General AltiMax Artic versus Falken Espia EPZ

[UUNCNDL1]

Looking for Subaru owners using either
General AltiMax Artic or Falken Espia EPZ
Winter Tires 215/65R-16
These will be winter only tires mounted on stock 16 inch rims
They are normally the same price = $356.00 (four tires)
But, The Falkens have an additional $60 off

Any comments would be great.

[UUNCNDL1]

Hello, I'm 90% sure that I'm getting the General's, but was interested in / if any one was running Falken espia EPZ's on their Subaru...
Thanks

[AWDFTW]

Considering there is only 1 other post on the forums mentioning them, I think it is doubtful.

Altimax Artic are a great bang for the buck tire.

[mcbrew]

Can't say yet... but I will be receiving my General AltiMax Arctics tomorrow... mounted on 16" steelies. There's no snow at the moment.. and probably won't be any here in Md until late Jan... but I want to be prepared. I'll let you know once I get some white stuff under them.

[Ceridwen]

We are running studded altimax arctics on 16" steelies. Roads here get icy very quickly since salt is used in very limited amounts if at all. Only had one real snowfall since we put them on Nov. 3rd but we took the outback out to test the tires and they were great. When we woke up that morning there were multiple turn around lines in the snow on our street from cars that could not make it up the hill (and only one set of wheel marks that actually made it up the hill!). The outback handled the hill without any tire spin at all. Only by braking or taking turns faster than we normally would could we get any loss of traction at all, and even then the car was still under control.

They are loud at low speeds (as are all studded tires) but not much louder than stock tires at highway speeds. In dry conditions the handling is a bit worse than the stock tires, but they handle fine in wet conditions (including a 3 hour trip in pouring rain with the cargo basket on top and 30mph+ winds). In slush and on icy roads they have been great so far, though we've only had a couple of inches of slush to deal with.

Not sure how different the performance would be unstudded.

[mcbrew]

They don't allow studs here... and as the roads usually aren't covered for long, they would just end up beating up the roads. I don't really know, since I have never driven with studded tires, but I know that there is a night and day difference between ANY all-season and ANY snow tire. I drove rear-wheel-drive Mercedes for many years... and they don't go anywhere in all-seasons if there is more than 1/2" of snow on the ground. Seriously... can't even get them started up the driveway. With snow tires all around, they move nearly as well as an AWD with all-seasons.