My area got several inches of freezing sleet. On the ground it looked a bit like snow but was much closer to ice. My E has stock size Geolander tires. I was driving circles around everything else on the road. The 2 wheel drive vehicles were all getting stuck by the super heavy slush. The big SUVs with fat tires were getting yanked all over the road by the tracked up heavy slush. The only vehicles moving more or less normally were small SUVs with relatively narrow tires. The heavy slush did not stop at all and the steering stayed fine. Appropriate caution for braking and cornering and a sharp eye out for idiots was all that was needed for any E driver.

I was thinking about wider tires, but not any more. 235s would have significantly hurt performance in this mess. The narrower tires cut through the tracks and mounds and don't get grabbed or tend to float like wider tires would.

Zoom

We had the same thing here in Fredericksburg, but i have to say that i was incredibly impressed with how my element handled. Yeah I'm running 245/55 18s and they are a BFG "all-season" high performance tire, but the 4wd system worked great. I could feel it kicking in, but going around corners and driving through the heavy slush it did just fine.

I have the 225 Fortera's on mine and they drove through the stuff with no problems. The main street to my job hadn't been plowed yet, but she still cut thourg the slush.

last night and today we got 5'' snow and sleet and the BadYears did ok though i am going to get something else when they wear out..:cool:

I love hearing these stories about how well our Es do in nasty weather. Still, I hope to try out my own RT4WD someday. :sad:

We had the same sort of thing in Montgomery County. Some of the side streets were not touched at all, and my E handled them easily. I still have the stock Wrangler tires on the E, but plan to upgrade in the spring. Still, no problems.

yeah, before I upgraded i thought the stock tires did surprisingly great in the snow. I would punch it, the 4wd would kick in but they would keep me going straight, wouldn't seem like I was losing traction at all. I feel like we don't get enough winter weather around here for me to switch from the summer/winter setup, but I will admit that I would have felt more confident with my stock wheels and tires on today.

biggest problem i had was getting out of the driveway.

Well I drove through some crap yesterday coming home and where ever I was in snow my E did fine but driving on 1/2 inch to one inch of ice under snow was tricky but then it was tricky for anyone even with bigger 4x4 drves.
Ice is miserable.
But The E does fine with everything else.
Loving it.
jurn

The narrower the tire, the more weight/sq in of the contact patch = better traction. Tread design is important, my wife's X5 struggles because it has 275/40/19 high performance (dry) tires. Just the opposite on the beach, wider is better.
ed