Thread: Importing winter tyres

Has anyone imported tyres recently?

Proper snow tyres like Blizzaks are astoundingly effective on icy roads, and I'd like to get a set to put on the D4 for trips to the snow.

By way of explanation, when I lived in Japan we switched to winter tyres (on their own set of rims) each Autumn and switched back sometime in Spring, so I've used snow tyres a lot in the past.

Originally Posted by Xtreme

What are the Blizzaks like on normal (dry bitumen) roads as 99% of your trip won't encounter snow/ice conditions?
Appreciate that you'd want to be prepared for the black ice situation when encountered but also need to consider the most suitable tyre for the overall trip.

Snow tyres are fine on normal roads - they can be a bit noisier and as a softer compound supposedly wear quicker, but not that I noticed.

Edit: it's not like using muddies on the school run ....

Originally Posted by simonmelb

How often do you go to the snow, and of those how many days would you actually be driving on snow / ice compared with cleared tarmac?

Why not just good AT tyres with sipes?

ATs would be OK, but I had a bad slide the last time I was up at Hotham - to be fair, the Wranglers on the car at the time were quite worn but we did have chains on. Good snow tyres can be more effective than having 4WD.

The kids are doing competition skiing at the moment so will be at Buller or Falls most weekends for the next month or so.