Good info. Yeah, Tahoe side roads are the most tricky. Those roads are not cleared / salted well. The main roads (non highway) are somewhat better; but still tricky. I was there just this past weekend when there was a snow storm. Even after several hours of snow, the South Lake Tahoe blvd was not cleared / salted well. I was scared driving next to toyota camry's zipping along at 45 miles an hour - i am sure they were 2WD
My tires also just have 3k miles on them ; with the vehicle being brand new and bought just a few months back. I am hesitant to buy new tires just cause in my mind it feels like wasting money; altho money is not an issue. But your description of "massively totally different vehicle" is making me think.
Do you do any change in setting while driving in rain in bay area ?
My original tires at about 15,000 miles were so bad on wet pavement I started putting it in 4A. I don’t drive aggressively typically get above average mileage out of my tire life. New tires 2wh in rain zero issues No sliding, no hydroplaning etc.
Wasn’t even possible to get around South Lake without 4h mode on the original tires. I felt the same way didn’t want to get new tires but really had no choice. After getting the BFG Trail Terrain tire it was such a huge change I was really happy I did it. Safety factor of having tires that grip well on wet highway and cruddy Tahoe streets was soooo worth it.
Haven’t switched from 2whl other than at chain control and drove around south lake in cruddy road conditions in 2wh with zero issues. Even backed over the plow berm at the house into the driveway in 2wh which was hard to believe given the old tires even 4H I could hardly get into the driveway.
Really hard to explain how massively different the tires made the vehicle drive and perform in bad conditions.
Mileage impact of the tires was very little we did 23mpg SF to LA las spring on the new tires. Old tires have gotten closer to 24mpg on prior trips. So pretty marginal impact on mileage which is good given many A/T tires hit the mileage pretty hard. These haven’t had that effect.