No, I think their traditional concerns are only that the tires are cheap and readily available. Today, add low rolling resistance to their criteria.

It's no surprise that OEM tires often suck like a fox.

What bothers me about my old car is that there were plenty of opportunities to replace the OEM tires over the years but Toyota dealers only stocked the OEMs so they kept getting replaced with the same. I can't in good conscience sell the car with those tires on them. But it's hard to explain to a potential buyer that they really should get a set of snow tires right now and save the OEM tires for dryer weather and then replace them with better all-season tires after they're worn out.

 

right? and the gas of the giant trucks that have to come to pull you out?!

 

My friend used his Cooper Mini, 40 MPG, to push my Camry 0 MPS (snowstorm)

(okay, that's an exaggeration and probably not funny)

 

Exactly, what else would you suggest I do?

 

That's kind of sad! This last time I got stuck, my boyfriend tried to use his truck (F150, v8, 4wd) to get me unstuck, but in the process he got stuck as well. So my step dad had to come up with his Tacoma (4 cyl, 4wd) to pull him out. Yeah, he got him unstuck... so unstuck, in fact, that he smashed the front end of my dad's Tacoma because his brakes locked up. and not an hour before that he'd been criticizing me for getting my car stuck. psshhhh!

 

I won't apologize for the car, but then I don't need to. My experience has been that the performance on slippery surfaces (even uphills) is absolutely outstanding. The past few days, I have been regularly driving through conditions that many other cars around me are having serious difficulty with. I do have good winter tires, and that may well be a contributing factor, but then it should be. I have always maintained that tires make all the difference.
I really have a lot of difficulty reconciling your experience with mine. I grade it an easy A+.

 

I agree 100%, I have been thru 1 complete winter and a good start on another and have played on a frozen lake with this car and find with the combination of B mode and skid control it works 100%. You must have all of the state of NY spitting in the snow causing it to be more slippery than snow in other states lol!!!

 

I have complained several times now about the tires (Michelin's) on my TCH, since they seem to have poor wet traction and snow/ice traction. I don't place any blame whatsoever on my car - it all comes down to the tires.

But I am still too cheap to buy decent winter tires and cheapo rims for winter use.

 

This is completely wrong. With all of the braking force on the front tires, the car is least likely to yaw or fishtail.

To easily demonstrate this, take a matchbox or similar toy car and let it roll down an incline. The incline should be steep enough so that the car will descend even if two of the wheels are locked up. Now put tape on either the front wheels or the rear wheels. Regardless of how the car starts down the incline (forwards, backwards, or sideways), and regardless of whether the front or rear tires are the sliding tires, shortly after the car starts its journey down the incline, it will end up going pretty much straight down without yaw or fishtailing, and with the locked wheels LEADING.

In a real car, this can be less true when there is more weight in the rear (all cars have more weight in front weight - ignoring excessively loaded trunks) or when the driver is doing stupid things with the steering wheel, or when the rear wheels are badly out of alignment.

-- Alan

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=YWh...iG60vP2TNE9D5E