ION Tires - crap?

Anyone else find their stock ION.3 tires to be virtually useless in all but
perfectly dry conditions?

The slightest bit of wet, and I'm slip sliding awayyy-heyyyy. Snow? Forget
it. Already got stuck once in my driveway while my wife's '01 all-season
equipped Honda just pounced right on through. Time for some winters, I
guess, then some new all-seasons in the spring.

bleah. I also had to replce the wipers early on because they sucked too -
don't get me wrong, I LOVE my Saturn, but I would have preferred they
charged me the few hundred it would have cost them for quality parts, or
tell me up front where they've cut corners, instead of letting me figure it
out on my own at the end of my driveway, swearing at my shovel at 6:00am...


-e

 

What is the tire pressure? As this can make a BIG difference.

 

I don't have an ION, but wider tires are worse in snow, in my opinion,
all-season tires aren't for snow-belt areas. My first tires in my 95SL2 we
terrible in rain and snow, when I got the car at 3-years old; got rid of
them after the first snow storm. A guy I know just got an 04 Toyota Corolla,
and he said the tires were bad on ice and snow. If you are keeping your car,
it's worth it to have a second set of winter tires, as sooner or later, you
will need to get new tires, and your all-seasons will last longer.

 

I've found the Firehawk tires on my QC to be fairly good on snow/ice,
actually. Though it probably depends on the particular conditions - deep
snow may be more of a problem, but we don't get much of that here..

As far as the wipers, apparently the angle of the wiper arms can tend to
cause the wiper blades to chatter - there's a TSB about it, they're supposed
to have some new wiper arms that work better.

 

[snip]

My buddy always had monster tires on his 4x4 until winter when he
plowed snow to make ends meet. Then he was back to 78 - 83 series
narrow tires.

Wes

 

My ION3 tires are fine on the snow, and ice, and rain.

Replaced the chattering wipers with Canadian Tire winter teflons. Purrfectly
quiet now.

Only problem is, notice that the stock driver's side wiper had a foil. The
replacements don't, and I've noticed the driver's side blade lifting at
highway speeds.

Chris in Ottawa