Hi, folks. I realize it's August and I'm jumping the gun but would like some opinions. New Jersey is not exactly Vermont but we had substantial snow in 2014/2015 and my drive is hilly. Cooper Weather Masters on my FWD Ford Fusion saved my life. Now I have a 2015 GS 350 AWD F Sport with 19" all-season tires. All seasons are great but they are NOT snows. Does anyone get snow tires for their car or do you find the all seasons work well enough? If you DO get snows would you mind telling my which ones and if you get the same size or different rims and sizes than stock. Thanks very much and drive safe. Doug B.

 

My AWD GS did great on all seasons last winter. I was really impressed with it.

 

The AWD GS does fine in snow with the AS tires. Keep in mind that if you get much more than 6-8" of snow, your car won't go very far. It is too low. Snow tires won't mean **** at that point.

 

You'd be surprised...now tires will make the car better and safer no doubt, but in my area they aren't worthwhile because it's not that cold. NJ? I probably wouldn't.

 

I Live near the Rocky Mountains, so lots of snow and it does get cold
Drove a FWD for decades before I bought my Lexus and always used all season tires with no issue.

But when I bought the Lexus with the stock AS Michelin MX4's the **** end was prone to swinging out and I didn't feel safe.
Put the Michelin Michelin X-Ice Xi3's on a set of second set of stock wheels bought from the dealer and the difference is night and day! They are an excellent tire and well worth it. The AWD supplies 70% of the power to the rear tires and 30% to the front. So it handles differ than anything I've every driven in the snow.

 

Hey 99alta, our cars are clones. I'm in southern Ontario and use Bridgestone Ws 80's on my GS350 AWD. Big difference in the snow from the Michelin MX4's. Had an AWD Venza and ran winter generals on that. There is no comparison in winter when using a dedicated winter tire. Snow aside, as others have noted a winter tire on cold pavement brakes shorter. Maybe enough to save you big bucks not sliding into the guy in front of you.

 

Well you have good taste
I knew I needed to do something when I had to replace a wheel with less than 500km on the car because the back end slid out into a curb

 

Here is my GS with 17" 3rd gen GS rims and 225/50/17 Blizzak WS80's



It did very well in the snow. Lots of fun to drive/drift.
If you want a less aggressive, but still winter tire, look at a Blizzak LM32. We get a decent amount of snow up here, so i went for the more aggressive tread. The WS80 definitely is louder, and doesn't handle as well as the OEM Michelins on dry pavement, but they make a huge difference when the weather gets bad.

Drove around in 8" of snow just fine. I took the Tacoma if it got any higher.

 

That doesn't look half bad. Looks better than the base 17s on the 4GS...

 

Boston based and always run snows. Give some thought to dedicated wheels and snows maybe 18". My GS with snows got through this last winter which was historic beautifully.
JTMav

 

This past winter in Boston we had record snow(snow farm just melted about two weeks ago) and I ran all seasons without any issue. I will this year run winters as I have two sets of wheels and it just makes sense, since I'm on summer tires on this set.

 

We had one bad storm last winter where 18 inches landed overnight. I did get stuck in the snow for a bit but once I cleared the snow from under the car, the GS ran like a champ.

Biggest issue is ground clearance in my experience. Once I got out of the mess, the car ran fine with the OEM all season tires.

 

You can use 17" tires and wheels on the F-Sport? Wow!

 

Thats not an F Sport.

 

Oh, I can see that. You're right. My F Sport is AWD, so I'm not sure about the need for snows (and the $1,300 price tag) but snows on FWD saved me last year.