After 4 winter seasons I have been told by my tire guy that my snow tires will not be good enough to put back on next year. I'm still driving around with them on (in May!) since my original tires are not mountable either (I'm shopping right now). These snow tires cost me almost $500 a few years ago. I still consider them a great purchase and here's why.

I drive a 2000 Honda Civic. During its first snowstorm I went to work with perhaps an inch of snow on the road and the car was almost uncontrollable. I felt extremely unsafe driving (and was kicking myself for not getting 4WD or AWD - I had always had 4WD in the snow and took it for granted).

Then I remembered the Car Talk guys from NPR had said what a huge difference good snow tires could make. I bought top of the line Michelin Artic Alpins (I figured if these didn't help I would take the much more expensive step of trading in a 6 month old car).

Click and Clack were right on. It made such a huge difference it was like driving a different car.

I'm wondering if Honda puts cheapo OEM tires on the Civics since a lot of sales are in Southern California where there really isn't a lot of snow (or maybe since it is a compact car they just want to keep costs down).

I'm not sure if a really good set of all season tires will get me through the winter or if I will have to do the snow tire thing again regardless of what I buy. I'd really prefer to have all-seasons to avoid the whole fall/spring changeover issue.

I'm wondering if anybody out there drives small cars in the snow and what they're experiences are with winter tires and driving?

-fg

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