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Bowregard
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Bowregard
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PostThu Nov 11, 2021 12:13 pm 
Blizzak DM-V2s are $150 off at Costco right now so for a small SUV like 225/65R17s you can get a set of 4 for $510 + tax. I think a state incentive on non-studded snows would be problematic and inefficient. For government incentives to be effective you have to have a clear vision of what you are trying to accomplish and a practical means to enforce it equitably. If the goal is saving costs due to studded tires why would you only give the credit to snow tire purchases? Why not any tires that don't have studs? Shouldn't those folks who decide they can manage without snow tires in the winter because they buy 4 wheel drive be afforded the same benefit? But what if they use standard tires most of the time but add chains when it gets really bad? That has got to be as bad on the roads as studs right? And even the definition of snow tires gets fuzzy. New all-weather tires like the Michelin CC2s are approaching the same performance as dedicated snow tires and have a snow rating. Should those be subsidized too? You also have to consider that incentives are inherently inefficient. If demand goes up so does the price so the manufacturer and retailer get their cut and somebody has to manage the whole thing. Frankly, if studded snow tires create enough damage to the roads to increase the maintenance significantly they would be much better off putting a surtax on studded snows to help pay for it. That would still be inefficient but at least it would limit the magnitude of the overhead.

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pianodirt
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PostThu Nov 11, 2021 2:06 pm 
Bowregard, you make a lot of good points regarding the difficulty of an state-sponsored incentive. Perhaps an additional tax on studded tires would help. But at places like Les Schwab (only option around here), adding studs to snow tires goes for $20/tire, so that right there outprices the studless varieties. Randito's testimony for all the miles he's driven on his Blizzaks...claiming traction comparable (on black ice no less) between the Blizzaks and studded tires is very promising. Thanks again for sharing your experience, Randito. On the East side of the state here I've heard similar. One guy said that 90% of the time the Blizzaks performed as good if not better than studs. He said studs only made a different in certain icy conditions. But the solution he said was to simply drive slower, if needed. And that's a crazy deal at Costco...might be making a trip to Wenatchee in the near future...

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Bowregard
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PostThu Nov 11, 2021 3:26 pm 
I drove on studded snows for years up skiing and to Pullman and back and the only time I remember that the studs made a difference was one trip back from Pullman when it started freezing rain. The wipers started scraping over the windshield and I-90 at that spot was ever so slightly crested and car after car after truck slid left or right off the highway. We just kept it moving and centered and were the only one that made it that I could see. No way Blizzaks would have held in that case but then again I should have pulled off and put chains on beforehand anyway. 40 years ago it seemed like everybody got studded tires (of course most people only bought 2 for the rear). October through January I was studding tires like crazy and whenever they don't go in properly they would kick out onto the floor (or you had to pop them out with a small screwdriver). Anyway, we swept them up and when business got really slow we had to go through the piles of mixed studs and sort them into the proper bins (they color code the sizes). I really hated that job.

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Randito
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PostThu Nov 11, 2021 4:58 pm 
Bowregard wrote:
No way Blizzaks would have held in that case
Is that statement based on actual driving experience on black ice with Blizzaks?

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Bowregard
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PostThu Nov 11, 2021 7:19 pm 
That was based on the experience I had testing the blizzacks first chance I got in icy conditions. I want to know what tires can and cannot do so I go out and find a safe place to test. The Blizzacks are very good on snow and good on black ice. But they will break loose well before steel spikes on ice and that is what we had that day. The rain froze as soon as it hit the ground and everything was covered with a sheet of ice. Edit: I searched a bit for studded vs studless comparisons and found one or two that matched a studable tire with and without studs (tirerack.com) but they were kind of old and probably not very representative of the best studless tires sold today. I also found this video that compares very good studded tires with Blizzaks on a frozen lake. I don't think the comparison is entirely fair to the Blizzaks because the studded tires had way more studs than any tire I have ever seen and the studs stuck out further than typical but it does show that on ice very good studded tires can beat the Blizzaks. In my opinion the only place I felt the studs were better was on ice and only marginally so (and therefore the studs are not worth the drawbacks) but draw your own conclusions: https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/buying-maintenance/a31120018/how-studded-tires-compare-to-standard-winter-tires/

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