warminwisc

aggressive treadblocks on WS 80 versus symmetrical highly siped on the Ice 3. The Ice 3 handle well and are ultra quiet do fine in all conditions with stab track and trac control. If WS 80 is quiet and handles well go for it but Ice has my vote for a worthy purchase. Never drove Blizzack my buddy has em likes em..

Get rid of all seasons at 6/32 if ya do not want to run snows.

warminwisc

Noise comfort, ride comfort and treadwear are considerations also. The WS 80 looks like a good tire if you have a cabin in the woods, drive thru unplowed roads and backroads.

Usually where I go roads are plowed and I just drive 50-55 to keep it steady. The 90 percent of winter where I drive snows on dry roads makes or breaks it for me I want quiet, and good non sloppy handling . I am always told the Articmax is a good budget snow tire.

warminwisc

X Ice 3 is rated at 40 k warrantee most snows have no rating for warrantee.

bmore430

We have had quite a few storms in maryland so far. Ls430 has held up great in 3-6 inches. I am on 18s with dunlop 5000s which is not ideal but this year I put 100+ pounds in the trunk with bags of tools, full size Jack etc and seems to have helped. I had the best luck with traction control off and snow setting on.

warminwisc

Drive slow that is the key the 6-10 times ya see snow then careful in parking lots and such. Drove on Primacys forever just driving in the slow lane when it dumps.

Kira X

iTrader: (24)

It's snowed a few inches every week for the past month. I don't drive either LS in the snow. I either stayed home or took my step dad's GX470.

I don't have snow tires on any of my cars. Ever since I sold my Saturn I haven't had a car to drive in the snow.

shepherd

if you don't want the squishy ride that most snow tires give you, I would save up for next winter and get a set of Pirelli Sotto Zeros. They don't last quite as long as Blizzaks for instance, but they'll allow you to keep the performance characteristics of the car when the snow isn't falling.

DSR451

I am an experienced winter driver, and have never driven on winter tires prior to owning this car. I grew up driving front-wheel drive cars with bald tires in MN. I am driving a 2005 with Blizzaks in WA State. I use this setup successfully for mountain pass driving. I have had a few opportunities to do some spirited(empty ski area parking lot!) driving and performance testing with surprising results. Acceleration and cornering performance is good, and almost boring. The ABS system on these cars seems to "pulse" slowly, however, and the braking performance is MUCH worse than you would expect after experiencing the surprisingly adequate acceleration and cornering dynamics. Definitely test this out in a controlled environment before you actually actually NEED it.

I chose the Blizzaks over the X-Ice on a hunch. I was seeing test results indicating the the Michelin's may be the better "ice" tire, while the Blizzak's liked the snow a bit more. I don't remember, but I believe that the tie-breaker for me was the greater initial tread-depth of the Bridgestone, and my assumption that this could possibly result in longer service life. I run Michelin Premier AS during the other seasons, and year-round on our Sienna AWD, so this certainly was not a "brand preference" thing. I purchased my Blizzaks mounted to a set of 17" MSW wheels from a popular online tire retailer for under $1500 delivered. I am extremely happy with this setup. As others have indicated, the unavoidable limitation is, and will remain to be with these cars, the ground clearance.

I hope this helps someone.

Johnhav430

Interesting, I do notice initial tread depth on a/s, but I didn't not check that on the snows, and sure enough, the X ice's are 10.5, while the Blizzaks are 12/32 (this drives me nuts on my wife's Premiers which started at 8.5--after only 15k, they physically look 1/2 done). Personally, I like that Blizzaks are made in Japan, and do not like that my Xice's are made in Thailand. Just me. At any rate, now that we are getting snow, I don't care about the noise and am glad I have snows....I would like to try Blizzaks next time, have never owned a set, and I must have owned at least 4 sets of snows in my driving career....I actually liked my Hakka 1's with regular studs the best (not the 10's with eco studs).

Dave_G

I drove IceX on my LS 400 for many years going skiing every weekend in Colorado in many bad storms on big steep hills and never had a problem. Stuff it full of gas to add weight and run time for traffic slow downs, put it in snow mode (new models turn it on automatically with no on/ off switch), snap on the magnetic ski rack, and never had a problem.

I’m doing the same on my LS430 and it has worked well so far but this is the first winter with it and haven’t had much snow, so I haven’t tested it extensively yet.

Johnhav430

My area is insane. < 3" and all kinds of pileups and major road closures. When I was a kid, we would get slammed with 9-24" and we'd be on the roads on our way to VT with studded snows and chains in the trunk.

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/201...gomery-county/

Doublebase

I've driven the last four winters using snow tires and my rwd 460 has been fantastic. Total tank. The traction control systems work so well in these cars that I haven't once wished for an awd model. I imagine the 430 is similar.

DSR451

The key feature is obviously the temperature compliance of all winter tires compared to any A/S rubber. I think we're both fine with our selections!

My Premiers are "hibernating" in the garage with 30k+ miles on them, and look brand new..? Lots of freeway miles, I guess. I do use an inexpensive digital tire pressure gauge, and faithfully balance the tire pressure to the 1/2 lb. I typically run the 245/45/18 Premiers at 34psi on OEM 7.5" width wheels.

DSR451

Wait a minute...? A real-life LS owner with ACTUAL magnetic ski rack experience!!! Do tell. SO, it works around the sunroof? It doesn't move around or scratch things up? Would you trust it with a snowboard at 70mph for 1-2 hours? I have recently been exploring this magnetic option, but have never heard of, or even witnessed anyone using one. I was ready to saw a pass-through in the back seat. <------ only partially kidding. Would a snowboard perhaps work even "better" mounted to the trunk, like some sort of awful spoiler?

bloomwcjkl

I have Toyo Celsius on my 01 LS 430. They are a hybrid tire with snow tire and all season characteristics. I did not want to have a second set of rims/tires.

Our 05 LS 430 has Michelin Energy Saver (not snow tires). I can tell the difference when starting on slippery roads. I agree that the LS 430 is really good on snow/ice. The traction control system and snow mode if you are going through deeper snow are really good. It isn't AWD, but we get through most all conditions. If there is 2 feet of new snow (rare) we stay home.