Having trouble finding Nokian tires

[KPAero]

I've had winter forces and they are good in some conditions, and not so great in other conditions. I found they were pretty good in deep snow and slush. They also seem to work well for rallyx. Not all that great in icy conditions. And also easily the worst snow tire I've ever had for when its dry.

I've also had the Gislaved Nordfrost3 and really liked them. My mom just got a set of the General version and they appear to be every bit as good.

Im currently using some Michelin X ice that I bought last year on sale for around $90 each. I've liked them a lot for the type of conditions that we typically see around here. It's usually dry, icy, or thin hard packed snow.

[Geoff]

To me, a good snow tire is predictable and allows you to modulate a slide and steer into a slide and recover from that slide on your terms. I don't think a good snow tire necessarily has to have ultimate grip under acceleration or braking, but that usually goes with the territory of being a good snow tire. A bad snow tire will go from having grip in a corner and then snap into a completely unpredictable slide in an instant; steering into the turn yields no result until the tire suddenly gets grip and the car snaps the other way resulting in another uncontrolled slide.

It's been snowing here for 10 days straight and I've been playing around with those Altimax Artics. I only stuffed the 9000 once and it was completely my fault: too fast into a late start of a flick around a 90° corner. I stuff it into that snow bank at least once a year.

Jason, I wouldn't spend $ on those Firestone Winterforce tires. For the same $ or less you can get those Generals which are better. There are some Hankook iPikes which are similarly priced and have a similar tread pattern to the Generals but from what I understand the Generals are better. I mention the Hankooks because you can typically get them at places like PepBoys and they're always running a "buy 3 get 1 free" or a "10% off purchase of 4 tires" deal. For a little more $ you can get the Nordman 4s (old Nokian Hakka 4s).

[SwedeSport]

I am currently running a set of Gislaved Nordfrost IIs on my beater. They came mounted on the 9000 rims I did up for the beater. They had about half tread so I mounted em up on the stock 15 spoke wheels.

I won stock div. At the last RallyX, and have been tooling around town just fine for the last 3 snowstorms we had. I just figured I could use em up this winter. I just figured ANY winter tire would be an improvement over the summer performance tires on the other wheels.

recently saw an article from one of the tire retailers... they took a car to a track in the summer, and set a baseline lap time. They took the same car back in the winter and ran on a snowy track with all the all seasons... then swapped to winter tires. The lap times with the snow tires was within a few seconds of the summer laps. While the results with the all season tires in the snow were horrible.

[Crazyswede]

I still have my Alabama all season tires on my 900 and have driven home through 2 snow storms. They actually performed remarkably well. I also didn't drive fast or push my luck. Snows will go on soon.

[Hans]

Another 0.02 for the Generals, which IME are just as good as Hakka 2s (granted, not cutting edge for a number of years) and, as noted, cheap.

On the TSD rally car, the Generals seem to lose studs more often than the Hakka 2s -- not sure if that's because of who studded them (Sears, as it happens; maybe the old Hakka 2s were factory studded??), the tire and/or stud design...

[RobVonSAAB]

The generals work awesome! Even has engine braking in 1st and 2nd gear down a steep snow packed driveway! Very grippy once broken in. Thanks guys! I also recommend bead sealer...saves a lot of headaches, and wear and tear on myself and tires.