Reply to "High-performance tires and cold, wet weather"

First I need to say that I am sorry for your loss.

I have never driven my Pantera in winter conditions. I do not know how it would react.

I can say that the original factory configuration is exceptional even in flooded pavements.

I know that no matter what you do some cars respond negatively to wider/lower profiles.

I know that summer profile tires are made just for that. Summer warm and hot road conditions. The formula of the rubber compound just won't work in cold conditions. With full depth treads many summer tires can get by in a dusting BUT really are leathal with anything approaching ice.

Believe this or not but the best high performance tire that I have ever driven in real winter conditions is the Goodyear Gatorback GT+4 with the unidirectional pattern. These were original equipment on my Taurus SHO. I went through three sets of them, 215-60-16.

I made the mistake of going to a 225-55-16 with an "all-season" aqua tread. It has been nothing but problems. It virtually hydroplanes on dry pavement, and it is a AA traction tire.

Tires are probably 90% of the handling of the car. If you change the profile that's ok, BUT you are re-engineering the car. For Southern Californian type driving it is no problem. Here in the NE that COULD be very leathal.

The compounds on todays high performance tires are sophisticated. When they say summer ONLY, they aren't screwing around. One doesn't need a prescription to buy tires here, but maybe that isn't a bad idea.

I'm not lecturing, I'm still learning, and like you it is a hard learning curve.