Planning to get winter tires for the SportBrake soon. I have a set of Blizzak tires I put on my Highlander each season and they are fantastic, it can get thru anything. I see Continental just released a VikingContact 7 to the US in my size, 255/35/20. No Reviews on them yet, can find a little info on them from European reviews online. I called my Discount Tire store and they can get them, they have never heard of them, but confirmed they are available now and they'll match the TireRack $.
Continental VikingContact 7
I'm surprised they're not rated as Performance Snow tires, just a Studless Ice & Snow. Do you think I'm going to notice a big difference in 'Performace', it is a snow tire I know, of this Continental vs. a Blizzak or Pirelli Sottozero ?
The main difference I see is the VikingContact is a 97T rating, 118mph, vs a 97H or V for the Performance, 130 or 149 mph.
The price is significant, almost $600 less per set for the Continental vs. Bridgestone. I will have them for a few years so the $600 spread out over a few seasons isn't much, I'm a big fan of Continental tires, I switched out the Pirelli CinturatoTouring tires that came on my SportBrake to the Continental ExtremeContact DWS-06 right after I got it.
I was going to add my reply to another existing post but didn't find any recent threads for winter tires on the XF.

 

Jagwire - same predicament... What did you end up choosing? $600 extra seems strong and anything I can find online suggest the difference would be nominal. I'm leaning towards the Conti but will be bummed if they are complete mush on dry pavement.

 

@JaguarJack12 I haven't done anything yet and may not until next Fall. My daughter will 'inherit' my 2008 Highlander next year, when she turns 16 in Aug. For now I have Blizzaks on it and it does great in snow so I will be driving it on snow days. This time next year though I will be getting snow tires for the XF as she will be driving the Highlander to school.

 

Taking into account that you're in CO and see probably 20x times the snow we see in the NYC area: I took a trip to Lake Placid this past February, and ended up driving through a 6-hour snowstorm with barely plowed roads, on stock tires. I think the Jag did amazingly well on all-seasons. I had no issues staying on the road at reasonable speeds, even on sections where it was more ice than snow.

Once we got to Lake Placid, which is right next to Whiteface mountain, so that gets a very good amount of snow, even outside the snow storms, i had no issues getting around. Again I realize that your location gets much much more snow, but with the ground clearance the Sportbrake has, do you feel it's really necessary to get snow tires? Seems to me that while the highlander could benefit due to more ground clearance, anything the Jag can't make it through would be due to sitting on top of snow and not due to traction issues.

 

Good to know about your experience with snow, we really haven't had much out here yet.
Do I really need them ? probably not
Will they make driving in winter a lot more fun ? Yes, especially in the mountains

The 255/35/20 snow tire is pretty common out here because many A6's run this size.
I really didn't want to spend $400 per tire new so I set up a craigslist alert waiting for the right ones and it popped up on Saturday. Blizzaks, almost new, 10.5 / 32nd's (new is 11/32nds) and got them mounted on Monday.

 

Very nice looking on the rim. What did it run you in the end?

 

$500 for the tires and about $80 for mounting.
The person didn't quite know how to measure the depth, I carry a tread depth gauge in my glove box, they were actually right in between 10 - 11/32nds

 

Has anyone here gone with separate wheels? I’d like to go 19” rims but 18” snow packages are way cheaper and have more availability. I’ve found a page in the manual that lists approved tires down to 17” but I’m skeptical that these will fit on Sportbrake wheels.

 

I did the Pirelli Sottozero on a 19" rim mounted and shipped to the doorstep from Tirerack, was $1900 with tpms sensors, in the mountains of CO wouldn't run an all season tire in the winter for I-70 driving on any vehicle definitely not one this nice. Next round will likely do the Blizzards, they are the best but perform well for two seasons then the soft compound is gone. Was stoked that the TPMS didn't require any programming, it knew right away, no BS trip to a dealer.

 

The wheels looks great.. I agree, the Blizzaks do wear fast. Where did you buy your SportBrake from, in CO or out of state, how long have you had it ? I've never seen another one in the Denver area but now I know there is at least one other one in CO

 

It hits all the requirements for the perfect CO car; AWD, fast, plenty of space, surprising there aren't more, however, CO market is solid for trucks and SUVs. Test drove a used white one at Flatirons JLR in mid August, that likely would have purchased but a couple weeks later it was gone, found this one in FL, and had it shipped from Orlando, where there seemed to be plenty to choose from, CPO it had 1,300 miles on it, arrived in middle of September. So far, it has been great, I have put about 5k miles on it, western slope, park city, Denver int'l a couple times. Love the white and really wanted white but this one was the best deal and had tinted windows already, lowest miles and just in service 8 months, paid the extra for extended 100k warranty. Will keep an eye out for you!

 

 

I know exactly the one you drove at FlatIrons, I drove this one also Demo SportBrake FlatIrons I almost bought it, it has 3 of the 4 option packages, but I really wanted the one option it didn't have, the Premium Interior Package,

• Side manual blind, rear electric blind
• Four-zone climate control
• Luxury inner roof upholstery
• 10 Color Ambient Lighting and Illuminated Door Sills Finishers

I really liked the Silicone Silver one in the same post and had every option except the Driver Assist. At the time I think I got the last one new or CPO anywhere that had all 4 Option packages and had the Heads-Up Display in June, found it in Santa Barbara and had it sent here on a hauler.
i also extended the warranty to 7yr / 100K miles.

 

Nice work!

 

My experience with the car so far is its pretty capable when in the snowflake mode, snow depths are not the issue, the issue comes when its below 5 degrees, running the stock 20" street tires in cold temps things will get a little loose, and hockey puck like at stop signs. You could do it with all seasons, and lots of down shifting. with a proper snow tire the car is a beast. I'm somewhat limited in that there are no good tire guys around my area, mostly convicts and hackers, so I go all in on mounted rims and do it myself. I cringed at the idea of them scratching the factory wheels, maybe it would have been fine and i'm just crazy. When it snows in the fall here they are all backed up three weeks, joke. Good Luck

 

Glad I found this thread, almost made a new one with the entire same set of questions/predicaments

I think I'm just going to get a set of Vikings for the stock 20" wheels on my SB. Thought about getting a set of 18 or 19's but for the amount of times ill even drive in the snow with WFH now being my new norm, doesn't make sense to invest in a set of aftermarkets for my winter set.

Thanks @JagWire_5280 !