wingless

Has anyone tried these LM-25 tires yet?

I have a set of four on the way from Tire Rack, mounted on ASA ST4 wheels with MB centers.

These will be used on my '05 Sports Coupe.

LCotts

I put on 205/55-16 LM-22's on Mille Miglia Bella wheels and they are absolutely outstanding. We had about 12in of snow last week and they are better than any FWD even without adding weight in the rear. I have an 03 C230K SS.

ChicagoC320

I also have the LM-22's and they have been outstanding. This is the first that I've heard of the LM-25, must be a new version of the 22's?

KristKustoms

I love mine also. Night and day difference with for the 17 inch "summer" tires. I have the exact same combo as LCotts.

wingless

The attached image is the Bridgestone Blizzak LM-25 mounted on ASA ST3 wheels. The sizes are 225/45VR17 on 17x8 wheels.

My prior experience with the LM-22 tires was also very good. I look forward to trying these on my MB.

Two have arrived, two are due on Monday. They had to ship from different locations.

Luke@tirerack

that wheel is the ST4 not ST3

x-tian-230k

Luke are those AMG replica's? I am looking for CLK55 AMG style rims, not two piece but one piece in an 18 inch diameter.

wingless

My first impressions of these tires are favorable. These have acceptable road feel and feedback. They are stable at high-speed in dry and wet. The cornering grip is acceptable. The traction on snow is acceptable.

On glare ice, there is diminished traction. Normal slippery road driving techniques are required under glare ice conditions, but no problem maintaining control and traction.

These are tires that I would recommend. When compared against the LM-22, I find the high-speed and cornering characteristics better in the LM-25 tires.

Narcissus

Great tires but very bad thread, after 50% used the thread pattern changes and makes them more like all-season tires than winter tires...

This was for LM-22 and I assume is the same for LM-25, maybe Luke can advise?

wingless

That has been my experience with all winter-only tires, not just the various Blizzak offerings.

Typically what I'll do is keep them on in the spring, after the last useful winter, to burn up the remaining tread, prior to replacement the following season.

wingless

The ride home this evening was horrible, again.

The biggest difficulty was discerning road from not road. That sucks. The white-out conditions did not help.

Whenever prior tire tracks were visible, those could be followed, with the assumption the prior driver didn't have bad luck.

But the LM-25 tires again did the job. There were instances of diminished traction on snow-covered glare ice, but no complaints.

After living with these tires for a while, I find the snow and ice performance very similar to the LM-22 tires.

These tires are vastly superior in the dry road performance. The cornering and high-speed performance is much better than the LM-22.

So, for those who need snows, where the roads are not always snow covered, the LM-25 is the better choice. These tires make the winter months much more bearable.

doctarm

So you have not really had a problem with these tires on snow? How much are they?

wingless

My prior posts were my best effort at describing the snow, ice and dry performance of these tires.
The pricing is almost irrelevant. Let's say a set of four tires costs $600 and lasts 15K miles. That works out to 4 cents per mile. If another set costs $700 and also lasts 15K miles, those end up costing $0.047 cents per mile.

These were bought at Tire Rack.

The other cost issue is having two sets of tires. That also is close to being irrelevant. If a set of tires lasts 15K miles and during the winter 7K miles are put on the snow-only tires, then the summer-only tires are idle, not burning up tread.

So, there is not a huge cost hit from having maximum year round performance, instead of average performance.

There is also a VERY big safety benefit from using the best tires available. I see many vehicles, with average performing all-season tires slip-sliding around.

wingless

My cheap Korean ASA ST-3 MB knock-off winter wheels got all pitted on the clear-coat polished lip. I couldn't get them looking nice, so I decided to try removing the clear coat and polishing the lip. It worked pretty good. They look SO much better, they are acceptable until I burn through the Blizzak LM-23 and put my factory summer wheels / tires on.

The wheels were cleaned with acetone all over. It got the slime from 3 winters off, that would not budge with other cleaners, polishes or waxes. Note - do NOT use this chemical unless the wheels are otherwise ruined, as it is very aggressive.

The acetone cleaned the painted front and back of the wheel very well, but the pitted lip still looked really bad. It removed everything, right down to the paint. I used acetone and an SOS pad on just the lip to remove the clear coat. I then polished the bare aluminum with metal polish, all by hand.

There is still minor lip irregularities that would require a mechanical polisher to eliminate, but I'm happy as-is.



New ASA ST-3 Wheel




Combination - Left - Clean and Pitted - Right - Polished