Test of Winter tyres compared to AWD

[Monterra]

Decent when you have more than half of when new tread depth. Year 1 I usually do ok and leave them but once most AS tires have about 15-20k on them the snow/ice capability is severely reduced obviously displayed by mr forester trying to milk his one more year and shouldn't have been out in a storm with compromised rubber. Had geolanders on our old xt and it was ok but I replaced them @30 with nokian wr- much better snow tilted all weather tire. Running Pirelli ice and snows now and very happy to have them for Nemo and they handle great in dry and wet conditions too. They used to carry 225/65-17s i have on crv but now I don't find them on tr.

 

[ManMachine]

I think it really depends on where you drive. Many areas get salted very quickly and people may hardly ever see snow on the road.

For our 2 cars, I have 2 sets of winter tires. However, in the Pacific Northwest we hardly get any snow in the metro area - and when there's snow - or worst, ice, the roads are never cleared out, so snow/ice is the least of my worries - it's other people's cars. In our area, it's usually better to stay at home if one can help it. Some all season tires such as Continental DWS are quite good at dealing with minor snow fall.

For those who encounter snow/ice regularly, especially with hills, AWD + winter tires is a no brainer.

 

[nizzy1115]

I had the dws on my mazda 3 and the geolanders seem far better. It could possibly be that the tcs is much better in the cx5 too though, who knows.

 

[Bombadil]

The Yokohama Geolander G91a is a very mediocre snow tire. Just look at the tread pattern. That's not for snow. And it has the typical harder rubber of an all-season. The survey results at Tire Rack show it to be below average on snow traction, even for an all-season. And the best all-seasons are well below a real snow tire on snow.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Yokohama&tireModel=Geolandar+G91A

Frankly this tire isn't even that good on wet roads. It's a below average tire overall. In the Tire Rack survey of 257 owners of Geolanders, only 30% said they would buy the tire again.

So if you are out there driving on these on snowy roads, be careful. The CX-5 may have a lot of features which will assist you but this tire isn't going to give you a lot of grip to work with.

Now if we had been lucky enough to get this series of Geolanders, the H/T-S G051, we'd be in better shape:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Yokohama&tireModel=Geolandar+H/T-S+G051

Unfortunately they don't make them in the 225/65-17 size used on the CX-5.