What's your luck been with these, I've been really disappointed after the research I've done. Get's super cold here, the tires have little traction on ice and when around 0-5degC slushy they load up and your stuck in bs places. I'm thinking I should have them studded or just use as summer tires;(

 

Never heard of those dave...
maybe some one else has...

 

Imported from Finland.

Never had any luck with michelin M+S either.

 

I run BFG ATs and they are usually a great tire... except they are not very useful on black ice I've noticed lately...

 

If you're concerned about ice you should go for the Hakkapeliitta's. They're very highly regarded winter tires.

 

For black ice? I think CCM and Baur got you covered

I thought the Hakkapalita's were discontinued, my bad. They had a cool design where as they spun they a 'S' groove that wove back and forth clearing the tread.

I run General AT-2's on my Chevy in Vancouver and like them- but that's Vancouver and you can almost run bald all year around.

One other thing- I run highway and town mostly so I favor C ratings for ride quality and mileage- some tires I like are only in LT ratings- heavy tires.

 

I have the vaativa M/T's on my truck and like them much more then my last tire, the bridgestone dueller a/t. they look awesome and I always see people looking at them in parking lots haha.

 

How are those in the winter? I always wondered if a mud terrain compound was in the same neighbourhood of softness as a winter tire.

As mentioned above, Vancouver doesn't exactly get harsh winters and it'd be a lot more affordable for me if I could just run a mud terrain year round. Right now I have a/t's and they sort of suck when it's cold or snowy.

 

They were awesome in the snow! drove um around in -17 no problems this winter. I was driving around in 2wd in about 8in snow and no weight in the bed, with my last tires this would not be possible!

 

I had them and were a great hwy tire, crap offroad though in the lightest bit of mud. Very disappointed with that aspect, thought I was going to get stuck on nearly flat ground but in rain they were fine.

 

I had nokians a few years back. Those tires turned my AWD astro into a unstoppable snow eating machine hahah. They arent quite as soft as full blown winter tires but they did well in the alberta winters.

 

We run Nokians almost exclusively on half ton chevy pickups (with no weight in back) up here in AK and I love them. I plan to get some for my Toyota when the tires I have are finished. Ours our studded but several folks at work have them unstudded and like them just as well. As a bonus they actually do fairly well in the spring and fall when the ice breaks up and things get muddy.

I'm currently running Kelly Safari Mud tires that I had sipped at the local tire shop and then took into the shop at work and studed with two studs in each outside tread block. They are on my Dodge 3/4 ton diesel that is fairly heavy but they do extrememly well in their modified form. The also do much better in deep snow with the wide tread blocks than the highway winter tires.

 

The A/T's or the M/T's?

I used to run the A/T's when I had a (gasp) Jeep and they were great in the rain on pavement but absolutely sucked in the snow and mud.

 

I had the A/T.

 

You guys are killing me. Vouching for Vatiiva A/Ts by saying the M/Ts or Hakkas are great tires is non-sensical. Totally different tire. They are nothing alike. It happens over and over. Someone asks about Cooper S/Ts and someone will inevitably reply that the Cooper STT is a great tire... once again, totally irrelevant.

/rant




I have Nokian Vatiiva (not spelling- helps in finding reviews) All Terrains, and they're all right. They work well on pavement, and are very quiet. I've only had this set of tires on the 4Runner, so I can't compare the to another tire easily. My impression is that they're passable in winter conditions, but not "good". They did better in watery mud than expected for such a HWY-oriented tire, but again, they're just an middle of the road all-terrain. No major complaints, but I won't be buying a second set. The treadwear wasn't great either, though I chronically over-inflate them for MPGs. They've done a lot of miles on rough gravel roads and they're not chipped up too bad, they did all right in this regard. The grip on gravel is once again middle of the road.

I'll be looking at General Grabber AT2s and I expect them to be much better than Vatiiva A/Ts in just about every respect except maybe noise.

 

I had their WR "All Weather" passenger tires on my Century and they were great. Not as good as a dedicated snow tire, but not far off. They sell, or at least used to sell, a WR for truck and suv applications. If the snow and ice traction translates from the passenger to the Truck and SUV I would say go for it. Not sure about off road traction as I did very little off roading in the Century. But if you are looking for a nice winter traction tire without as bad a wear as a dedicated snow, the WR was the Bee's Knees as far as I am concerned. I bought them for my wife and her long commute on Michigan winter roads. I didn't want to go dedicated snows because of all the miles, but still wanted excellent traction. These fit the bill real nice and I got about 50K miles out of them running year round. I then put them on as dedicated winter tires and got some highway tires for the other 8 months of the year.

 

The WR is a totally different tire vs the Vatiiva. Tread, compound, void, carcass, etc are all different.

 

No doubt about that, just commenting that folks may want to consider the WR Truck & SUV if it performs like the WR passenger tire. Thread kind of went from Vatiiva, to snows, etc. just throwing another option out there for folks not interested in dedicated snows. No experience with the Vatiiva, but always saw a lot of them being run on trucks and SUVs wherever there was a dealer that carried Nokian, i.e. Tire Factory in my area. Then again if I lived in Yellowknife or similar I would probably run a dedicated snow tire.

 

my suggestion is if you are looking for a great snow tire that is studded look at the dean wintercat sst. this tire is a soft compound super siped studded or non studded tire that will not let you down during harsh winter conditions. i have been selling them for five years now and have found them to be awsome tires on any vehicle. NO ONE has ever come back to complain about grip. We install them on all the ambulances and fire departments trucks for four diffrent towns. If that doesnt say something good i dont know what does.

 

Did I mention the Vatiiva ATs chunk off road? If I haven't, they do chunk fairly bad.