antonyo

My Lexus is coming next week and i start thinking about winter tyres. Im going to put them on 17" OEM. Well... what tyres are you using?

mcfly

Blizzaks's.

dnszoom

I too, am using Blizzaks.

antonyo

Im thinking about Hakkapeliitta 4.

225/45R17 front
235/45R17 back

Nokian doesn't make 245/45R17. Do you think 235/45R17 will be alright?

mcfly

Hakka's are good too. 235's will be fine, although like I've said elsewhere, you're better off getting some dedicated rims for your snow tires that are narrow enough to accept a 205 or 215 series tire.
If you get enough snow to consider Hakka's, then you should go whole-hog and get the right sizes and a set of rims to run them on.

vp911

blizzak lm25

antonyo

17" OEM for winter. For summer I'd buy 18" GS rims

For what?

mcfly

You're asking why you should use a narrow tire? Because a wide tire will ride on top of the snow, a narrow one will cut through it giving better traction.

Think about it like this: put on snowshoes and you can walk on top of the snow because your weight is distributed over a larger area. Walk around in your sneakers on snow and you sink through to the bottom. You want your tires to cut through to the bottom to get any available grip on the tarmac.

antonyo

But why then the rear tires are wider than the front... especially on RWD?

mcfly

This doesn't have anything to do with the snow, but manufacturers choose tire sizes based on how they want to tune the chassis. Bigger tires in the rear offer more grip from the drive wheels.
You can adjust how the car behaves at the limit by adding rubber (or taking it away) at the front or rear of the car.

Bichon

Dry traction. For dry surfaces, you want to get as much rubber on the road as possible, that's why race cars have wide slicks with no tread at all.

Jimmer350

Blizzak LM-25 - 17's all around with aftermarket winter rims.
225/45 front - 245/45 rear

dkaplan435

blizzak lm25's on 18" oem wheels

S2000toIS350

antonyo,

The Hakka 4 is a studded tire so that begs the question,

Where do you live?

From the S2000 world, the people that tried tires like Hakka 1 got rid of them real fast as they are designed to get you through the worst weather but are not fun to drive at speed.

I have a set of Blizzak LM 25 tires in the original sizes on 18 inch wheels.

Another thought if you like Nokians (I had them on my Volvo and they are a top notch tire) is the WR series, which does come V rated.

antonyo

I want studded tire only because of ice and RWD. When I had RAV4 with Blizzaks driving was good, but on ice it was not.
My friend drives Impreza with Hakka 4 and he's satisfied.

BTW, what are advantages and disadvantages of studded and nonstudded winter tires?