At what point are snow tires necessary? I'm aware of the extra grip they afford in icy conditions with proper driving. I have a FWD Volkswagen, moving to Boulder, hopefully I'm driving out to the mountains most weekends. Would a set of all-weathers biased towards winter weather be good enough? I figure keeping an extra set of wheels/tires would be a pain in the *** without any garage space...
It depends. How much driving in actual snow will you be doing? And I mean on the ground not coming down. If you're talking about every day driving in town, don't waste the money. But if you intend to drive out away from where the roads get plowed and/or used regularly, look into the Bridgestone Blizzaks. Some people up here keep them on a spare set of rims and just change them out for winter. My wife's Subaru and my Honda have the same factory tires that came with them when we bought them. Nothing special or fancy. They do fine for "normal" winter driving up here.
There are a bunch of factors to consider. Towns can be very good or very bad at clearing the roads of snow. They also focus their efforts on certain areas of town / roads. So the driving might suck at your house but a mile away it will be fine - and this will happen virtually every snow storm. It also comes down to a few bad spots- big hills (up or down), curves, and where you have to make a turn onto a hill. You can drive a straight, level road in far worse conditions than any of these roads. It can also depend on your work flexibilty. My parents live/work in the northeast. If the roads were bad my dad could wait a couple of hours for the roads to clear before going in. My mom would have to get in, whatever the conditions basically. So it all depends. Doesn't seem worth it until you see what local conditions you're facing.
Well said CTGA. If he's going to be in Boulder, I'd imagine that he'll see some of the conditions you mentioned. Here, I'd have to really go looking for adverse road conditions. In town, it's almost totally flat and there are very few roads with dangerous curves. So, we opted not to get them. Boulder might be completely different.
Parroting much of what has already been said - I would get all season tires, not snows (unless you are heading up to ski/snowboard every weekend - then get a 2nd set of tires). Contrary to our recent spat of bad storms, the Denver/Boulder area is quite dry in the winter and the roads are easily driveable with all-seasons. Normally, we get snow, then it melts the next day. The pattern is more funky this year, but you should be fine with a front wheel drive car and all season tires.
my CU & DU friends have said the same thing as well, wash, but the massive dumping this winter had me doubting. I'm not up there till March anyway, I guess I'll tool around on my Crapyears until the fall and then change them. thanks guys, as always. now to locate a wholesale Chap-Stick distributor.
