Truck snow tires

[Name Redacted]

I think they used a Zamboni last night and not the plow. It is quite slick in my hood.

[anotherVTskibum]

Thanks, yeah the numbers on the center tread are snow traction indicators. The overall tread depth is much deeper than the final snowflake imprint goes down.

That’s really good to know since I’m towing a 7000 lbs trailer behind my truck mid winter on PNW packed snow and ice, and the truck has LT3s. This is my fourth season on them. Maybe I will do a preemptive refresh after winter number 5.

A lot of sources suggest that after five years, most tire compounds will be substantially harder than new. I thought my LT2s did okay for six winters, but there was definitely some fall off in performance. I'd have replaced them after five if world events hadn't prevented Nokian from making truck tires that year.

[SchralphMacchio]

Well my Nokian Hakkas likely paid for themselves today.
For reference, I’m towing a 6500 lbs travel trailer down Oregon passes from ski camping. We had a very wet multi day storm transition to fairly cold blower snow today.
Leaving the resort, ODOT didn’t have chain control signs up (chains required on truck and trailer when signs are up in all 3 west coast states). Traction on the ski area exit road and top of the pass was totally fine so I declined to chain up … I felt okay doing this because I’ve towed on ice before without chains, have studless Hakka LT3s on the truck and Falken Wildpeak AT4W on my trailer, and invested time and money optimizing my truck suspension and tow hitch setup for maximal towing control.
Coming down the pass it was sheer ice with multiple people spinning out, one dude ended up facing uphill in the downhill lane and totally disabled at a bad spot. I was able to get the trailer wheels to lock up if I did too strong of manual braking on the controller. Engine braked down the pass in FIRST gear and 4x4 and did totally fine while others were slipping and sliding around. I was pretty glad that I had invested so much time in preparing my truck and trailer for these kinds of conditions!

[bodywhomper]

Woot!!


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[Dromond]

Man that sounds very scary. I have no towing experience and am always reading about people refusing to do it in winter yet you are making it work I guess.

A related question for you or anyone else: it is a good idea to engine brake in icy conditions considering that if the wheels locked up there would be no ABS to allow them to roll? I legitimately don’t know. Sometimes I’ve engine braked in slippery conditions and not died, but it seems like gently braking would get the same result.

[Muggydude]

Engine braking in modern automatic transmission vehicles is pretty much just limiting what gear the car is in/forcing it to downshift. A lot simpler than manual transmission vehicles with a clutch.

All the trucks and SUV’s I’ve owned in the last 10 years have had a small button on the shifter that lets me limit what gear the vehicle can go to. I use it all the time particularly in my camper van. I’ve never had to go beyond first gear, I can’t imagine a real highway driving scenario where you’d need to be in 4 low. Super simple, just limit the gear you’re in so your car starts to slow down on its own. Can incrementally go down as low as you want so long as you watch the engine rpm’s and keep them with a good margin under redline.

It doesn’t lock up your wheels really unless you slam down through the gears into a low gear - from a much higher gear - going fast - which is a great way to blow something in your engine or transmission.

By downshifting you’re just adding resistance to the wheels turning essentially by changing the gearing.

If you’re doing it right you are constantly keeping an eye on your rpm’s/gear/speed, and you shift down at an appropriate rate and use your brakes lightly to help slow the car too. Ideally you slow enough/are going slow enough that the gear you’re in lets you mostly coast without using brakes, so long as your engine rpm’s don’t get too high


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[SchralphMacchio]

