Snow tires in Canada

So this is my third year of the Prius C but my first that will be in Toronto where a real winter happens. Unless I want to hide my car in the garage all winter I will need some snow tires. This is the CDN base model, so 175/65R15.

Keep in mind I am a car novice. I will not be installing or tweaking anything myself. Everything requires paying someone to do it and every dollar counts.

Any thoughts in the Toronto area? Winter tires that have worked well for you? I know some people like to go get tires in the States to save money but I have not really found any evidence that would save much compared to the time and hassle.

I know there is also the question of the TPMS. I was chatting in another thread about this but it was outside of the Prius C forum. The question of whether to 1) pay every season to have the dealer initialize the car to recognize the sensors, 2) forget about sensors and cover the warning light all winter, 3) get my sensors cloned so they can be put into a second set of wheels for the winter tires, or 4) what else?

USians are welcome to comment but please keep in mind that buying in the US is probably not going to be a viable option for me.

 

Right I figured they'd go on spare wheels for the reasons of cost of swapping. I have also been told that repeatedly switching tires on a set of wheels is worse for wear and tear.

I'm cringing at the overall cost as I'm presently unemployed. But it would be very pessimistic of me to plan for the winter as if I don't expect to have a commute the whole time.

Anyway I thought I'd solicit advice from anyone who has already used snow tires on a C, how well they're working, how much it all cost, etc.

Nexus 5 ?

 

Would there be any safety concerns in going with used rims?

Nexus 5 ?

 

Whereas I'm guessing that used snow tires are probably not a good gamble?

 

Corollas are usually 16" and Prius C takes 15", at least my base model does. 175/65R15.

Which is unfortunate because my grandmother has winter tires for her Corolla she won't be using anymore now that she can't drive, and they're too big for my C. I'm in fact headed up to her dealership momentarily to pick them up.

 

As far as I can tell the tire size that came with my Prius C is used on some Yaris and Honda Fit models, and some Mini Coopers. All in that subcompact range.

 

Hah funny you should mention that right as I bring my grandmother's winter tires out of storage. They are X-ice tires, 185/65R15 which is not all that far off and I wonder if they'd be compatible or too big. Which also means the rims are 15". But if the bolts are different I guess the rims are not comparable!

However as I was alluding to the Yaris before - it would appear that Yaris and Echo models going back as far as I can find are 4-bolt. So used Yaris rims would work.

 

I just called a guy in parts at my Toyota dealer and asked - if I were to have my grandmother's 185/65R15 winter tires installed on a proper set of rims for my Prius C which normally takes 175/65R15, would it work? He told me it would fit and there wouldn't be any operational issues but there would be a 2.14% error in the speedometer. He said normally this is not a problem as long as it's within a 3% tolerance and as long as I know what the error is.

What do you guys think? It would save me $400+ on the cost of getting the car winter-ready. The family is OK with it as my uncle is the likely beneficiary of the Corolla and he lives in Victoria where nobody gets/uses snow tires unless they're going to be driving up a mountain to ski.

 

Yeah in my case it would mean 2.14% more km per revolution, hence when it reads 100 it's actually 102. After installation I could double-check by comparing the speed on my GPS with the speedometer.

Just took another look at them - they are X-Ice Xi2. They look to be in pretty good condition. I am sure she has had them for several years but she drove pretty sparingly even when she still did drive.