Tuffy Tire & Auto Service Center - Grandview
1524 W 5th Ave
Columbus, OH
Closed
Opens 8:00 AM Tue
All In Auto Service
5200 Fisher Road
Columbus, OH
Open
Closes 6:00 PM
Blackstone Complete Auto Care
4800 Sinclair Road
Columbus, OH
Open
Closes 6:00 PM
What is your question?
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What is your question?
I just bought a 2000 CR-V that had spent its life in Texas as a basic around-town utility vehicle. It's tires are almost new but of questionable quality (Fisk Classic P205/70R15 M+S.) Now that the car lives in Michigan, I've found that its traction is very poor in snow & wet. It can't even get up my driveway (nose first or tail first) when there's snow. Our other cars are Audi A4 Quattros that just motor through anything within reason and have no trouble behaving solidly in the snow. Up the driveway with no drama. I'm wondering if these tires should be replaced with better quality, or maybe my perception of how a car ought to perform in the snow is skewed because of my 15 years experience driving Quattros. Question: How much of the poor traction I'm experiencing is related to the Fisk tires and how much is due to my perception of good performance from the Audis? Am I spoiled or is this normal for FWD with cheap tires? Thanks for attempting to answer a subjective question.
Front wheel drive
No brainer, the Audi "qua(d)ttro" is All Wheel Drive! Can't be compared!! Try more aggressive tires.
I know it isn't fair but I have no experience with front wheel drive so I don't know what's normal/acceptable. It seems that a FWD car should be able to get around in the snow (again, subjective). Some of my neighbors have driveways with a similar slope and they don't seem to have a problem. It appears that most of their cars are ordinary FWD. I see them drive their ordinary FWD (Taurus-Focus-Camry-Corolla type) up their drives but my CR-V can't do it. Aside from the neighbors, the previous owners of this house had a RWD Chevy van and a FWD Saturn or similar. My neighbors don't remember seeing the vehicles parked in the street because they couldn't get up the driveway. I took the Honda to a tire store and the guy, after looking at the tires & measuring tread depth, said that better tires would help but not too much.
It's the tires! I have an older Corolla, work car, and put a pair of pretty aggressive tires on it and i swear it goes better, in snow, than my Blazer with all new Michelins on it. To a certain point that is of course.
I just got back from a second tire store. This is what I they said: o- The Fisk tires I have aren't great but they aren't junk. o- If they're older than about five years, the compound has probably hardened and traction has suffered. It's very possible that these tires are that old. They have excellent tread depth but the car is 13 years old with only 60K miles. o- The best solution is to buy a separate set dedicated to winter use ($600.) They will need to be swapped spring & fall. The guy I talked to said that's what he does with his FWD car. I didn't ask where he keeps the alternate set during their off season... o- Yes, my expectations are out of whack because I've been driving only Quattro/AWD for so many years. I think I have the info I need. Thanks for your help.
Sure. A set of BFGoodrich all terrain would do nicely year round! In the winter make sure the most tread is on the front. When rotating the tires. Visit tire racks web site and shop a little, $600.00 is too much!