Anyone here bother with winter tires?

Dude we don't live in the Rocky Mountains

i've driven a RWD sedan with all-seasons here for the past 13+ years.

Pretty much everything shuts down on snowy days anyway, so I just go home early, avoid the stupid people on the roads, and stay home for a day and play in the snow with my kids. After the first day, the roads are clear and all seasons handle just fine.

As someone who grew up in Michigan with lake effect snow every year, dedicated snow/winter tires are overkill for NoVa. As long you have decent tread on some all-season tires, you’ll be fine in even the worst this area throws at you. Just be more careful and deliberate with your driving inputs, and don’t go out if you don’t have to.

In OP’s case, he’s driving a sportier car equipped with dedicated summer tires. These tires are performance oriented, and their traction will significantly decrease in temperatures under 40 degrees. He should absolutely get a set of snow/winter tires ASAP as it’s getting quite cold. Switch back to the summer tires around April and have two sets for year round.

Nope. I stick with all-weather tires. Winters are usually mild with only a few days of snow. This year may be an exception though based on the early freezing temperatures.

No one really answered all your questions.

1. If they are dedicated summer tires you should swap them out. Summer tires compound gets hard and loses traction in the cold. I have Michelin Pilot Super Sports on my Jag and I'm already at a major loss of traction just being in the 30s.

2. Yes, I stack them in my garage. If you have the space a warmer place is better.

3. A tire shop can vary based on how stingy they are. I would expect to pay between $10-$30 for a tire swap per wheel. It depends on the size of your rim and if the tire is low profile.

4. In your case you are definitely fine buying either all seasons or a pair of cheap winter tires, we only get accumulated 1-3 inches of snow on the road a few times a year. If I were you I would spend the money and buy a cheap pair of steel rims and get a set of all seasons since you have AWD and all seasons will wear out a lot slower then winter tires, especially if it's just cold but no snow is on the ground.

I did on my Miata but never needed them on anything else. And yes, I just stacked them in the garage wrapped in moving blankets. Part because the car needed it, part because the rest of the year I wanted to use performance summer tires.

lol you definitely don't need winter tires unless you're running some sort of crazy high performance dry/hot/slick tire that gets zero traction in snow. In that case, sure - but you'd probably be best off just buying a good all-season and sticking with it all year.

All seasons will be fine in the area...winter tires are only required if you are running summer tires. I just buy a full winter set (tire/rim) from tirerack and it's easy to swap on the car twice a year. 17" set cost me ~$1200 shipped with blizzaks

All season tires, also back in Western New York sometimes I would have snow tires, sometimes I would just use the all seasons.

I remember people would talk to me about using chains, and I was flabbergasted that people actually thought you need that for normal winter weather.

For here all seasons is fine.

All the comments here about driving on their all-season tires year around aren't really relevant if you have true summer tires, because obviously you don't have all-seasons. Depending on the exact compound, driving on summer tires in the cold can damage the tires, as they can often become brittle in the cold and crack. Is it probable that they will be damaged? Not necessarily, but it's not rare either, I've seen it multiple times. The risk of the tire cracking increases with temperature cycles and tire age. It's not just about siping.

Edit:

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/03/performance-tires-crack-winter-cracking/index.htm https://www.continental-tires.com/car/tire-knowledge/tire-change-fitting/changing-tires/summer-tires-in-winter https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=273

For the downvoters, I get it... It's all a conspiracy... Go get a nice performance summer tire and bounce it at room temp. Leave it outside in 20 degree weather and bounce it again. Let me know if you honestly can't tell how brittle and plastic like the tread compound has become.

I have a set of summer and winter tires for one of my cars. I have a storage rack for the set that’s not installed - allowing me to store them out of the way in my garage.

I recommend it - as long as you’ve had winter driving training. Know how your car handles with proper tires in the winter - you need to be on the look out for other drivers and able to get out of the way!

If you currently have performance/low profile summer tires, I would swap for winter tires. You won't get too far without spinning even with an inch or two of snow with those tires. A shop will typically charge $80-100 to swap all 4 tires and mount and balance the new winter tires. I store my summers in an outdoor shed.

Hey. I drive a WRX as well, you can get winter tires and swap them. I usually wait until it gets very cold to swap since the summer tires get harder and you loose traction even without snow. But if you dont drive outside the DMV much, just get good all season tires and avoid swapping.

All-weather road tires should be fine in this area. Snow is infrequent and typically short, and the ground crews/plows are very good. As others have said, its generally expected that things "shut down" when we get more than an inch of snow, so if your job allows it, head in late those days or take off entirely.

The exception is if you frequently head into the mountains or West Virginia. In that case, having a set of snow tires might save your life. My wife went to school in WV and snow tires saved her life a few times.

I know we don't get much snow here, but we had a few days last year that made me pretty nervous going to work, even with AWD. I Drive a Subaru WRX STI for reference.

If you are that concerned, you can take a winter driving lessons. The trick to driving in snow is to drive gently. Don't accelerate too fast, don't hit the brakes too fast. Anticipate that any action is going to take you 10x longer than usual. And as you've realized, while AWD will generally keep you from getting stuck and may help a little bit with slide-outs and cornering, it will do NOTHING to help you stop any better. Once you apply the brakes, your AWD Subaru might as well be a Yugo.

I went to my dealer and asked them to sell me some winter tires and install them... they advised me against it.

When a dealer is saying all-weather tires are fine and not taking your money, that says something =)

If you truly have summer tires, I would get a set of winters. Most people around here just run all seasons, which is plenty for this area. However, summer tires turn into rock when they get too cold.

I used to put on winter tires when I had a Z4 (RWD). That thing didn't go anywhere with a slight dusting of snow. Bought Blizzaks and had my friend (who worked at an NTB) swap them on every season and kept the summer tires in an outdoor closet.

In retrospect I wouldn't do that again.

In this area, winter tires are worth it if you have a performance car becuase summer tires are worth it if you have a performance car. We don't get too much snow around here, but performance winter tires are not only of benefit in the snow -- they also perform much better on cold dry pavement than a summer tire or many all-seasons would.

Look for tires like the Pirelli Sottozero or Michelin Pilot Alpin.

New WRX owner here - mine came with summer tires. I like to go to ski resorts often (mostly Whitetail / Snowshoe) so I'm probably going to get some cheap steel wheels and put winter tires on them and just swap them.

No, winter tires are completely unnecessary here, especially with an AWD. Just don't run summer tires.