Snow tires and size question?

I live in CA and am moving to norther western MN/near fargo ND in late Jan. I drive an 01 expedition RWD. I am pgurchaing studless snow tires, and want to know if it is ok to put them on in CA for the drive out there, that way i dont have to put them on in MN. I will be driving through the rockys during the winter and thought that it would be a good idea to put them on before hand. Also will i have problems with the tires while driving in non-winter conditions? one other thing. my current wheel/tire size is 255/70/16, can i put on a 26570/16?

bkg

The snow tires will ride a little rougher and be noisier than the standard radials. I would recommend putting them on before you leave due to the prevalence of snow through the north this time of year.

The 265/70-16's are only about a 1/2" taller than the other tires (30.61" vs. 30.06") so that is no big deal. It might throw off your speedometer a mile or two per hour.

You have a heavy vehicle with only RWD, so drive careful and keep it between the ditches.

ladybugewa

Studless winter tires will be fine for that ammount of driving on pavement. I actually drove a whole summer on such tires once (had no choice) and they didn't wear more or give me any trouble.
For the future, with snow tires, slimmer is better. You could have gone a couple of sizes down, and instead you went a size up. But that should be fine, make sure you have the air pressure at the optimal range for the car. When garages install tires, they often over-inflate them. Check before the roadtrip, and let some air out if that's the case. Also, request that they hand-torque the wheel studs - very often the garages put your wheels back on with the air gun. Safety requires that your wheel studs are torqued to a certain setting, and that setting is different for all cars, but many tire places ignore this. Be aware - properly torqued wheels are a must. And watch out for that over-steer, a RWD vehicle is excellent for racing, but not so much for driving in slippery conditions.

wbaker777

You should experience no problems at all. The tires size change may to a small degree effect your actual speedometer reading but not by much.

temerson

Yes you can put them on in Ca. and yes you can run a wider tire but wider is not better in the snow a wider tire spreads out the contact patch keeping the tire 'floating' a narrower tire cuts through the snow to find traction underneath. Regardless a large rear wheel drive vehicle is a nightmare in the snow.

kelly_f_1999

well any all weather tire would be better since you would wear the studs off the more miles you drive without snow so just buy a all season tire would do

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