Tires in Winter

zhangyl

Ready for winter

Finally picked my tires for the winter and I have them in them in garage ready for when they will be needed. For the Vibe I could use 15" rims ( my OEM alloys are 16" ), so I was shopping for steel rims and 195/65/15 tires.
I had basically narrowed it down to picking either something at Walmart, or Canadian Tire.

                               
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Walmart has a house brand tire called the Wintermark Magna Grip HT. Which is actually made by Kelly Tires. This is a sub company of Goodyear, and basically they take older Goodyear designs and continue to sell them as value priced tires. The tires were $73, the steel rims were $40, and $10 per tire to install.

                               
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Walmart also sells the Dunlop Graspic DS-1, and sells it cheaper then I've seen anywhere. Its a very good ice tire, but is not good in snow. Its a heavily sipped tires ( small cuts in the tread ), with more surface area ( good for ice ), and so little channel area for snow. Good for highway ( good stability ). The tires were $89, the steel rims were $40, and $10 per tire to install.

                               
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Canadian tire sells the Nordic Icetrac and Wintertrac. I just sold my Wintertracs that I used on my Rabbit and Fox and then Jetta. They still looked new when I sold them, even with the legth of use I put on them. Very long lasting. Great snow performance, but not as good on ice ( but still good ). These tires are cheap ( wintertrac ), and if we could stud tires in ontario, this would be the ultimate combo for price, and ice and snow performance. They are pretty much the standard I hear out east, since they can put studs on them. The Icetracs do just as well in snow as the wintertracs, but cost more. For this you get very good ice performance. This is the tire I went with. The tires were $78, the steel rims were $50, and $10 per tire to install. If you can't get studs, the Icetrac is the better choice

                               
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This is the one I went with.
I decided to spend a bit more then walmart prices (going with the Magnagrip) because walmart with all its part time workers just couldn't manage to find the steel rims for me. The warehouse in Toronto had them, but between the four workers I talked with and the shifts, they just couldn't communicate well enough to make the phone call to get them. The other reason was that I think the Icetrac tire is better then even the Dunlop tire, and works out to be cheaper. Lastly as much as I sucked in by Walmarts low prices, I prefer to buy from CTC when I can. I can use my Canadian tire money off my CTC card, but I also can support a store that treats its employee's better. The buy canadian thing doesn't apply here as Walmart. The good thing that Walmart does is that to keep prices low for themselves, they try to use a lot of local products, so that means canadian products, and canadian jobs. Thats the good part. The tough pricing they force on the companies that supply them with product sometimes means that they have to lower wages/benefits to meet the prices and keep the contracts with Walmart. This is sometimes referred to as the 'Walmart effect'. They create jobs, but they create low paying jobs. CTC doesn't do this. The prices are slightly higher, and so they can offer living wages to people who work for them, and the companies that supply them with products. The company I work for does the same thing when they negotiate with other companies - the goal is reach 'sustainable' prices with these companies. They want a good deal, but not to the point where they bid the companies into unsustainable positions. It isn't good for the relationship between the companies, it isn't good for the workers who work at those companies - who in turn have less money to spend and return money back to the economy...etc
But I degress...

                               
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Another option I found, but found after I brought the Icetracs home, was both this canadian website for car talk with other canadians, and a tire forum in it that is sponsored by a webbased tire selling place. I also checked the prices and they are great. I compared small shops around Guelph and I just couldn't justify paying $200 more to get the same quality of tires. These stores are going to get killed when Walmart comes to Guelph. This online store had the same brands as the local stores at the same kind of discount as Walmart. So you could get many different brands instead of just having two tire choices. This is even with the shipping. So you can get the tires to your door, for a price similar to walmarts prices. Thats pretty amazing.
I actually considered returning the Icetracs and choosing a set of Hankook ICE BEAR W440's. The tires are $79, the rims are $55. There isn't a charge for install of the tires to the rims, but shipping works out to be the same as install. The store is in BC, so people out of that province only pay GST. Hence the savings. If I did this, I'd get tires of about the same quality and performance for about the same price. So it wasn't worth it for me. However if I was the type of person who wouldn't consider a house brand tire ( the nordic tires of canadian tire are made by BFG ), then this would have been a great way to get name brand tires.