fivepointfivev8

I thought about doing that as that size is available in the Michelins, but I figured with the softer compound the rears will most likely wear faster, why not get all the same size, you can rotate them later. We are lucky if we even get snow where we are so the majority of driving on my snows are on dry or wet roads. If I lived in an area where there was a lot of snow, I'd look into the Nokian RSI and smaller, skinnier rims. As the guy at tirerack said, once you start looking at the premium brand snows, you begin to split hairs. Since these tires are going on the wide stock rims, they will behave more like all season tires (anyway) as opposed to a skinnier tire all around.

OPM

First, I must say that I do NOT own Viking3. However, a few respectable European magazines have consistently scored it ahead of RSi, which is a phenomenal tire. Just like RSi, Viking3 was R&D in a Nordic country where people know how to make winter tires. The 9 months a year snow/ice covered test tracks help. I did have a chance to play with these tires in the snow on a friend’s car and I was not disappointed. However my first hand experience was too short to draw any reasonable conclusions. I am genuinely surprised to hear these tires easily hydroplane, but I’ll take your word for it. RSi do not hydroplane; at least not easily. Having said that, hydroplaning is a factor of weight load on the tire, dimension of the tire patch, wheels speed, water depth, etc. Not to mention contributing factors like wind, road angle, temperature, etc. The point is that any tire, including specifically designed rain race tires, can be forced to hydroplaning. Thus, if Viking3 hydroplaned a few times I would try to analyze reasons. Was the tire deflated? How fast were you driving? Were you cornering and thus taking the load off the wheel that hydroplaned? Were the tires too wide for the cars static weight? Etc., etc., etc. However, if they hydroplane all the time, than get RSi and live a happy life.