anthonyi

Ok, I'm at a bit of a crossroads. My 08 4.2 came with 19" UHP summer tires on it and I live in an area where we can get a ton of snow in the winter (which is one of the big reasons I wanted AWD)so I am trying to decide what to do for tires. Part of me wants to buy a set of 17" rims and put on a nice pair of snow tires, but the problem with that is snow tires are not supposed to be driven above 40 degrees and around here, it can be 50 one day and a blizzard the next so this is not ideal. At the same time, with the 19" rims and 35 series tires, it is hard to find a good balance in a tire that offers good performance, tread life, and still will get around in deeper snow.

So, I know you guys live all over the place, and some of you even drive your 6 in the snow, so for those of you that run an all season tire, and live in places where you get 12 or more inches of snow a year, what tires can you recommend?
To be a bit more specific, I am looking at the Potenza RE970AS Pole Position's, Conti ExtremeContact DWS, and General G-MAX AS-03 because on paper, they do the best on snow and have good overall reviews.

Thanks again!

KevinGary

Based on my experience even the highest rated all season tires are far inferior to winter tires when driven in the snow.

A6Gary

I live in Western WA and drive up into the mountains for winter skiing, so my '06 A6 Avant can see anything from snow to compact snow/ice to wet rain-soaked roads during the winter, both near our home and driving up into and/or over high mountain passes. My A6 has had only All Season radials, and I have not have any issues driving in these winter road oonditions (even when I hit fairly deep snow). The only issue is when the snow depth gets too deep to clear the low body clearance of the A6, even though I have the Adaptive Air Suspension option. Given that your situation is similar to mine, I would recommend only a good rated All Season radial. My current tires are the Michelin Primacy MX4X, size 245/45–17 99H, which are rated well overall.

jerzystylz

I run Conti ExtremeContact DWS on my 19's and love it. I live in NJ though..so although we get our share of snow..it's usually not as much as some other states...

D's Avant

Conti DWS should work for you just fine.

ctdogman

Get Blizzaks. I live in the Tri-state NY/NJ/CT area, and I know what you mean about insane weather flucuations. We have the Blizzaks on my wifes Acura TL (fwd), and the car is incredible with them. So much so, that we prefer it to the Audi with all seasons when the weather is bad. We might get Blizzaks for the Audi this year, usually though we just park it for the winter and use the Acura/Blizzak car to get us places. And the Blizzaks are (in my experience) pretty durable and able to handle the extreme hot/cold/warm/cold/freezing/cold/warm temps that the winter brings.

anthonyi

I live in Iowa, so I think we get about the same type of weather from what I see on the news. I have had Blizzaks on my FWD cars before and loved them, but hated the taking the tire off and putting it back on hassle. Plus, I am doing a lot more driving for work these days than I have in the past so I think having a good all season tire is a lot more practical as long as they are good both in summer and winter. The car is much lower than my SUV was so I am not expecting to go out and play in the snow like I did with my truck, I just want to be able to get home safely if I get caught in the middle of a storm. I am going to give the ExtremeContact DWS's a try and see how they work. Maybe I will get lucky and we will have a warm winter, with little to no snow like last year :-) but if we don't, I think that these should do me just fine, as long as I don't think my car is an SUV and get high centered on something.

Anthony

beep-beep

I drove my car with conti DSW in crazy NY storm two years ago. I managed to get car to the parking spot at the time when people started to abandon their SUVs in the middle of the street. The picture on my sig is made next day.

So as A/S tires goes, I am very happy with DSW.