Tacoma DCSB Winter Driving:Is there a significant difference in the snow between M/T and snow tires?

Some background info:

I drive a Tacoma TRD Off-Road 4x4.

I got my truck in June, hated the rims, didn't care too much about the tires that came with it but since I was switching the rims I figured I might as well get M/T's on it so later on I wouldn't have to pay again to get the rims on new tires.

My job may move me back to the SW(where in doesn't snow) so I really didn't want to spend on a set of snow tires that I may only use one winter and then take a huge loss when reselling them. A friend from Colorado advised me against snow tires, said his 2wd F-150 does just fine with city driving and normal tires.

I wont be doing any off roading in snow/mud, will wait until the spring to do some more off-roading. Almost all of my driving will be on the freeway(commute 60 miles 3-4 times a week) and city driving.

For those of you with experience driving these trucks in snow in the city, is there a big difference in how the truck handles with snow tires compared to mud terrain tires? This will be my first winter in the snow.

 

Mud tires struggle on hard pack snow and ice. They turn into pontoons. MTs seem to do ok in deep powder though.

ATs handle snow and hard pack just fine. I’ve never ran a dedicated snow tire.

 

Yes

 

Snow tires will beat mud terrains any day. They’re snow tires. But from this month well into March, I’ll be in snow, and cooper stt pro proved themselves last year to be solid. If traction is a huge problem where you’re at, get snow tires. Just stay away from ko2 in the snow.

 

Winter tires are very different than M+S labeled tires.
Google Tire Rack and read about winter tires.
If you live where it snows during winter, do the safest thing for you, your friends and family, and others on the road and roll on 4 winter tires.

 

I have Cooper STT Pro’s and they work great in the snow. Quietest MT tire I’ve ever had and the best looking tire I’ve ever had.

 

I have dedicated snow tires. I have also run BFG ATs through the winter (which I know is different than your MT question, but it's a similarly aggressive tire).

The one area I noticed the biggest difference was braking. On my '13 the brakes were quite overboosted and it was easy to engage ABS with the AT tires. This completely went away with the snow tires, which was nice when you had to stop short and you just slid because the ABS wouldn't let you modulate the brakes.

Without any weight in the bed, I still needed 4WD to get up inclines, but the flipping of the knob to 4WD turned a snowy road into a dry one.

This is merely my $0.02 on the issue.

 

We can get pretty gnarly snow, and I also actively go out and seek it. I can only say good things about Duratrac’s performance in snow. Their only real flaw is weak sidewalks but I haven’t run into issues yet. Decent off road, nice semi aggressive look, quiet like an AT tire and also studable.

 

Uh-oh

 

I've run AT vs dedicated snow tires and there's no comparison, especially on packed snow, snow/ice mix or just ice. The more slippery it is, the bigger the difference.

 

the biggest difference is siping and compounds. cold weather does a number to rubber.

 

I have 1st hand experience with both dedicated snows and Duratracs. When it comes to deeper snow the Duratracs perform just as well as snow tires. However, in hard packed snow....the advantage goes to the snow tires.

 

Night and day difference between MTs and snow tires. A couple winters ago I had some good snow tires put on my wife's Jetta TDI, and I had just put new Toyo AT2s on my 15 grand cherokee.. Either vehicle did fine accelerating and handling (blame 4wd on the jeep for keeping up), but stopping is a whole different story. If you want to play it safe get the snow tires.

That said, I've only ever run aggressive ATs or MTs while on logging roads in the snow, and have never owned a set of snow tires for my jeep, or any of the trucks i've owned.

 

FWIW, I run M+S rated General Grabber AT2 in Colorado city and occasional mountain snow, and they've been great in all conditions.

 

I will be driving to work 30 miles away, no country roads, gravel roads or off roading. I will be driving to the grocery store and such. The state and local governments do a good job of plowing the highway and main streets. Based on that my only "adventures" will be the sub divisions.

I don't plan on doing any road trips during the winter either.

I really don't want to spend another $600-$700 dollars on another set of tires. We'll see how this goes, if it turns out to be a nightmare I may just have to and get set back $700.

 

Hankook Dynapro AT/M's have the mountain snowflake on their sidewall. Just saying.

 

You can have the tire dealer add siping to MT tires to improve performance on hard pack snow and ice. The advantage will still go to snow tires because they use a softer rubber compound but custom siping is a nice compromise. The downside is that siping could possibly cause MT tires to chip in situations like rock crawling. Kinda depends how you use them. I had a pair of siped Duratracs on my old 4Runner that worked really well in all conditions. Never had trouble with chiping or abnormal wear.

 

Did I miss where you said you are?

That makes a difference un this equation. Where do you live? What's an average amount of snow?

If you live where they consistently have a foot of snow on the ground until March I would bite the bullet and buy snow tires. You could probably grab some used ones for much cheaper.

If you live in an area where it snows a handful of times a year, and the streets get plowed almost immediately...well then you good probably get by on the stock tires. The goodyears on the off-road I had handled the handful of snow storms we got just fine.

 

Unless you have run full snows sorry but your opinion doesn’t matter for shit. You will NEVER understand the difference until you have run full snows in variable conditions. Full on 6”+ of snow and I will argue that at’s or mt’s may be ok until you dig to a hard surface. But on asphalt with anything from a dusting to 3-4” then snows are like glue vs tires worn to the cords in the rain. They really are that drastically different.

Where I live we get a lot of blowing snow and drifting across the fields. We also get a lot of lake effect snow. I have no issues with my stock wranglers on the deeper stuff. But from no snow to the deeper stuff there is only snow tires. Tonight with full snows I was driving through the drifting snows and on an narrow back road with traffic approaching I got sucked onto the shoulder and almost into a ten foot deep ditch. With my wranglers I would have been in the ditch no questions. The snow tires allowed that small amount of traction advantage that saved my ass. I barely could crawl back on the slick frozen grass with 6” of snow on top with snows and 4wd. My AT’s would have just spun and slid me closer to the ditch.

I know someone has a buddy that said this or that. You will be fine and all that BS. Like I said until you have tried snows in the most treacherous conditions and know the difference you don’t know jack. Off road is a different story but we aren’t talking off road. Try and stop at stop signs, stop lights, guy turning in front of you or ass who pulled out in front of you. Sliding 5-10’ with control or slamming into the other guy full force or spinning into oncoming traffic or the telephone pole. You choose.

We see all sort of mods being made to our trucks for “performance” including the best off road tires. Yet we debate the effectiveness of snows. Years back when I first started racing a friends dad said to me: “If you only can afford bodywork or tires buy tires or else you will be buying two sets of bodywork before you can afford the tires.” You look at your accident deductible and then your snow tire quote. Spend it on one or the other.

 

I run faulken wildpeak AT's they have the snowflake brand, and are great in the snow. Highway noise is low, looks almost as aggressive as ko 2's but cost about 1/2 as much. Handle dirt and mud pretty good also. I won't run anything else on my truck