Tires YOKOHAMA or GENERAL TIRE

I have General Grabber AT2 on my XC70 ...I also recommend going with 16s, more sidewall means less likely to bend a wheel.

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.

Put some super grippy Yokohama's on there and problem solved...

I'm running Yokohama S-Drive's in 195/40's for my 9" and the stretch is good.

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've had bad experiences with 2 out of 5 General Tire Exclaim UHP's I've bought. First tire had a terrible vibration from day 1. When the tire shop mounted my tires, they said one balanced fine, but may have a "hop" at highway speed. Well, the "hop" was very noticeable. When the wheel was on the back, the car shook so bad on the highway I literally could not drink coffee without spilling on myself. When the wheel was mounted on the front, the steering wheel would shake so bad my hands would go numb. I had this tire replaced under warranty and the car drove great. A couple weeks ago, after coming into town from a highway commute, I could hear a loud rhythmic humming at around 50 km/h. Tire shop again tried re-balancing this wheel with no improvement. Tire has hardly any wear and wheel itself looks to be in great condition. I didn't hit any rocks of potholes before this started. This is getting really annoying. I just want a reliable tire.