Winter tires in New England

Good day everyone- new to owning a truck. I'm researching two tire options for the new truck:

1. Buy Micheline Defender LTX M/S tires and use year round
2. Use OEM tires during the non-winter months and buy a set of Blizaak winter tires

In this area, are winter only tires that necessary? The SUV has done fine in The Micheline's but I do realize that the truck is much lighter in the rear.

 

You could do the michelins all year round and put some weight in the back in winter months. Those tires are great. Blizzaks are also a great winter tire. Will have better control in winter with dedicated winter tires over all seasons with weight including better stopping which is the most important part that 4wd can't even help you with.

 

what part of NE?

if you are in a more remote part, snow tires would be best

if you are in a well maintained area you can get away with all seasons in my opinion

living in VT vs MASS can be a good bit different as far as road conditions, so really depends on the area

 

Are you in upstate ME or VT?

 

Exactly. Dedicated snow tries are always going to be better, just a question of if its worth it or not.

As another member said, weight in the bed helps a lot. Also proper tire PSI

 

I've had general grabber a/t tires on my tundra during the winter.....gotta say they were best by far in deep snow up north.

 

North Conway NH

 

I would try a winter running the Michelins since they did well on your SUV, and just add weight if you need it, just bags of sand or whatever.

I grew up in Maine. My dad ran the same tires on his F150 winter and summer, and even in some of the back woods places we lived that truck did fine with just 4wd as needed in the winter (of course, trucks were a bit heavier then). On the car he ran studded snow tires in the winter.

 

Mine came with the Michelin Defenders and I got a set of Blizzak DMV2’s for the winter. The Defenders were new so I couldn’t justify replacing them with an AT tire just for the looks (I don’t offroad much). The Blizzaks work really well and look good.