Winter Driving and tires

jaz13 said:

Depends on what you are doing, but to get the most out of studs, you want skinny tires that cut through the snow and hook up with the solid ice underneath.

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thank you. I agree 100 percent. Some people have a hard time comprehending that.

I knew I should have bought the Nokia studded tires.

I guess there could always be better grip but in my opinion, it doesnt get much better than a raptor in the snow. I pulled a 30ft snowmobile trailer 550 miles home from Maine last week in the middle of one hell of a snowstorm. My buddy in a dodge on 20s was hanging way back. I didnt feel like I needed anything further. The tires are wide but I think the BFGs do pretty good in the snow. Most guys I know go out of their way to run them all year long, they even have the actual snowflake rating. Nothing will compete with studs but unless you are in Alaska or somewhere extremely remote, I feel like that may be overdoing it. A lot of people like the duratracs, I run those on a 4runner and they are nice in snow. To each their own though - studs would be like driving on pavement - the downfall is the cost, changing them on and off and listening to them hum 98% of the time without snow.

ME120 said:

I am on my second raptor. I love the truck, but the one thing I do not like about the truck is winter driving on snow and ice. I grew up on the east coast, so I am very used to driving on snow. But I am going to say that these bf Goodrich KO2'S suck in the snow ! You feel like your doing 180 mph at Atlanta motor speedway with a death grip on the wheel. I was going to buy a set of Nokia studded snow tires in January and I held off because where I live we get storms that turn to rain half way thru the storm, but now we are getting real snow storms.

I was wondering how other raptor owners feel about the stock tires on snow ?

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I will get mine next week, but with dedicated winter tires (Nokian Hakkapeliitta). M&S, all-season etc. do not compare with dedicated winter tires (on paved roads / packed snow / ice roads), mostly the rubber is too hard.

However, the KO2 are rated for winter driving with these 3 peaks on it. The one below has it (Canadian delivered Raptor).



Wide vs narrow tires is somewhat old fashion. On packed snow wider tires have more grip than narrow tires, nowadays the "slats" provide the grip. (They did not have this technology during the Korean war in the 50's.) On ice it does not matter, without studs there is limited grip for all tires, wide or narrow. Wider tires have disadvantages on very wet roads (aquaplaning), if you keep the stock size the car will behave the same as with the "summer" tires.

(With ice races with studs they use narrow tires for the grip, I would not recommend driving in such way on public roads.)

Drive mine into the mountains here in Colorado quite often to snowboard and have zero issues with them. Not quite as good as my STi on dedicated winter tires, but it does well considering tire size and weight.

Stock tires suck in snow here...........

Drove my stock K02’s in 20” of snow in the mountains for a week back before Christmas and traction was never an issue. Plowed right through snow banks, up steep roads, etc. I don’t feel a need for anything else unless there is significant ice where the aforementioned studded tires would be called for.

Well I guess the general consensus is that the raptor with the stock KO2’s are great in snow. I know two other guys up here in Maine that hate that tire in the snow and my friend has a LX 570 Lexus with dedicated snow tires and it is a tank in the snow compared to my raptor.

I guess we all have a different driving feel but I will say in snow, I’ll take the lx 570 with dedicated snow tires over my raptor with stock KO2’S.

The stock KO2's were good in the snow. I sold them when they got down to half tread and replaced them with Duratracs. The Duratracs are better in the snow, but I didn't have any problem getting around with the KO2's.

No doubt dedicated snow tires will always be better than M&S, off road or all season. The good thing is that with the KO2s one may not need dedicated snow tires, thus not require swapping tires or buying a second set of wheels.

I would guess that Lexus probably isn’t as good with its OEM tires in the snow as the Raptor is with the KO2s. Neither are almost any other vehicles from the factory I imagine. Once you swap tires then it’s apples and oranges and comparing them is frivolous.


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Speeddeacon said:

No doubt dedicated snow tires will always be better than M&S, off road or all season. The good thing is that with the KO2s one may not need dedicated snow tires, thus not require swapping tires or buying a second set of wheels.

I would guess that Lexus probably isn’t as good with its OEM tires in the snow as the Raptor is with the KO2s. Neither are almost any other vehicles from the factory I imagine. Once you swap tires then it’s apples and oranges and comparing them is frivolous.


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I would put my money on the Lexus with all wheel drive and the stock 21's over the raptor with the KO2'S. I don't know how the japenese do it, but they always seem to create more with less. As A friend of mine said to me , the big 3 are about marketing and the Japanese are about engineering.