We're in Washington, DC area and get some snow each year. My wife recently acquired an '07 VDP with 10K miles and 19" wheels with OEM Pirelli summer tires. She has option of using her '02 Volvo V40 for bad weather, but I'd like to have a decent set of tires (not the summer tires) on the Jag for cold weather to give her an option. For my car ('05 MB CL600) I use Dunlop Winter Sport M3. However if I want Dunlops for her Jag, I need to buy 18" rims. If I were to stay with the 19" what tires would folk recommend? I see choices for winter tires in 19" such as Blizzak LM-60 and Pirelli Winter 240 SottoZero. There's always the 'compromise' of all-season (eg, Michellin Pilot Sport A/S) and forgetting the summer-winter tire swap. Best of both worlds would be to buy 18" for winter and keep summer tires on the 19" wheels but it's a hassle storing the tires off-season.

If you're driving your XJ8 in the snow, what's tires do you have holding it on the road? Do most folk bite the bullet and go to dedicated winter setup, run an all-season thru-out the year or leave the Jag at home (just run summer tires) and drive the winter 'beater'?

 

As we don't have experience with running the VDP in winter yet, I was looking for feedback from folk that run their car in winter and hit snow. It looks like folk that responded were using blizzaks (so winter tire was recommended).

I normally browse tire rack web site for user comparisons but so very few Jag owners had posted reviews of winter tires (eg, Dunlop Winter Sport, Pirelli SottoZero or Blizzak) on that site that I was looking for additional feedback.

Does anyone run an all-season (eg, Michellin Pilot Sport A/S) thru-out the year in an environment where they encounter snowy conditions (could comment on handling with A/S tires)?

I'm still contemplating if I should simply discard the P-Zero OEM tires (12K miles and could go another year) and just move to an A/S (eg, Michellin Pilot Sport A/S Plus) on the 19" rims for year-round conditions.

I could also bite the bullet and try SottoZero on existing 19" OEM wheels and consider separate purchase of summer tires in the Spring.

If rotating two tire sets (summer and winter) on existing 19" rims (2x per year) the rotation costs would catch up with the alternative (buying 18" rims for winter and Dunlop Winter Sport or similar) after 4-5 years (which is probably the life span of vehicle before trade) and the benefit of having dedicated winter might not outweigh the year-round A/S approach unless we suffer bad winters.