So, last week someone caught me buying a set of TPMS's off the FS/WTB board although I've never posted. Yeah ... shame on me for always peeping but never posting. So here it goes .. my first post .. and doubt it'll be helpfull to anyone.

After hours and hours of research on this forum for winter tire recommendations I ignored everyone and opted to try someting different.

Why? I guess because I can ... !

I bought a set of Vredestein Wintrac Extreme 215/55R17 with new Rims. Yeah .. Designer Tires .. who woulda thought...Had them install the TPMS, mounted, balanced and installed.

Paid a whoping load of cash (IMO) and said good bye to Christmas presents.

Drove off the lot ....oops ... whats that ... I can hear the radio on Level 3? Is that my cell phone ringing ... I can close the window to avoid having the wind noise overcompensate the Bridgestone Potenza's whoop whoop and other noises that came as a standard option when I bought the car...

Granted I'm comparing Apples to Oranges and I've not even driven the Vredestein in snow yet

But,
$1470 for tires and Rims,
$160 for TPMS,
hearing my own thoughts and not having to schedule a hearing test
......... priceless.

Go Ahead . Flame me or Ignore me ... but I'm still all giddy ...

 

Those tires got a shitty snow traction rating from Consumer Reports.

Just an FYI.

 

Why did you buy them without doing research before hand?

 

Why did I not do research ? Well .. saving up all the money .. I couldn't afford the Consumer Reports membership fee.
All kidding aside though, I lived in Germany for several years, and had a great experience with Vredesteins over there, although they were not the WintracExtreme's. Had them on a Golf I, a Polo GT and a Scirocco GTII. I lived in southern Germany and had no issues passing others on inclines and hills nor stopping. They were good in snow and on ice. And given that germany is very environmentally friendly and stringent with using salt on roads i figured they'd be just fine over here where the plows come out as soon as flurries are in the forecast. Not to mention that living in North East Wisconsin, the biggest hill I encounter seems to be the bump on my driveway.

Oh, and BTW, checking into Consumer Reports, they tested the Extreme V. Not quite sure what tire that is and I'm also having a hard time trying to correlate a Snow, Ice and Dry rating of good to the term shitty.

 

You should be fine then.

I was just saying that they got the second from worse rating for snow traction.

They rated the Nokians poorly, too, so I don't know what to make of it.

 

What to make of it is that even a below average winter tire is still a whole lot better in the snow than the best all-season.

I used snow tires for the first time last year, on a Protege5. Before buying them I thought I might have to buy an AWD vehicle, as the P5 with the stock all-seasons couldn't get up my not steep driveway if there was an inch of snow on it and also easily got stuck. But with Michelin Pilot Alpin2's, which got the same snow traction rating from CR as the "Vredestein Wintrac" (probably the same tire you bought), the car got up the driveway easily, and never came close to getting stuck.

The Wintrac did get one of the better handling ratings from them, which should be important to an RX-8 owner.

The thing to remember about CR is that they provide relative ratings. They don't tell you how large the difference is between a black dot and a clear dot and a red dot. Might be a small difference. Might be a big one. I haven't a clue, and neither does any other reader.

In this case they didn't even include any test notes, just the dots. I asked them why, and they said they didn't have space in the print magazine and were being choked by their own bureaucracy in trying to get something onto the website.

My general critique of CR (and why I'm doing my own reliability research):

http://www.truedelta.com/pieces/shortcomings.php