Snow/Ice Tires Studs ?

[A1337STI]

(there is an 05 tire thread but everyone seems to hate on me endlessly for searching and posting (sometimes) relavent info according to (sometimes ancient) threads )

So its dumping out today. I had about 18" of snow at my house (lake level, tahoe) i'm quite happily brushing all the snow off, and then i drive into work. i make a left turn onto elks point off of 50 (all roads are way snow) the jeep in front of me is literaly doing 1mph !?!. which makes me loose it. i'm sorry if you can't drive at least 5 mph on a snow day (should be 20) stay home. so i just lay on my horn. like 2+ minutes of full horn blare as i wait to travel the 800 yards to the next corner . (which this jeep is also taking) my coworker / buddy jose is behind me in a jeep, and he got even more agrivated then i did. he passes me in the oncoming lane, and goes to pass the jeep who is now starting to turn in for the corner and just pulls in behind him. (rather reckless, yes that 1st jeep was going way to slow , but reckless)

so Jose parks in a spot in our parking lot. and i pull into the spot above him (this part of the parking lot is Sloped) well what i didn't know is there is glare ice, under the snow. as i was pulling into the spot (maybe 2 mph) my tires lock up and i start to slide . i was very worried at this point cuase of how slow i was going and the huge snow bank infront of my car. But i slide into that and then just started sliding towards the left (down hill) and very very slowly maybe 1/16th a mph ? but in slow motion i am sliding towards jose's jeep. i let go of the brakes and try the ebrake (i dunno obivously nothing is gonna help when all tires are already locked and you are sliding 100% sideways)
I was thinking of rolling down my window and just grabbing his car. i had plenty of time to roll down my window . i ended up decided against that. even with almost no speed. a 3200 pound car has a lot of momentum, that is probably bet not stopped through your hand/arm.
so i just sit there and tap into his car. very luckily my front fender contacts his Tire and his tire only . (he has his steering cranked way to the left so i contact the back right, of his front right tire) i had him straighten out his wheel (which actually pushed my car !) and then he backed up and parked elsewhere. i went to back up soon as i moved an inch backwards i started sliding sideways again (towards coworker #2's car) this time i stop with a few feet of room. so i go ask her to move her car. she does. i try to back out a 3rd time and slide a bit more but catch . back out. and then i drive up and park in an unplowed spot that has no camber.

Can you get studs added to Any tire ?
I have a set of Dunlap M3 wintersport tires. I only have about 5,000 miles on them and they seem to have a lot of tread left. perfectly even tread wear (if any)
On packed snow they have GREAT traction. amazing Dry/wet traction for a snow tire. amazing. in Slush you slide around Big time, i know slush is toughter to get traction on then packed snow. but its a night/day difference on these tires. also my Ice traction seems rather poor. (my last car, wrx, i got stuck when i pulled over on the side of a fairly flat road to assist someone who was stuck) (my luck i stop to push someone and get stuck myself) i could get my wrx going, but the camber of the road slide me back into the snow banks.

so after 2 seasons of driving on the M3 winter sports. i really want more ice grip. Now i do a lot of dry road driving on my snow tires , down to carson/reno/sac. Studs are probably gonna be just horrible. i could almost maybe get a set of crap rims and put studs ont hat and switch out for the storms but i have no garage. i do really lke that the M3 winter sports are speed rated to 149. again on my old wrx i had a tire blow on me due to heat issues it was speed rated to 99. then again that was like a 110 degree day down in sac .

has anyone used studs before (i never have) how bad are they on dry roads? all handling gone ? is there a tire with better ICe/slush grip that is speed rated a touch higher then 99 ?

thanks for the advice (or ridicule) which ever comes first

[doubleurx]

What you faced was due to how light the snow is. When the plow last plowed the parking lot it created that incredibly smooth hard pack of snow that makes the surface like glazed ice. It is so slippery that the anti-lock system thinks the car has come to a complete stop. This has also happened to me a couple times this week. The good news is this is somewhat rare for us up here. Studs would make all the difference, but the trade off is most of the time our roads are dry or just wet. So you would deal with the noise and the scary stud on dry road issues. I'm sticking with the M3's.

[cody]

Subaru ABS sucks. *ducks*

[Nick Koan]

I don't think you can add studs to tires. You'll need to buy studded tires for the ice days, and use the snow tires when you are driving on not-completely iced over road conditions.

And on studed tires, you don't want to go over about 60mph. Otherwise you'll risk pulling all the studs out or shaving them down.

[tysonK]

was it slicker than wet glass?

That's the real question.

[A1337STI]

Yes it was slicker then wet glass but only where i parked the rest of the roadway / parking lot was fine.

good to know about the ABS + ice . thx

[Dean]

The Snow and Ice Tires 2005... thread is pretty clear on what is good this year.

This is a perfectly good question we would have hapily answered there. We only get really grumpy about one liner negative responses to 12 month old questions...

And this is not about ABS! ABS has nothing to do with cars that have all 4 wheels locked, moving, or not... So stop ragging on the Subaru ABS you guys.

Those three tires blew away all other commers in the tests on ice.

I beleive you can only stud tires that have the little holes predrilled for them, but could be wrong.

Ice is the hardest thing to get traction on. the Silica in the rubber compounds, and the squigly siping is what makes those tires work as well as they do on ice.

After having driven on Debbie's Revos, I have a new respect for those tires. they are phenominal. A couple of us commented on how good they were back to back in the same conditions vs. our snow or all season tires.

But no matter what, tilted ice is tilted ice, and whne you put weight on it, it becomes close to zero friction tilted ice for which there is little recovery from. Studs may not have even saved you.

[A1337STI]

My bad. eventually after enough flogging i'll settle into the board flow here.

would cranking my steering wheel over far to the right /left have helped at all ?
(so that the slip angle was more like 45 instead of 90) (left was down hill towards the jeep i hit, right was uphill)

It was such a fluke set of conditions, i've been parking in the same lot for 8 years, but its good to know incase it happens again.

[Dean]

Originally Posted by A1337STI

would cranking my steering wheel over far to the right /left have helped at all ?
(so that the slip angle was more like 45 instead of 90) (left was down hill towards the jeep i hit, right was uphill)

It was such a fluke set of conditions, i've been parking in the same lot for 8 years, but its good to know incase it happens again.

Not likely. siping only does any good really when rolling, and the same amount of tread is on the ground either way.

Gravity sucks...

[doubleurx]

This reminds me of a pretty funny scene I witnessed at Tahoe Lake Elementary School. I used to do a ton of public school work and I was at the school on a really snowy day to meet with a contractor. They have a really steep hill that people park on; one next to another perpendicular to the slope. I pulled in to a parking spot on the top area that was level. The contractor pulled in next to me at the top of the slope. He got out and we started reviewing something when all of a sudden his truck starts the slow slide to the next car below it. When it was all said and done about six cars were moving together to the bottom of the slope. Amazingly there was very little damage. In fact most of the damage was caused by the owners after the slide trying to move their cars.

[A1337STI]

okay that makes me feel a bit better