Performance Winter or Studless Ice & Snow

[shoemocker]

I just bought some rims from a member of this forums. I am now trying to figure out which Blizzak series to buy for my car for the winter. When I went to the shop they had both Bridgestone Blizzak LM-25 and Bridgestone Blizzak WS-60. The first one is a Performance Winter tire while the second one is a Studless Ice & Snow tire. I am buying these tires specificly for winter, and will be taking them off once spring/summer rolls around. They said that they are both great tires but I do not know which one to go with. Anybody else having this dilema or already bought one of these tires? Any help would be great because I don't know much about tires.

[Rob@WretchedMS]

It's fairly straight forward.

WS60 is mushy, but sticks to ice.

LM25 is not mushy, but doesn't have the multicell compound of the WS60 so it doesn't stick to ice.

WS60 Better in the snow/ice
LM25 Better in the dry

[SRMjoe]

It's not a Blizzak, but I got a set of performance winter tires and while I can't compare them to the mushier kind I can say the difference in cold weather vs. the stock 17" all season is night and day. I almost got a mushy tire but then remembered that the vast majority of my time will be spent in cold, but dry conditions. If you're in an area that will be mostly snow/ice covered then I would go with the mushy tire.

FYI the tires I got are Hankook Icebear W300 235/45/17 from discounttire.com