no it doesn't. nor does it snow often in portland. that is why some many people get caught in situations like these.

 

Here is my reasoning. What costs more, a set of snow tires, or 2-3 days salary from missing a few days of work? A set of snow tires, or your insurance deductible? The way I see it, when it snows you are either going to be stuck at home, chance driving on bad tires, or get to where you need to be on snow tires. Granted that when I was in Seattle I worked at a tire shop, and HAD to get to work on snow days, but unless you have AWD you should get snow tires if you live where you get snow a few times a year on average. At a minimum carry chains, but I am not a fan of those because people often install them poorly so they come off on the road and act as land mines. Plus as they wear, they leave little half crescent pieces of metal that cause flat tires. On an average day we would have maybe 10-15 flat tires. On a day where people were using chains, or in the few days after, we would average a minimum of 30+ flat tires, and they all had the same damn pieces of tire chains stuck in them.

 

i hear what you are saying probably depends on your situation. it snowed so infrequently when I lived in portland (2001-2005,2006-2009) that i never had em. I just either took a couple of vacation days or worked from home for the couple of days it snowed. In 2008 when it snowed a ton (about 18 inches where I lived in portland and stayed around) i got pretty stuck. I ended up having a buddy with chains get me some chains and we just drove the odyssey (FWD) around and it worked fine.

I bought snow tires for the evo as it can't use chains. never snowed that year and i then i ended up moving to calif and then crashing it...so big waste. I don't know. I never would of really used my snow tires, but some of the new ones are so good you can use them almost as all season tires so maybe it works out ok.

Most people believe all season tires will work in the snow and with AWD they will work in a little snow where the streets are pretty flat. Big problem in portland, in the west hills where I lived is some of the streets are very,very steep and narrow and never plowed or salted...that is where it gets crazy even with snow tires sometimes.

I admit the ability to just stay home and either work or take a day or two off is a luxury I've had ever since getting out of college. I realize that isn't everyone's situation. I also realize a lot of people just don't know how important the right tires are in the snow or can't afford two sets of rims or even two sets of tires. It ends up making for a bad deal when it snows in places people don't expect much of it.

 

Seattle gets snow once in a full moon. Even when surrounding cities get like 10ft of snow, Seattle doesn't even get a dust of snow. As of now, my town has more than a foot of snow and Seattle barely has any. On days like these, I love my AWD SUV.

 

So it snows every month in Seattle?

 

LOL, if you think that is bad then I wouldnt go anywhere near detroit.


pwnd

 

Absolutely true. When I moved to Alberta from Texas, the first thing I did was buy snow tires for all of our vehicles. With a $500 deductible on our vehicles, a single accident cost as much as set of snow tires. Avoiding one accident more than pays for the tires. I also put them on earlier than most people. An extra 5% wear (total cost - about $20) vs the cost of an accident because I waited for the first snowfall to put them on made that an easy choice.

 

Blue moon. Blue moon, full moon, who gives a shit. . It's actually even rarer than both.

 

seattle avgs about 7 inches a year
alberta looks to be 10X that in many areas......not exactly comparable. If I was moving to alberta I would have snow tires on my vehicles too.

 

My point was, the cost of one accident is more than the cost of a set of winter tires. It's a no brainer if you intend to drive in snowy conditions, especially when ice tends to form due to daytime melting turning into nighttime freezing.