Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Winter/snow tire recommendation?

I would like a set of winter tires for my 2015 F250 long bed. I travel up the Parks to Trapper Creek to snowmachine and up the Glenn to ride Eureka and to Glennallen to see my girlfriend. I already have a second set of rims.

Some say Blizzaks are good, but I've always been a studded tire guy. Not sure if I'd try Blizzaks if it's not possible to stud them.

What are other guys running for winter tires-brand/make/model? Studded? Non-studded?

Thanks for the recommendations.

Nokian studded was suggested and I've been very happy with them so far. Can't recall any other name than the brand name. F350 Long bed 4 door.

I always ran cooperAT3 studded on all my trucks and cars ( studded coopers on the cars, not are) when I lived up there. Never had a driveability issue and price was right.

Now here in MI I run unstudded at3's in the winter.

Just buy a good siped AT or MT tire that you like and stud them (before driving on them). I will be getting nitto exo grapplers again when my coopers wear out, and I'll l likely drill for extra studs.

Blizzaks are impressive for what they are, but they are not as good as studs.

Like Joel suggested, I rand the AT3's for years year round, unstudded. never had a problem with traction. I did have some trouble with my last set not balancing or staying balanced, but the traction and the wearing was great

Coopers are the only tires that have come apart on me in TX. But the heat here is rough on tires period.

A good friend has done the Cooper thing too and seemed happy enough.

Which Coopers?

I have had the BFG ATs and MTs on several 4x4 vehicles, along with a number of other tires. I never intentionally will put anything other than Cooper STTs on anything again. Great traction on every type of terrain. They alternate the the direction of the plies, which makes the tire stronger. They have 27% greater tread depth than the BFGs, giving them greater traction in the snow and longer tread life. The BFGs are a really good tires. The Cooper STTs are really great tires.

I have had good luck with Kelly Safari TSR studded. I think they are called Edge now for some reason.

Dont get anything with chunky lugs for up here unless you plan on mostly driving on unplowed, deep snow/trails. 99% of driving up here is plowed/ice, or usually less than 6-8" snow on main roads (plows are usually pretty good and on top of snow storms- of course there are exceptions once every year or so). Since 99% of most peoples driving is on packed snow and/or ice, sutdded ice tires are best.

I have Nokian Hakkapelitta's on my car and 1/2 ton. The Hakka's for 3/4 ton and up aren't quite as good as the ones for cars and SUV's for ice, they're still the best overall ice tire available.

Heavily siped and studded ice tires are MUCH better than chunky mud tires with studs- been there done that. I average 25,000 miles a year between Healy and Homer.

That makes sense. We always use a AT with plenty of sipes or snow tires on plowed roads, but where we are at now the siped MTs or agressive ATs like the Kelly's work better since the county road is rarely plowed.

I have worn out many sets of studded tires but went with Blizzaks a few years ago and am happy with them.. Studs are great until they were down and then they just help you slide better, and no one will replace them.

If you are driving something light you might want to gets studs, but I'm driving an Expedition. This is my 4th winter on the current set so I have certainly gotten my money's worth out of them. I will get probably get one more winter out of these. I usually take them off about April 1st.

Wook, I make that run to Trapper Creek (Petersville) to our cabin almost every weekend in my Dodge 1500 pulling a 21ft enclosed trailer full of sleds and I'm running the Bridgestone Blizzaks and wouldn't run any other snow tire. Studs are great but driving on pavement you're going to wear them down over time plus you have to remove them by a certain date (May 15th I believe).

There aren't a lot of E-Rated snow tires, if that is something that you care about. Less that are studdable. I have not used them on 3/4 ton and above trucks, but with the weight and the trailering I would lean toward an E rated tire.

The Blizzaks you mention are not studdable, unless someone at a shop can make the holes for you. Voids the warranty and not sure if anyone even does that anymore.

Firestone Winterforce LT, and Grabber Arctic LT are both studdable tires.
Nokian hakkapeliitta LT3 is also has a studdable tire, but I don't know if they are E-Rated.

My experience with snow tires, having personally used about 4 different brands (all non-studded) is that some are better than others in different categories. Nokians are probably the best for general conditions, but the most expensive by far, and did less well for me in deep snow where the deeper blockier tread performed better. At the same time, deeper blockier tread feels softer and more wobbly on packed or dry snow, or on pavement. Studs are invariably going to be better on the hard pack or ice. But like the above post says, you have to be aware of the date, and I am not fond of them on pavement, but your use case will determine. You can always stud them later.

But even the cheapest snow tire is superior to any other type of tire in snow.

I don't know the area. Are you near the coast driving in fairly wet snow ("coastal concrete") or farther inland in drier, more powdery snow? And fresh snow or packed / groomed roads?

In wet snow, especially fresh snow, I prefer mud tires by a wide margin. Both siped and studded ideally. In drier snow or on snow that's been bladed / plowed, then a tighter tread can work .. an AT tire rather than MT.

The last studded tires I used were Les Schwab MTs. They had a tread pattern much like the original BFG MT but only 2 ply sidewalls. Mine were studded and siped. The sipes and studs worked very well on plowed roads and the big luggy voids cleaned pretty well in fresh snow.

If you aren't set on studs, then I would look at the Toyo Open Country MT. I've switched to them almost entirely. When I wore out the stock tires on my 2008 Nissan Frontier I switched to something intermediate and it was an improvement, but when I went to the Toyos, I could go places in 2WD that I couldn't go in 4Lo with the diff locked with the stock tires and I found the same thing on my current 2014 Tacoma. The only shortcoming is they are not drilled for studs.

Tom

Studded Coopers for me could not even walk to the mailbox without cleats on shoes last 2 weeks. SC Alaska we get a lot of water on ice but our winter is only 6.5 months.
If studded tires are cheaper than one accident I want them on our vehicles.

I tried the Toyo MT for awhile. On hard pack snow and ice they were scary. Going through deep snow was surprisingly easy. Places I thought I would get stuck were just churned through. I went with Firestone Destination MTs on our Suburban and had them siped. Those are a go anywhere in all conditions tire set up that way-love them, but Firestone changed it up so I don't know how good the new one is. Make me wonder if a Toyo MT was siped the same if it would be as good.

I hope that cooper comes out with an E-Rated studdable snow tire. Too few options for the heavy vehicles

Not from Alaska, lived there for a while though as well as other areas that get more than their fair share of snow. My experience has always been that the more siping, the better. I've even had tires re-siped and almost immediately noticed an increase in traction.

Nokian Hakkapalita LT3 and Hankook I Pike .
Both available in load range E.

At the moment I have Bridgestone Dueller AT on my 12 , F350 , long bed 6 pack. They work better than I thought they would . But not at all as good as I want. Got them this summer @ Costco when I noticed one of the geolanders on the truck getting ready to blow and I had a load on the truck. I didn't think I'de be able to get across Fairbanks to get better tires. And these are fine for summer. I do a lot of driving on gravel so the 50k mile warrantee might come in handy
I have I Pikes on our E350 van and on a F250.
The studs last a long time. I also have them on my Dakota.
I REALLY LIKE HANKOOK I PIKE STUDDED tires. And I plan on putting Hakkapalita s on my F350.

I had really good performance from Goodyear Dura Trac, Load range E on a 2010 F-250 with a manual trans. I now have the same tire load range C on a Tacoma. Whatever you get make sure the tire has a mountain with a snowflake within it. That means the tire is rated for extreme winter service. I believe they are studdable as well.
I get extra rims for all my vehicles. Saves money on mounting and balancing plus I put them on when I want and not when the shop can get me in...