Getting Tired for Snow!

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Getting Tired for Snow!

Nice little snowstorm blew into Santa Fe last night and today.

Fluffy stuff that turns the trees into something resembling a Winter Wonderland.

Beings that I have the absolute worst vehicle to drive in this kind of an environment - a rear wheel drive sports car with summer performance tires....

A 2014 Ford Mustang GT Premium with Pirelli PZero's, I figured I better get me some good snow tires.

I am no stranger to specialty tires having run a set of Super Swampers on every hunting truck I had to handle the swamps and mud of the Brazos River Bottoms outside Lake Jackson Tx.

In another words, I know what a good set of specialty tires can do for a vehicle.

So when I did my research on specialty snow / ice tires for a high performance vehicle that required P255/40R19's, one name kept coming up at the top of the list over and over again.....

Bridgestone Blizzak LM-32's!

Not only do they have a pretty aggressive mud / snow - grip design for a tire that is V-rated (150 mph max), but the technology behind these tires are pretty mind boggling.

Where normal tire rubber designs get softer and stickier as the temperature goes up (like the Pirelli PZero's), these tires have a special polymer design such that they get softer and stickier as the temperature drops!

Whoa! Now that's COOL..... literally.

Also despite the proprietary technology, there is pretty good evidence that the special polymer design is also impregnated with metal to improve traction on ice.

Not the cheapest tires in the world, but I figured if I didn't want to wrap the MissStang around a telephone pole or another car, I'd better pony up for the best.