Winter tires
 

I live in Chicago and we got 6" of snow the other day. The main streets were plowed right away, but the side streets were not. Yesterday, i ran the car through four gears in order to get out of my parking spot, and got stuck twice on a side street. I do have 150lbs. of salt and sand bags in the trunk. I've heard that Blizzaks are the way to go for snow tires. Does it matter if i get 245/45/17 or 255/40/17? Will purchasing 2 and throwing them on the back be enough? There is a guy selling 2 slightly used (2500mi) LM 22's for $130. Does it matter which model i go with? I know about the LM 22's and then there is like a 50 series.

Go as narrow as you can for best snow traction. With a good snow tire such as a Blizzak you should get all four, but it is not as big of a deal on a rear wheel drive car.

On FWD cars if you put a tire like this just on the front, then the traction in the back is not as good and the cars tend to flip around during braking.

In case you don't decide to go with those tires, I have the Dunlop Winter Sport M3's and traveled through 5 inches of snow two days ago. I'm 100% hapy of my tires, they are great tires, just throw some first hand knowledge out there for ya

Good point. There are basically two levels of snow tires available. One is the cheaper ol-school style which is essentially a standard tire with much deeper grooves. Then, there is the Blizzak style which has a special compound to grip the snow and Ice. All the major manufactures have the second type now, not just Bridstone with the Blizzak though they started the whole thing. This included Dunlop, Goodyear, Pirelli, etc..

Thanks alot for the info. I'm looking at getting 4 used 245/45/17 Blizzak's WS-50's.

I just won 4 245/45/17 3 month old Bridgestone Blizzack LM 22 tires off of ebay for $405. I wasn't planning on spending more than $300, but the price jumped $140 in 1 hour. I waited the $400 out till 1 minute, and entered $405 and won! Does anyone know how much it costs to mount tires?

the place I get my work done was about 45-50 dollars for all 4. This did NOT include balancing, but it's not a big deal since I won't even have 3,000 miles put on them come March