Has anyone tried the Sumitomo Ice Edge winter tire? I see sets at Big O for $350 installed, and I'm hoping for mountain time this winter. I would love some feedback if anyone has used tires like these, regarding: driveability, mileage, noise, wear, ect. What are winter tires like on regular roads? Thanks!
The tires you refer to are "studded" tires. Yes, often times tire shops will sell you tires such as the Ice Edge without studs and will tell you that they work well, even without the studs installed. Personal choice, I suppose, but if a tire is designed for studs, I believe you should run it with studs. Here is some information that TireRack has on running a tire with studs vs running it without studs -- of course that is just for that particular tire, but https://blog.tirerack.com/blog/hunters-ramblings/studdable-winter-tires-with-or-without-studs As you see, the results are interesting. If you have never run studded tires before, well, they are noisy and performance on anything except for snow and ice... You do not say where you live. If you live in L.A. and are running studs, you probably will not be too happy. If you live in Tahoe, different story. On my Subaru I run studless winter tires from around end of November to March. But, before that I just carried tire chains. A tiny bit of a hassle to put them on, but I only need them a half-dozen times per year -- and the $80 price was right. Don't know what studless tires fit the Prius, but the Prius is my last choice to take out in the snow and ice. Finally, studless winter tires -- you probably will not notice much difference than all-seasons. Most of the winter tires are a little softer, so handling might not be so tight and most seem to give up some traction on dry roads, but not so much that I notice it. In other words, running studless tires is not much different than the all seasons -- running studded -- it's a learning experience.
Sumitomo tires are great! I don’t have winter tires but I am very happy with my low profile tires by Sumitomo.
@Stevewoods covered everything I was going to say. Sumi Ice Edge is a studdable winter tire. Properly studded, it is formidable winter tires to run on ice. I use to have studded winter tires on my Civic and HCH, they are fantastic on a sheet of ice or frozen packed snow, but on fresh snow and slush, I find today's studless perform better for traction. What is not for is driving on a non-snow/ice-covered surface. If you drive on dry pavement, it will fill like driving on a dirt road. On wet (rainy) pavement, studded tires can even make it more slippery. For that reason, I have switched from studded tires to stud-less Xice-3 on my Gen3 and Prime. That being said, I did put Sumi Ice Edge without studs on my son's CRZ for his first winter for that was the only winter tires available in his budget. Without stud, the tires are less effective on ice, but perform similar to studless on snow/ice surface but on non-snow/ice surface it is a bit louder and rough ride. And yes it has a major mpg hit, unlike Xice I have. The Ice Edge has an aggressive block tread compared to Xice-3. If you wear them only in wintertime, the tread should last 3-4 seasons (~6k miles x4) without a problem. Being winter tires, you probably do not want to go lower than 6/32 on its tread.
Sumitomo tires are good, at least in my experience. Studs, not so much (well, there is a joke there, but....)
