My snowtires went 6 winters. Probably could have stretched them to 7 if I didn't put all them highway miles for work last spring. Still, even cheap inexpensive snowtires are better than 3 season tires in cold snowy climates.
In my previous R53, I had always run winter tires and just assumed that MINIs were great in the snow. Then I bought a R52, gave away my winters in favor of a newer set on wheels that didn't fit my car. I figured ID just run my all seasons until they were dead and then swap tires to those wheels. Let me the you, those tires were garbage in the snow a couple of weeks ago. Terrifying. Granted the all seasons had 35k ormore in them, but needless to say I had the winters put on the next weekend. Massive improvement. I've had the blizzaks and arctic alpin's and they are both fantastic. I'll never be without winters again here in Cincinnati.
We had an ice storm yesterday, so I thought I'd go for an aim in my JCW. (On the stock "performance" runflats on ice, you can't call it a drive.) Fun, but YIKES! The non-runflat Blizzaks will be here soon.
My '06 MCSa has 15" Blizzaks during the winter. My '03 MCcvt and my wife's stock '06 MCSa have all seasons all year around. I only drive the last two when the weather is above 40 degrees. The Blizzaks are for snow and ice only and, consequently, I am hoping to get at least the average snow tire life out of them. On the otherhand, when I was 16, I had a '59 Morris Mini Minor [the "first" Mini] with 10" wheels and Dunlop Gold Seals that were driven all year around in NE Ohio. It was much lighter and far less powerful than today's MINIs, but I got around just fine back then, typically in 6-8" snow. To say that the Mini is not a winter car without snow tires is, IMHO, bullcrap. The original Minis were built as economy cars for English weather. What matters most is how you drive the car.
I'm in Britain where we might get snow on the roads, and daytime temperatures below freezing, for maybe 1-2 weeks per year so almost no-one has winter tyres. It's very apparent that owners of Minis with 175/65-15 summer tyres think they are great in the snow, whereas those with 205/45-17s summers think they are awful. It seems the tipping point where wider tyres just start floating on top of snow is between those two. And if you liked a classic Mini on snow on its 145 width tyres, you should have tried a Citroen 2CV with 125 (yeah, really, 125 - like a bicycle) tyres. Providing you didn't spin the wheels when accelerating*, it would go anywhere in snow. *Spinning wasn't caused by torque or power, because it didn't have any, but by the humungous flywheel on the 600cc flat-twin engine - let out the clutch quickly and it took off like a rocket for the first ten feet.
My original Mini, with its 36 HP engine, 5 gallon gas tank, 4-speed, slider windows in the front and flip opens in the rear, and 520x10" wheels only got stuck in the snow when I actually TRIED to get stuck. My car had the original owner's manual and suggested what to do in that case...put the car into reverse idle, get out of the car, open the driver's window and push backwards...letting the car lug itself out. it worked great, and I've been a Mini lover ever since!
Only last winter I got up a snow-covered hill by reversing up it when I couldn't get enough traction, even on winters, to do it forwards. Worked a treat and I got a round of applause from some folk who came out of a house halfway up to watch me do it, as apparently it "wasn't possible even for a 4WD". It took a while, as it was only one car wide - reversing a Roadster in poor visibility up a narrow winding snow channel involves a lot of reversing into the bank on one side or the other and then having to roll forwards before trying again..... But I felt properly stupid when I got to the client's house on the top of the hill and she pointed out that if I had driven 10 miles further on the (ploughed) main road and then approached her house from the other way on the same minor road, there wasn't a steep hill!
That's exactly how I got my MINI into my garage after the last ice storm - got a running backwards head start on my neighbor's driveway across the street, took advantage of the weight transfer to the drive wheels and powered it right up my driveway into the garage. The only trick was getting it stopped in 20 feet, before I hit the front of the garage.
LOL, Blimey, you oughta get a set of "winter" tires and "summer" tires, just so you can switch out your "look"! For you, and you alone (OK, and anywhere that doesn't routinely get or drive in snow), I'll make the exception and say all-seasons are the way to go in winter. The rest of youse guys, wise up! ;-)
This made me think of my favorite snow tire story. People used to only use snows on the drive wheels. Our family had an MG 1100 sedan in the 60's. My dad took it in to have snow tires put on it. When they brought it out the snow tires were on the rear.:wink:
^^^ This same thing happened to my sister on her 73 Honda Civic. In fact she drove that way for several months. She came home from school saying how great her new Civic was in the snow with its front wheel drive & snow tires. I went out to check out these marvelous tires & found them on the rear. :lol:
I know my R53 MINI works decently without snowtires. The last time AMVIV was held in March, I drove there with summer HP tires on, not expecting to see much snow. However, normally in the winter, I do have snowtires on.