Agreed. Should have added that I run Nokian winters and am looking
for a 3-season set. As to significant rain, we've had drought for 3
of the past 4 years. I'm living at the edge of parkland/prairie . . .
.. arid conditions with relatively low annual rainfall (you mention
Cold Lake . . . interestingly enough, historically there is
significantly more rain received in that area despite being close to
where I live). While rain is sometimes a concern, extreme heat and
highway miles is the bigger concern. I've actually never owned a tire
that didn't fare reasonably well in rains out here. Now if this was
out on the coast, certainly a different story.

You mention the wide performance tires. Necessarily low profile? Low
profile on the bad roads here equate to a rough, jarring ride. Or is
there a middle ground in this decision? I'm currently using stock 14
inch wheels.

On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 04:17:25 -0800, John Ings <nodamned@spam.org>
wrote:

>On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 04:24:49 GMT, Monroe <minburn1@telus.net> wrote:
>
>>Looking for a good tire for a 2001 Civic sedan for highway commuting
>>in rural Alberta. [...] While I'm at it, not at all familiar with
>>the pro/con, but how would moving from a 14 in (stock) to 15 in rim
>>be? Lot's of questions . . . few answers at this end.
>
>First off, forget the 'all season' crap. For Alberta you need two sets
>of tires, wide performance rain tires for summer, narrow tires with
>high sidewalls for winter. That means two sets of wheels, nice spiffy
>alloys in the summer, smaller diameter stamped steel wheels for
>winter. For winter I recommend Bridgestone Blizzaks.
>
>Been there, done that, Edmonton and Cold Lake
>

--

Monroe