[bmwauug]

Hi all, My m-sport came with a 400m square all season set up. I immediately swapped them out with 442m 19" wrapped in summer tires. The weather is shifting here in Chicago and I'll need to swap out them out soon.

I normally go with winter tires, but given I drive low miles (around 300-500 per month), I was thinking of rolling with the oem a/s setup rather than dropping the dollars for a winters. Not to mention I'd have a set of brand new oem a/s tires that would go to waste.

Wanted to check my thinking on this. Thoughts??? Again given the low miles per month.

[Fronzdan]

Interested in this as well.

[G30 B58]

you feeling lucky? the x-drive should be less of an issue Fronz. should be....

[bmwauug]

Originally Posted by F32 N55

you feeling lucky? the x-drive should be less of an issue Fronz. should be....

You mean feeling lucky with all seasons on th x drive ? Experience to share?

I had an e46 with all seasons no issues. But didn't dd the car. I had winters on my e90 (335) and had no issues, I did dd that car.

[Fronzdan]

I'm hoping the xDrive with All Seasons is enough. I don't intentionally go out in deep snow if I don't have to...we have an LR4 for that. But I'll for sure be caught at work during snow and have to drive home in several inches. My main concern is getting TO my house. I live at the top of a hill with all access roads somewhat steep. My old RWD with Dunlop Sport snows could NOT make it up this hill and I was forced to park it in a public lot and hoof it the rest of the way a few times last year.

What I'd like to end up doing is keep the 18" 400M's with these all seasons for winter, eventually replacing the run flats with real snows. Then get 19's with Summer tires.

[n55x3]

I'm in Ohio (RWD 335i MSport) and see absolutely no reason to run a dedicated snow tire that would completely neuter this cars performance for 4-5 months out of the year.

I do however swap my summer rubber for Michelin A/S 3 and they are the best all season tire I have ever experienced. Pretty amazing actually. They have super crisp turn in, similar to my summer rubber, and amazing traction on cold / wet pavement. They aren't as good in the snow as other all seasons (like Conti DWS that I had before) but they are by far the best ultra high performance all season available as far as I know.

These A/S 3 tires got me through the worst winter Ohio has seen in years and I was able to daily drive my RWD 335i every day except one where we had about 24" of snow. Didn't even try to get out of the garage that day. Other than that, they ran fine on snow covered roads and never did I have the fear of getting stuck, even in several inches of snow.

[bmwauug]

Originally Posted by Fronzdan

I'm hoping the xDrive with All Seasons is enough. I don't intentionally go out in deep snow if I don't have to...we have an LR4 for that. But I'll for sure be caught at work during snow and have to drive home in several inches. My main concern is getting TO my house. I live at the top of a hill with all access roads somewhat steep. My old RWD with Dunlop Sport snows could NOT make it up this hill and I was forced to park it in a public lot and hoof it the rest of the way a few times last year.

What I'd like to end up doing is keep the 18" 400M's with these all seasons for winter, eventually replacing the run flats with real snows. Then get 19's with Summer tires.

For this I would get winters. The hills. I think I'm punting on winters this season. I did use the conti dws on my gti and they were amazing.

[Rick4345]

Michelin Pilot A/S 3 for sure!!

[BlauWeiss]

Originally Posted by n55x3

I'm in Ohio (RWD 335i MSport) and see absolutely no reason to run a dedicated snow tire that would completely neuter this cars performance for 4-5 months out of the year.

I do however swap my summer rubber for Michelin A/S 3 and they are the best all season tire I have ever experienced. Pretty amazing actually. They have super crisp turn in, similar to my summer rubber, and amazing traction on cold / wet pavement. They aren't as good in the snow as other all seasons (like Conti DWS that I had before) but they are by far the best ultra high performance all season available as far as I know.

These A/S 3 tires got me through the worst winter Ohio has seen in years and I was able to daily drive my RWD 335i every day except one where we had about 24" of snow. Didn't even try to get out of the garage that day. Other than that, they ran fine on snow covered roads and never did I have the fear of getting stuck, even in several inches of snow.

Is it really possible to justify dedicated summer tires (PSS or similar) over the A/S 3 for regular street driving?
I'm still on the factory s001 RFT but once they're worn am strongly considering switching to the A/S 3 all year long...

[DS_BMW]

Originally Posted by Rick4345

Michelin Pilot A/S 3 for sure!!

Great tires but horrible in the snow and ice!

[n55x3]

Originally Posted by BlauWeiss

Is it really possible to justify dedicated summer tires (PSS or similar) over the A/S 3 for regular street driving?
I'm still on the factory s001 RFT but once they're worn am strongly considering switching to the A/S 3 all year long...

