Tires DUNLOP or GENERAL TIRE
Both are not at the top of the current offerings...but the ZII is better than the NT05. Make sure you have a sprayer to keep them cool because grip falls off a cliff once they get hot.
I don't shave tires, and I ran 150+ runs and a few thousand street miles easily on my Z2s last year. They still have life left in them.
check out General Altimax Arctic tires, Im on my 3rd season and they have plenty of life left to them and made my E30 a champ in the snow.
I have lived in the snowiest city on earth (Valdez, AK) as well as the UP of Michigan and now in Maine and I've always used the Dunlop Winter Sport M3's with great results. I will keep using these (or Winter Sport 3D for larger wheels) as long as they make them.
I am running Dunlop wintersport 3D's on my Mk6 GTI and regularly take it through some really nasty stuff to go skiing here in CO. I will likely buy Dunlop winters again. They are my first winter tires, but they seem to perform well. They are on their 3rd winter, I think, and they still mange to get me around just fine. The only times I ran into issues was when I was trying to go up steep grades from a stop on very slick roads, but that is more to do with the lack of AWD than the tire. They also perform well in the dry, even on some of our testing mountain roads here.
If you don't have a lot of actual ice and snow, the Dunlop Wintersport tires are fantastic. They're like a performance winter tire. I've had Nokian, Toyo, Bridgestone, Michelin, Dunlop - all have pro's and con's but for performance the Wintersport tires have been far superior as they still have excellent dry weather grip for aggressive driving.
These I am running on my 7 R actually (225/40/18) and had them on my 6 R as well for the last winter. I can highly recommend this tire cause it's good in wet and snowy conditions and in addition very 'sporty' (for a winter tire) if you have dry conditions in winter. Probably the best winter tire I ever had.
Put my 16" golf oem rims and general artimax tires on last night. So far very happy with the road noise and handling even in 60 degree temps here in NJ.
Drove in the rain with the Dunlop Saturday. The traction control came on a few times, but I think its due more to the amount of low-end torque the GLI makes. Now it wasn't difficult to drive, just watch how much throttle you give it.
you probably had the same OEM dunlops that i had. those things were absolute garbage. i drove for a year in fear of driving over windy bridges with those things. after i changed tires, it was a whole new car.
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