After consider purchasing a Rogue I encountered a big setback. After reading the posts on here about the tires in the snow being crappy and seeing it I know why. I currenty have a 2006 Chevy Equinox and was behing a Rogue today. Their tires lool like doughnuts from the back! They are like half as wide as my tires are. This is a big turnoff? Why would they do that???????

Follow the dollar. Nissan did a lot of things to keep the starting price on the Rogue south of 20 grand. Either of the two oem tire brands are just adequate....barely.

The width is totally not an issue, this isn't an oversized jerk-mobile like most SUV's that are meant to make statements about needless excess or for guys to compensate for other shortcomings. The Rogue is a perfect size for most people, the issue with the OEM tires is their quality, not with the width. This isn't an off-road machine, and that is the reaoson why I bought it, like most people I don't need an off-roader just to cruise around town and drop my kid off at school.

Every vehicle you buy will have a long list of positives and negatives, there is no perfect vehicle. What you have to do is buy the vehicle with the most positves and the least negatives and I found that Rogue won this no problem, no competitors could touch it, but you'll have to do your own research.

Wider tires are better for sports cars.

Narrower tires are better for the Rogue.

Narrow is better in the snow because wide tires plane across the top and don't dig in as well. Narrow is also better for fuel efficiency and road noise as well. Not to mention the fact that they are less expensive.

Nicely stated. Way to much whining about the Rogue on this website. I love mine, and I think Nissan spent money on the right stuff on this model.

I did replace my standard tires with Yokohama Geolander snow tires and have superb traction on snow and ice.

Eikon wrote:Wider tires are better for sports cars.

Narrower tires are better for the Rogue.

Narrow is better in the snow because wide tires plane across the top and don't dig in as well. Narrow is also better for fuel efficiency and road noise as well. Not to mention the fact that they are less expensive.

Eikon, I couldn't agree more!

Wow everyone gets all offended when you talk about the Rogue. Relax. I'm just making a valid point. I have worked @ a custom car shop before and have to disagree with the thin tire comments being better. A friend of mine has a Rogue and I DO like it but it does have issues in snow and ice as the other people on here that posted about. My current SUV that DOES have wider tires I can try to do doughnuts in the snow and it barely slides, try that with the Rogue. All i'm saying is I shouldn't have to buy new tires on a brand new vechile. Also for an SUV/crossover taking turns @ higher speeds wider tires grip the road better.

Well, what can we say... we are all very passionate about our cars!

There is some truth about narrower winter tires being better. Going back to my racing days and some of the classroom lessons....

Generally for a given vehicle and various tire widths, the surface area of the contact patch is the same. It just changes shape. As tire width increases, the tread becomes wider in width and shorter in length. However a tire is not static, it also moves and flexes under various loads.

On dry pavement, wider tires are preferred as the much of the grip comes from the leading (front) edge of the contact patch, esp at the limit of adhesion. Is the tire gets wider, the leading edge increases in size improving grip. Yes, I do agree that wide tires on dry pavement are preferred.

On snow however, it is a different case. Grip comes from compacting the snow to form ridges that it can 'push off from'. This compaction is a function of pressure and time. A wider tire has a wide contact patch and short length. The wider tire is effectively having to compact more snow in a shorter period of time vs. a narrow one. As you increase speed, the amount of time the wide tire spends in contact with a given patch of snow decreases further, compacts less, and those ridges don't form reducing grip.

Back to the original topic:

The Rogue's sometimes poor snow performance is largely a function of the OEM tires. It's anybody's guess why Nissan chose the Conti's or the Dunlops. They (like many all season tires) are horrible in snow. Properly equipped with winter tires (I recommend the narrower 215/70R16 width of the the base model) however, the Rogue IMHO is a very good in snow. It has far less weight than the typical full size 4x4 which really helps in stopping and turning. It's a far cry from my 4000lb '87 Nissan Pathfinder SE-V6 4x4, all that weight was a PITA to slow down and turn. I would take the Rogue hands down over the Pathy during winter.

To base you decision solely based on the fact that you saw a Rogue spinning tires in the snow is not very educated. First of maybe it was the driver, second as stated the stock tires are not that good in the snow. This is a problem with many other vehicles with so called all seasons. Allseasons no matter how good will never replace good snow tires.I just installed Toyo Observe winter tires and we had our first real snow fall yesterday. I tried to have the VDC kick in by making sharp turns but the tires just stayed put. Tried that with the Conti's last year and forget it they were horrible.

