symbol. Now that my wife and I have a vacation place in the NC mountains I'll probably be buying A/T's that meet that criteria. That will probably be good enough for us since we don't live there full time and probably won't be making the trip up there is the forecast looks bad. But would be good to have if we happen to get caught there by surprise.

 

Does anyone consider snow chains a good option? They can be put on a tire and are easy to install, and will provide a lot of grip even if the tire is not a winter tire

 

I think the problem folks have with chains is they can’t hall ass like they can with snow tires.

 

Life long Alaskan here, so have a little bit of winter driving experience (bout half the year).

With modern traction control systems, ABS, and AT tire winter performance I stopped running winter tires over a decade ago (except for on my Jeep SRT).

Sure, winter tires are better on ice / snow, but I have never had any of my trucks stuck where the tires were the limiting factor.

And for the post earlier saying how 4WD doesn’t help you turn corners on snow/ice, I strongly disagree. In low traction situations I run my trucks in 4WD and they do great. The relatively small impact on MPG is also cheaper than buying winter tires.

I run Cooper AT3 XLT’s on my Tundra, and they do fine. Cooper also has the AT3 4S, which is a better winter tire. Would have went with the Toyo AT3 if they had been available when I was last in the market for new tires since they are presumed better than the XLT’s.

On my 4R Pro I was EXTREMELY impressed with both the vehicle and the Nitto Terra’s this past winter. We had the biggest snow year in a while here in South Central AK, and I rarely had to put the 4R into 4WD.

 

That was me and I should have qualified that comment (as I have elsewhere on the forum). The important point is that no type of drive system can create traction that doesn't exist at the tire itself. If your tires lose grip and slide on the ice going around a corner, your whole car slides too. It doesn't matter which wheels are getting torque if none of the tires have grip. This is where winter tires help. They have more grip in ice and snow so make slides less likely. Where I think a good 4WD system may help in corners, in concert with stability control systems, is by sending torque to a tire with more grip than a sliding tire, thereby increasing directional stability. But no, strictly speaking, 4WD by itself should not help you corner when the tires can't bite.

 

Not to be pedantic, but in our 4R’s and RWD vehicles in particular, the front tires having power does indeed help the vehicle not lose traction in the first place.

I very much agree that winter tires are better than AT’s in every winter driving metric. I am just saying that a good set of winter capable AT’s in conjunction with modern vehicles stability control, traction control, ABS, and AWD / 4WD system will perform great in those conditions as well.

 

With the varied weather, terrain, and road conditions out here, every tire is a trade-off.

In a normal week out here, I can go from running 75mph on the highway, to driving in over a foot of snow, to hard-packed snow and ice, to deep mud, to rocks, and loose gravel. Finding a tire that works reasonably well in all those conditions is a challenge. Usually an aggressive AT is the best trade-off. This year I'm trying an MT that is siped to see how it does.

But yeah, a dedicated snow tire is best for winter. The problem is when you have to drive through deep mud and slush and then over rocks before you get to the snow. Or like last year when we had a freak winter and only two snow storms with less than a week where there was snow on the roads.