After thinking about it for a couple years we finally took the plunge this year. The All Season Tires on the Vibe are worn to the point that they are fine for summer, but weren't quite making the cut. I will put them back on and then in spring of 2010 we will get new tires and probably rims. As far as cost goes they are only a couple dollars more then regular all seasons and you spread wear out between two sets of tires. Extra costs come from getting them swapped a couple times a year which will run you $50 total a year. That price can be mitigated if you get a second set of rims and swap them yourself (which I plan to do). Most people get steel wheels, but we already have steel wheels, we will get nicer rims for the summer tires. Another way to look at it is: what is the price of your deductible and increased insurance rates from an accident? A few extra bucks for two sets starts to look nice.

After looking at the whole range of options I settled on “winter performance” tires. They have a winter compound that stays softer in colder temps and have treads to deal with ice and slush more then feet of powder. They still work better in powder then an all season tire though. Reviews are difficult because the lines change every year and who puts multiple sets of snow tires on in exactly the same conditions? I was able to get an idea from tirerack.com and some magazine/newspaper reviews. The best article I found was this one.

After looking at the range of options I had it narrowed down to a couple options and then availability decided on which of the two. I ended up getting Yokohama Ice Gaurd IG20's. I called Discount Tire and asked about price matching because I found them online for about $15 less a tire then they were advertising, and asked if I needed to bring anything in with the price and they guy said that I could do that or they could look it up online from the store. When I went in I told the guy the tire I wanted and that I saw it for this price and he just said “we can do that.” Lesson learned, I am glad I didn't pre-buy them buy them online.

I have had them for a few weeks now and am really happy. Before I went to get them I did some informal stopping distance testing with the regular tires. Our side streets were plowed, but still mostly covered in snow and ice. It was basically go 25mph and hit the brakes when I pass the tree. With the snow tires I was stopping in about 60-70% of the distance of the all seasons. I also had the old tires and 3 stores worth of groceries in the car. We got a snow day before break and about 10″ of snow. I just had to take them out. I went down the street and back with some sliding around the culdesac, but it worked out fine. On the slush and ice covered roads they worked great. At highway speeds they are a little squidgy.

We will see how they handle the rest of the winter and how many seasons they will last. I am hoping for 4 seasons, but they wear quicker then all seasons, especially on dry pavement.

Edmunds has a nifty article about why you shouldn't buy a hybrid now. With gas prices lower it will take a long time to break even on the added cost of a hybrid.

This is a scary time and I have held my tongue about the auto bailout because so many other people seem to be making sense. The problem is they don't make decisions. I saw this at Jalopnik and though that it was pretty cool.

This is a map of manufacturing sites for the Detriot 3 Automakers. It does not even count the suppliers.

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