Paul

@ Paul trust me you have no idea about my education and you will be in a losing battle if you want to go there. I never said I was soley basing my decision on the tires spinning but when it comes to safety for children, YES I am worried about the traction of the Rogue in the snow and I find it ridiculous to go out and by new tires for a brand new vechile. When some cars handle better in the snow, I find that to be a problem. This is my only downfall about the Rogue and every cars/suv,etc has one, but sometimes these car companys should think a little bit better.

Let's play nicely everyone. No need to start an argument over a simple question or opinion.

dunks72,

I would suggest going for a test drive with a Rogue under real snow conditions. This is the only way to determine if the traction/safety issue of the Rogue with OEM tires is an issue for you.

Personally, I have driven the Rogue with the OEM all season tires and dedicated snow tires. The OEM all season's are night and day vs. dedicated snow tires as I expect it would be for any vehicle. Considering I have used snow tires on all my vehicles, I am biased. Others may find all season tires perfectly acceptable during winter.

Wide tires are not good in snow, its a fact:

"Does your sports car, coupe or sedan use wide, low profile tires that are mounted on large diameter wheels? Or does your light truck use large flotation-sized tires? If you're going to drive through lots of snow this year you'll want your winter tires and wheels in sizes that help put the laws of physics on your side.

A wide, low profile or large tire has to "plow" a wide path through snow which causes more resistance. The narrower the tire, the easier you can get through snow. "

- http://www.tirerack.com/winter...d=126

I have to side with the Rogue owners here, the tires (even stock ones) are adequate. Heck The only time I ever spun the tires of my 1987 2-door Toyota Tercel (with what must have been 12-13" tires, well, maybe 14"?) was from a dead stop while on a patch of ice.

The reason, I just change my driving style. Its like watching F1, even with the slicks on in rain, drivings still need to adjust.

My guess if for people who care, stock tires on more than 50% of vehicles are inadequate.

Kind of touchy?? I did not mean to suggest you have a lack of education, its just the way you questioned the Rogue in the snow. Maybe the tires are less wide than your current vehicle. All I was trying to say is that there is more to a vehicle than just the tires. In just about every vehicle I have owned I ended up getting snow tires. Our Edmonton winters give us a lot of snow and winter tires imo are a must.

Paul

Rogue:



Trailblazer SS:



Grand Cherokee SRT-8



Or if you're British and have a different idea of performance SUV:



Last time I checked, the Rogue was not a performance SUV. I could be wrong though. If the standards that define a performance SUV have since dropped down overnight to something with a 2.5L I4 with 170 HP, let me know.It doesn't need wide tires. It's handling is adequate. It's already been stated as one of the sportier SUV's in its class.

This is one of the dumbest threads on this forum, who the hell judges a vehicle based on a passing glance of the tires anyway? This whole thing should be deleted and we should concentrate on intelligent threads. This one is dumb on so many levels. If you want to evaluate a vehicle on a brief glance of the tires, then go ahead, buy a cheap overpriced Jeep/Dodge with big tires - it'll have terrible quality but at least the tires will be "real big!" because hhat is all that matters for a vehicle. You and my 3 year old and can get all excited about it and your 30 grand will be very well spent, meanwhile my well-built Nissan with the great price tag will be my little secret. Somehow I'm not upset that dumbasses who evaluate vehicles based on tire width don't know what a great deal the Rogue is.

Kerrton... Thank you.

Dunks --If you read the title of your thread, you asked for people's opinions. If you get disagreement, you asked for it.

As far as my opinion, I live in Southern California, where it never snows. I bought my Rogue for many reasons, and if the tires are narrower, it also means that they have less rolling resistance than nice fat tires, equalling better gas mileage. The car works just fine for me, as I can fill it with fishing gear when I go fishing, yet it still gets decent gas mileage as a daily driver.

Okay, okay... let's all take a break here and relax.

Everyone can forget I even asked. I did ask for opinions not for people to downgrade my intelligence or education. I am a 30 year old doctor who probably has more education then you and your souse put together and can purchase a landrover if I wanted to. My fiance likes the Rogue and I do also but I am worried about safety. Bottom line from what I got out of this is 50% of Rogue owners that replied to my post where helpful and informative. The rest are losers. Thanks for everyones input, I made my decision

Unless your doctorate is in the field of tire width on small SUV's, your prior education has zero value in this conversation.

Nobody insulted your intelligence or education... In fact, nobody cares! So you can take your pride and apparent lack of self-confidence to another forum.

To anyone else reading this thread... Clearly the original poster didn't chose to be a valuable participant in this forum.

I won't get rid of this thread because it does have some very valuable insight into tire widths that might be helpful for future forum members to read.

The fact that little arguments and drama like this thread are so rare is proof that the membership of the Rogue forum is one of the best on the net.

Thanks gang!