Tire question for those driving lifted rigs in snow

[zyewdall]

What width tires are you running? I am doing a mild lift (2 or 3") and 14" pugs on my '82 wagon, and am trying to decide on tires for it now.

 

Typically, I run 175/75/R13 snows. And the only way you can stop it in the snow is to lift the wheels off the ground (not that hard, actually... ). But I'm worried about how such a light vehical will perform in snow with wider tires. Say... 195/75/R14 or 205/75/R14. My 4x4 pickup truck only has 225 wide snow tires.

 

Most of my "off-roading" is in snow. And a fair bit of my on-road driving is on icy snowy roads. So good snow performance is my main criteria for tires.

 

Also, any suggestion on what type of snow tires I should get. I had blizzaks which did really well in snow, but wore out really fast from dry road driving (that's another thing -- we don't exactly have a definite beginning or end to snow season -- for example, the last few weeks have been sunny and warm, and we're getting 2 feet of snow today (6" so far)). Right now I have Ipike's, which seem to be doing better on the dry road durability, but still do well in the snow too. My trucks get studded snows on them, but the subaru usually not, because I wear the studs off cornering to hard.

 

Thanks

 

Z

[Numbchux]

I ran 215/75r15 GoodYear UltraGrips on my blue lifted wagon. never got stuck in the snow. When we got snow storms up here, I used to go out and see if I could find a hill I couldn't climb......never did find one.

[Jerry DeMoss]

I have 215/75/15 BFG mtr's on my lifted hatch.Seems to do really good in the snow but I never got the chance to try it on the ice.

[TheYeti]

BFG mtr's are very nice. I would second these tires, and I am pretty sure that BFG makes them in a 14" size.... unlike the Kumho's MT.

[DrKrazy]

I run some extremely wicked WinterForce 235/70's on the rig for winter...no way I'm getting stuck with those tires on it. They are pretty much like the blizzaks though and will wear quickly on dry pavement, which is why I have the M/T's to run during the summer. BFG does make good tires (have the A/T's on my truck) they are decent in the snow, so so on ice, but will give you a much better all year round tire so +1 on those.

[Snowman]

Depends on what you're trying to do. Are you driving through deep snow on actual roads where it's more advantagious to run narrow tires that dig down, or are you going out on the trails and trying to float on top of the snow where wide tires would be better?

 

My only experience with a lifted rig is the first type, deep snow and ice on roads. I ran some cheap studded 195s on 14" rims on my lifted EA82 for a couple of winters, and it worked phenomenally. They were not as tall as my summer tires, but the traction and reduced drag afforded by the narrower width made all the difference in the world. That thing was unstoppable even with open diffs and no low range (I had the legacy tranny in there with the EJ22).