Minnesota Focus Owners Club

For what it's worth:

Anyone who daily drives their car year round (yah, for the winter, I'd RATHER have a Jeep!) and wants to have confident winter driving, I can very much recommend the Hankook i-Pike W409s. Recently, I got them put on a set of 15" steelies (as a winter wheelset) and I AM IMPRESSED.

On a past car (Prelude), I had Blizzaks and they were very good. The Hankooks are definitely better in their overall grip, though. I did my homework. Looked at lots of reviews to compare winter tires, both subjective and objective. I also liked General Altimax Arctics, but couldn't find them locally (sorry Tire Rack).

Anybody who rides winter tires knows already that they are WAY safer than even the best all-season tire. When you brake, they actually stop your car. So I'm not knocking Blizzaks or anything else out there, just sharing my subjective experience with these tires...

Now, about that lake meet?

Running them on both the Focus and the Envoy. Best money spent.

ElectricAl wrote:General Altimax Arctics, but couldn't find them locally (sorry Tire Rack).

Pretty sure Norm's tire sells them in Little Canada for future reference

I've got winterforces in a 205/55/16. I think my previous blizzaks did better, but then again maybe I'm just getting used to driving like a maniac with snow tires and expect too much

I had them once on my stock 17s and they dominated the Alaskan and MN roads. Well worth the money. (this is my first post only because I can relate, thanks guys)

OP:

are you saying you run your ipikes year round?

Nevr wrote:OP:

are you saying you run your ipikes year round?

(SURELY, you jest!)
No, sir! Seems to me winter decided to melt itself away, so I put the Michelin A/S tires (+ the factory alloys) on almost 2 weeks ago, now...

The i-Pike Report: I put less than 1000 miles on 'em and so, rightly, they show no wear. The toughest test I gave 'em was going onto Marion Lake in Lakeville sometime in early February and I drove off the ice-fish house access roads into some deeper snow than I was actually expecting. When you have momentum on your side, you have little to fear... the true test is getting going again if you should happen to kill your momentum. I didn't mean to stop but had to at one point. I was nervous but those babies came through like champs (that AND my car sits up at stock 4x4 height).

Otherwise, on icy roads, they stopped when my A/S tires had previously kept right-on a- slidin'... and when you did break their grip by cornering a little too fast on an icy road (yes, I do like to push my tires' limits sometimes), they gave it up in a very gradual, controllable way that was super easy to recover from...