Very good question, one that I have pondered myself. Here's the thing, I've never ran the A/S3s in the summer so I can't say if they are as sticky as my summer rubber. Guessing not but to what degree I do not know. I bet they don't give up much though.

Based solely on the time I have used the A/S 3 I would not hesitate to run them year around. I think they are fantastic!

Since I split time between A/S3 and Summer rubber and the summer rubber is on longer each year I'll probably get to the point where I have to trash the summer rubber and then I'll just go to the A/S 3 for remainder of their life which will probably span a summer or 2.

The other thing to consider is they are not RFT so you have that risk as well.

[n55x3]

Originally Posted by DS_BMW

Great tires but horrible in the snow and ice!

Agreed for the most part! But, I wouldn't say horrible as they carried me through the worst winter in Ohio in years. Drove on snowy roads just about every other day and they got me from point a to point b without too much headache. And that's in a RWD. I'd consider them tolerable.

However, when I compare them to the Conti DWS I had they are no where near as good in the snow as the DWS's were. The DWS really surprised me in the deep snow but that's about it. On the flip side, the DWS rubber were horrible on the dry. They were very sloppy with almost no turn in feel at all. They were decently grippy but it just felt there was a layer or super squishy rubber between me and the road. And all my inputs were muted and/or delayed.

[KneeDragr]

We dont usually get a lot of snow here in the DC area, but we go skiing 3-4x a year and the twisty mountain roads near the slopes are crazy bad and dangerous when it snows. For that reason alone I put on winters December->March.

[chrisny]

In my experience, all-seasons can be decent, even good in some cases, in winter weather the first year, but after a year or so, they become like bricks trying to stop in even a little snow. Useless. Some are obviously better than others, but I wouldn't count on the stock AS tires falling into the 'better' category.

I'm facing the same dilemma on both of our cars. I've stuck with the AS on my F30 (400m's with square all-season set up, pirelli's) the first 2 winters. I got in in January so it was brand new the first winter, and last winter, I was working from home and I'm not sure I ever even drove it in any snow. This year, it is driven every day either by my wife or I, sometimes with our kids in the car. So with those all-seasons now 2 years old, I don't trust them. I'm sure they'll still have decent starting performance, but it's the STOPPING that concerns me more with all-seasons. On an '11 X3 we had before we got the X5, I once slid all over the place trying to stop on a highway where I was literally only moving 5 to 10 mph because of traffic in a bad snow storm. Every time I tried to stop, even at such low speeds, I slid. Same thing another time pulling into our culdesac, also at low speeds, this time with barely an inch of snow. So I'm putting snows on it this winter. Here in lies the lesson, I'll be paying for a winter set up when I only have 14 months left on the lease. Maybe I can use them on my next car, maybe I can't and will sell them for half what I paid just to use them for one season, maybe 1.5 seasons.

I just took the 20's off our X5 and put the 19's back on, and those still have the all-seasons that came on the car (same goodyear's that were terrible the second winter on the X3). They only have about 5000 miles on them, so I was tempted to just leave them on for this winter. But my kids are in that car most of the time, so I'll be putting winters on those wheels as well.

To me, it doesn't make a lot of sense to have a dedicated winter set of wheels and not go the full mile and put winter tires on them. Why not just run some Nokian "all-weathers" or some other top of the line all-seasons if you're going to run all-seasons in the winter… If you're going to swap them, there are plenty of performance oriented winter tires that do not totally neuter the car's performance when it's dry. You can always sell the stock all-seasons to offset the cost of the winters. I'll be saving mine for when I turn in the car at lease end...

[BlauWeiss]

Originally Posted by n55x3

Very good question, one that I have pondered myself. Here's the thing, I've never ran the A/S3s in the summer so I can't say if they are as sticky as my summer rubber. Guessing not but to what degree I do not know. I bet they don't give up much though.

Based solely on the time I have used the A/S 3 I would not hesitate to run them year around. I think they are fantastic!

Since I split time between A/S3 and Summer rubber and the summer rubber is on longer each year I'll probably get to the point where I have to trash the summer rubber and then I'll just go to the A/S 3 for remainder of their life which will probably span a summer or 2.

The other thing to consider is they are not RFT so you have that risk as well.

Very helpful, thanks. I'm 99% certain I'll go the A/S 3 route so I can stick with one set of tires. I don't care about non-RFT, I carry a pump for my RFT already so I don't roll on the side-wall and can get it patched, if needed/possible.

As for winter, ChrisNY has a great point - especially with AS tires, the tread level makes a huge difference. So for me living on the West coast, I'll try AS /3 all year, but aim to replace worn tires sooner to help with the little winter driving I do.