Good thoughts. A few notes:
-Modern full size trucks (2500 or higher) typically have tow/haul driving modes where the ECU uses speed and pitch data to control the transmission gearing and being very conservative about shift points; so basically on descents it picks a gear for the steady state speed where gentle accelerator pressure adds a little bit of speed but lifting off goes into engine braking, it’s all very smooth. I’ve long considered that a hard downshift into too high of RPM could possibly disrupt traction in a passenger car, but I’ve not been concerned about engine braking alone being so aggressive that it could somehow lock up a wheel as long as you are in control at the steady state speed.
-The trailer braking force is proportionally gained to the truck brake pedal, but it doesn’t have ABS, so I always have a hand near or on the manual trailer brake slide in sketch conditions to get a better feel of trailer tire traction as well; I haven’t had to ever do this, and hopefully I never do, but if the truck loses lateral traction one technique I’ve read about is to gently apply trailer brakes and then very gently accelerate the truck, it’s like dropping an anchor to straighten out the combined vehicle and restore tow vehicle traction.
-Most cars with probably typical all seasons made it down okay and even with some slipping and sliding didn’t totally lose it, but certainly a handful of vehicles with either crap tires or inattentive driving fully lost it. I could see why ODOT was relying on rock and not putting up chain controls because it wasn’t insanely slippery yet and fine at very slow speeds, but it was certainly headed towards to the point of needing full on chain controls.
-The hitch setup and truck suspension mods are so important to towing stability and so overlooked by like 95% of bumper pull trailer owners. Dialing in the weight distribution torque, ball height, truck and trailer dampers, spring reinforcements - it all increases the margin of safety. A lot of TT owners are also totally ignorant or willing to drive their tow vehicles well beyond factory rated payload, with or without suspension mods - those are the ones you see that can get into really really bad accidents.
I do worry a little bit about risk homeostasis and pushing it towing in horrible conditions, so I do need to stay in tune with that my senses are telling me about road conditions and knowing when to back off and wait things out. Today was an unusual setup where conditions below the top of the pass were worse than those at the top and I’ll file that one away for future consideration!

[bodywhomper]

I’ve creeped down the steep icy road into my neighborhood a few times in 4lo with studded tires. No braking and first gear until the pitch mellows a bit. Most neighbors are stuck in (or out) of my neighborhood when the road gets really bad. Climbing up when it’s bad, my auto tranny Land Cruiser is able to go super slow in second gear. It’s a cool function that some auto transmission cars have. I used to do it a lot with a manual transmission when traction was really low. I can’t imagine dealing with the road into my neighborhood when it’s slick while pulling a trailer….

[Dromond]

Interesting - thanks for sharing your thoughts. I haven’t driven a newer truck but descend plenty of slippery passes in a Subaru and older Suburban. I always have snow tires which tends to provide a lot of leeway.

[Danno]

Question for the snow tire experts and fake experts:

Regular tires are BFG Trail Terrains (they were on the car when I bought it).

Snow tires are Blizzak

Put the Blizzaks on and my MPG went up significantly. Is that supposed to happen?

Ok, so the two tire sizes are:

BFG 275/60/20
Blizzak 275/55/20

So the BFG is slightly larger, would that make such a noticeable difference? Or is that just one contributing factor, along with weight and tread and whatever.

So I know you were all on the edge of your seats waiting to hear about this. I put the BFGs back on a month ago, and finally was able to compare apples to apples. I did the same exact route to Oak Creek, filling up at the same gas stations at either end, to truly compare the mileage of the 2 tires.

Google maps says it was 171 miles.

Blizzak tank was 9.844 gallons and odometer said 172 miles.

BFG tank was 9.765 and odometer said 163.7 miles.

So the Blizzaks appeared to be getting better mpg but that was because the slightly larger tire size of the BFGs led to the appearance of slightly lower miles traveled. But in reality, the difference in mpg was negligible, with the BFGs slightly better.

[bodywhomper]

Makes sense to me that the non winter tire gets better mileage.

Your description of slightly different tire sizes made me wonder, what size is your spare tire? And what’s your game plan of your spare tire is not the same size as the other three tires on the truck? I’ve always made sure my tires have the same exterior diameter (except for tire wear) as my spare tire, but it’s always a little bit limiting.

[mc_roon]

Forum still doesnt seem to like 'reply with quote' - but to the above question if your spare is undersized you just need to ensure it is not placed on your drive axle until it can be repaired/replaced. This can mean a longer tire change process if you get a flat on the rear axle as you have to move tires around in sequence but it works and wont cause any damage.

This logic applies for 2wd/4wd selectable trucks. If you have always on 4WD or AWD you really do need the same size tires otherwise you'll grenade expensive parts quickly if you drive highway speeds for any length of time.

[Danno]

I have no idea about the spare. When I bought the snow tires I just went with the OEM size, and (mistakenly) thought the non-snows were that size as well. I'm certainly gonna check when I get a chance.

