Btw, I have found mail-in rebates for Toyo (60$ before Jan) and Yokohama (60$ before end of Sept, 40$ in Oct).
I couldn't find anything for Hankook... this might sway me towards the Yokohama Ice Guard 20. I probably will end up buying my winter tires in the next couple of weeks and store them until around mid November.
I found those rebates too. Toyo rebate is good until December, plus you can pre-register on line and shave weeks off of delivery of it. Yokohama rebate - well, you 'might' get it at Christmas time but hard to say.
One thing I found about the Geolanders I had on my Pathfinder, if I wasn't in 4WD, and I was on ice, I would spin. Not as much as an all season tire, but the grip I thought would be there, wasn't. There were fantastic in snow though. If I were to rate them, I'd say 10 of 10 for snow, and 7 out of 10 for ice (with studs the only tire at 10 out of 10 IMO, the best a non studded tire could do in my rating would be a 9).
Now that being said, I felt very safe in them, but only if I was in 4WD. in 2WD (RWD for a Pathfinder) I would struggle on ice and spin my tires easily on my driveway (though I could make it up).
So, for this reason (the rebate is just the kicker) I'm going to try the Toyo Observe GO2 on my new Outback. Only drawback is unlike my Pathfinder, the Outback is alway in AWD mode so I don't expect much slippage from a start. I'm more curious about how they stop and how they handle curvy roads and acceleration coming off an off-ramp where while accelerating you can hit black ice and spin out (thank you very much - why I dropped the "all weather" BS tires went to a dedicated snow to begin with).
Anyway, Shnak - I hope you post your impressions of your IG20's once the snow flies and the ice accumulates on the road. I'll do the same with the Toyo's. I'm hoping I'll have better ice control though according to some reviews I won't. We'll see I guess.
