Studs?
 

I know there is a tire forum but this one gets more traffic. I am about to buy Nokian Hakka's for both cars and I am thinking about studded Hakka 2 tires for the wagon. How much noise do they make on dry roads and are they worth it?

Are they even legal?

I ran those for 3 seasons (w/o spikes) on a saab 900 and found them to be excellent. Unless you are planning to spend a serious amount of time on iced roads or a frozen lake you, should find the regular Hakkas to be a great winter ride.

It does depend on your driving conditions. I use studded winter tires on the C230, and love them. We often have terrible city drinving conditions, and I frequent the mountains in the winter.

The noise is greatest at highway speed on dry pavement, but certainly not unbearable. Around town I barely notice at all.

I am running the Kuhmo KW-11 in studded form on the C230 and non-studded on the 626, and they are the equal of the WS-50 BLizzaks on the Outback, studded or no. They're cheap, too.

I have a set of them
 

I bought a set of used Hakka's on Ebay for my 300e not realizing they were studded. Studded tires are illegal in Illinois so I have to sell them or pull out the studs - a very tedious project. Is anyone interested in the tires? Size 195/65/15.

For southern CT, I would vote against it.

Your stopping and handling is going to be compromised 99.9% of the time. Really only helps on hardpack. In typical soft or packed snow you would be better off with 4 plain snow tires.

Thanks guys. Right now any snow tire would be precautionary because the last time we had a warm November like this one Southern NE got no snow and I burned up the new snow tires I bought in 2001 on dry pavement but I have an extra set of rims now so I could swap them on only when it snows. (The wife is calling me a geek).