[Danno]

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Forum still doesnt seem to like &#39;reply with quote&#39;

double click on the button, seems to work</p>

[mc_roon]

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double click on the button, seems to work</p>
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indeed it does - for me a single click defaults to the top post on the page, double click goes to the specific post you want to reference</p>

[PB]

Brief return to engine braking: definitely way to go, but watch out (not that there's much that you can actually do) for people behind you using your brake lights as a signal for them to brake, and when there's no brake lights ...... boom; your bumper's been kissed/assaulted.

[californiagrown]

Forum still doesnt seem to like &#39;reply with quote&#39; - but to the above question if your spare is undersized you just need to ensure it is not placed on your drive axle until it can be repaired/replaced. This can mean a longer tire change process if you get a flat on the rear axle as you have to move tires around in sequence but it works and wont cause any damage. This logic applies for 2wd/4wd selectable trucks. If you have always on 4WD or AWD you really do need the same size tires otherwise you&#39;ll grenade expensive parts quickly if you drive highway speeds for any length of time.

Whenever ive gotten a flat in my 4runner, ive just slapped my spare on to replace the bum tire, and limped my ass to the nearest tire shop, gas station or autozone to patch/airup. Its OK to drive to slow in the right lane a few miles... that shouldnt grenade your drivetrain. The spare is there for emergencies, and is meant to just get you out of a shitty situation... its not meant to totally replace your first-team tires one-for-one. Obvious exceptions being for offroading vehicles.

This seems like something to worry about if you have a need to worry about things.

[XXX-er]

I got a flat on the wya down from the skihill but i could not get the rim off so I just drove it the 24 km to the tire shop which destroyed the tire rim which was shot anyway rim was ok no cell service to call a wrecker and it was cheaper than the wrecker it was alot quieter once the casing fell off completley


Buddy the BC gov worker who was the guy who inspected all the bridges and foresty roads told me buy 10 ply always and he would put 10ply tires and rims on his trailer that would also fit his PU that way he had a lot of redundantcy



I often sit at the bar with a graderman whom I was telling I got a lot of flats on the 4000 road and he said that graderman was not doing his job properly cuz a good grader man will leave the road smoove enough to ride a 10 spd on and he does that by making more passes which equals mo money

[bodywhomper]

My understanding is that the nuking drivetrain from different tires sizes depends on the vehicle drive axles (or any wheel with an open differential).

[XXX-er]

Yeha thats why buddy ran 6 wheels all the same on I think a 4x4 chev pu

[mc_roon]

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To clarify my earlier comment (quotes dont seem to work correctly again...) - if you pick up nail on the hwy and put an undersized spare on to limp to an autozone I wouldnt worry about moving the spare to the non-drive axle. The wear on your spider gears/diff isnt great but wont cause anything more then a little more wear then usual.&nbsp;</div>
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If you shred a sidewall in the southern UT desert and cannot find anything even remotely close to your tire size locally and need to drive 300miles back to SLC with your spare on, swap it to the non drive axle </div>

[californiagrown]

i just dont want to see jerry spending 60 minutes trying to rotate his tires on his brand new GOTOS tacoma on the shoulder of a highway leaning out into traffic overthinking the hell out of just getting 20 miles down the road to a tireshop/Autozone. Pretty sure that the spare on my 4runner is the original that came with the car back in 2004. I should really check the PSI on that thing more as its always been half flat whenever ive needed it (but had juuuuuust enough air to make it to the resort parking lot for a powday once... told the wife we will deal with it afterwards. It was the right decision).

[XXX-er]

I had a flat on my Ranger and I feel the truck swaying and i recognise that sway it means the tire is half flat so I pull off and yeah its going flat but I didn&#39;t fubar it compeltely at highway speed which usually happens


so there is a black bear across the shitty 2 lane highway 50 meters away but he seems more into grazing than me, I change the spare which has been under the truck for 7 yrs AND its low but usable and we are in the middle of nowhere so I drive at 50mph for half an hr before finding a compressor SO check your spare eh


I managed to get the flat fixed and keep using that tire

[nickwm21]

How capable will a 2wd F150 (crew cab short bed) with real snow tires (not studded) be?


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[XXX-er]

It would probably need some weight in the bed ^^ I do not ever see newish F150's that arent 4x4 and they are almost always crew cab