I have these on mine (not a great picture)


They are ready to be studded also but I dont think you can really see it in this picture.

can a 235/15 be a better snow tire than a 35/12.50
???
how ?
i understand the concept of a wider tire sinking less
but not how this is a handicap
skinier tire has to plow more snow...

soft tread works in snow??
how?

The 235 will be better under given circumstances, IE packed snow on hard surface. Very common on snow covered roads.
reason for this, the 235 is narrower, so your total vehicle weight is on a smaller contact patch, therefore more pressure applied in that area. This improvement is more noticable on 2wd vehicles because they don't have the benifit of the front wheels pulling them through.
If you're talking deep snow, then the wider tire will be better to help get you up and over it. Personally, I like the skinnier tires better because 90% of my driving is on roads.
for the tread, softer rubber stays more pliable in sub-freezing temps, so you get the extra "wiggle" of the tread block to help the "gription" on hard pack and ice. Of course, the more sipes the tread block has, the better the "wiggle" gets, and the better the "gription" gets.
Todd

In my experience (Rockies & Cascades), the goal is to make contact with the trail surface or close to it & that's why I felt a lot more comfortable with these 33x9.50's in the 18" of snow this past week-end. It can be a gut wrenching experience if you're trying to accelerate up a steep trail with floating tires thru deep snow. On flatter terrain, I've heard you can air down a fat 35" and ease over the top of the crust, but I've never done it.

Sorry, I was thinking WINTER tire which I take to include ice and snow tire. In snow alone an MT works just fine and WIDER is better unlike ice where narrow is better. If your winter driving never includes plowed roads or city driving and we are only talking about offoad use then yes an MT or AT will work fine. And yes it is unfortunate that nobody make a tall winter tire. 33" is about as tall as you can get. My 235/15s are going to hate it when I put my 5.29s in. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/scared.gif" alt="" /> OUr trucks all look funny when they have to go through 'winter shrinkage' so that they can run decent tires.

Ever see the pics of the original White Knight when it was a full Blazer on Mog axles? He was running 44" Dick Cepeks and the thing would float. There was a pick of the truck on top of the snow and the guy jumped out and was up to his waste in the snow. In snow you want lower ground pressure. Ice demands more pressure. Can't wait to finish my truck so that I can air down my 36" IROKS and go get stuck.

That wasn't White Knight, it is Rob Bryce's Hulk. Cepeks are considered one of the best tires for DEEP snow. They are wide, not too aggressive, and they spread out when you air them down. This is the opposite of what I would want for icy streets (accept the not too aggressive part) but they work great on snowy trails. From what I have seen IROKs work well in deep snow as well.

I agree that the Bridgestone dual compound is worthless. I had some Dueler AT's and the last 30% or so of the tread was noticeably worse in slick stuff.

As far as wide vs skinny, if you want flotation, probably for off road situations, then wider will work better. But, for on road, it comes down to personal preference. A skinnier tire will have more force per unit area, but a wider tire will have more units of area in contact. When determining frictional force, contact area has no effect whatsoever. The only things that matter are the weight of the vehicle and the coefficient of friction between the tires and the ice/road/whatever.

I have found that on snow covered roads, a day or two after it has snowed (when traction is the worst) a skinnier tire seems to track better. I won't say that it has more grip or bite on the road, since I don't think that's true, but I do think that being narrower allows the tire to be affected less by the grooves and variations that form in the packed snow/ice. Plus, once the streets clear, you've got less rotating mass for all your regular driving, which helps in the gas mileage and acceleration departments.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Dunlop&tireModel=Radial+Rover+R%2FT

This is the Dunlop Radial Rover R/T which is a super agressive studdable tire. I was going to switch to 16" wheels and run these in 235r85 which are about 32". Then I found the BFG's 33x9.50 which fit stock 6" wide wheels. Most tire places will sipe them for $10 each.

Think of driving on ice as if you were driving on water. The friction of the tire on the ice melts a very thin layer on top and causes the tire to 'float' or hydroplane just like driving over a puddle. You are right of coarse about the whole coefficient of friction idea. This is why wide has less friction on ice then a more narrow tire. Ever driven a empty dually pickup on wet roads?. At least that is how I understand it. All science aside, from personal experience, I have driven on both wide and narrow tires and I will always stick with a narrow one for the ice. Since snow does not behave as ice does a wide tire will provide both more traction as well a more flotation.



One downside being that siping instantly voids the warrenty which many people seem to need when running BFGs. It helps for sure but is still a band aid fix on a poor tire choice in my opinion unless you see minimal road use.