Tires SUMITOMO or GENERAL TIRE

For a budget snow tire I have been using these now for 2 years and love them:

I love my General Grabbers and AT2's. They are a little rough on the street but an awesome tire off-road. The AT2's get stuck in the mud very easily though. I've had the AT2's on my daily for 4 years now with little wear and I drive an average of 14,000 miles a year.

I live in Maine... as you can expect we get plenty of snow/ice. Never needed studded tires unless I was driving on a giant sheet of ice i.e. frozen lake. I run General Altimax Arctics on my 4Motion Passat, about $80/tire in 16" sizes.

I have Sumitoma HTR ZIII's on my car and they work great for a street tire. I am surprised how long the rear tires are lasting.

I have a set of 205's from sumitomo on my 17x9" rear. They stretched nicely, ride good and were cheap as dirt.

check out General Altimax Arctic tires, Im on my 3rd season and they have plenty of life left to them and made my E30 a champ in the snow.

Put my 16" golf oem rims and general artimax tires on last night. So far very happy with the road noise and handling even in 60 degree temps here in NJ.

The only "good" winter tire I have experience with is the General Altimax, which did great and I would recommend highly.

I guess that's the end of my third set of Sumi HTR Z IIIs... I really like those tires for the price. And until that little scare... I ever had a clue the back tires were 1/2 slicks even in the rain.

I have the 185/60-13's and the sidewall is super flimsy as well. I couldn't complain on the price though!