This might be an extremely stupid question, and I apologize in advance if it is, but I would really like to clarify this for myself. I have seen posts in which people say that they drive anywhere between 5-9 months on snow tires. If you drive for that many months, why not just drive on them all year round?

Let's take the Blizzak's, for example. Would it hurt anything if I were to drive on a set of Blizzak's all year-round? Is there something special about the tread life that they should only be used a few months at a time? I guess I'm just trying to understand what the detrimental effects of using snow tires year-round would be.

As always, I'm grateful for your comments!

Thanks,
Michael.

Yeah, the Blizzaks are a lot softer material and will wear out much faster than regular tires. You can drive on them year round, but they won't be nearly as good the second or third winter. If you use studs in winter tires, they're noisier then hell in the summer, too.

Blizzaks are about the softest material. Other winter tires are harder and will wear better, like Michelin Arctic Alpins. But their tread pattern is not optimum for dry summer pavement (okay, but not optimum).

Thanks very much for the info.

So what would you say would be the average life on a set of Blizzaks driven year round? (In terms of miles driven)?

I'm just guessing here (never had them on long enough to know), but I'd say 15-20,000. You can drive them longer, of course, but they would be useless as a snow tire.

I sold one of my 190E's with a fresh set of Blizzaks on it. They had one winter on them, mileage about 15,000 kilometers. The fellow I sold the car to didn't change the tires. One summer, and the Blizzaks were shot.

Around town was doing them, then he took a highway trip. The heat of the high-speed driving just demolished them.

We keep a set of our 88 Mazda 626 "Mall-zda" year round, but the car sees little use, especially in the summer. And, it NEVER goes on the highway.

Also, the Mazda only weighs 2600lbs, much less than just about any MB.

__________________
John Shellenberg
1998 C230 "Black Betty" 240K

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