Actually we do. Here's the question:
My question is I would be using these as my daily driver and the noise does not bother me. Can I use winter tires year round, and how is the wear?

And it has been answered. You can, and millions do, run "all weather" tires all year. They do fine and wear well Michellin makes several. "Snow" tires don't do well year-round because of the rubber compound.

 

I suggest you do a little more research on studs. I read quite a few studies trying to sort rumor from fact. Modern studs only protrude aprox. 1.7mm from the tread, and show little to no effect on dry pavement performance. They also have next to no impact on road surface wear -- the main reason studs are often discouraged by government agencies. Note that older stud designs protruded quite a bit more, and many of the older studies (the basis for many current 'opinions') were based on these longer studs. The only downside I could find on modern studs (aside from the noise, of course), is they're only super effective within a specific temperature range. They're *very* effective in that range though! :-)

js.

 

Thanks giys for your help. So a dedicated snow tire will wear out pretty quick. I guess it is back to square one to find some tires for the JK.

 

Watch out; "snow tires" and "winter tires" are not the same thing. "Snow tires" (aka M+S) are usually fine for the summer, but often lack sipes and have harder rubber, so they're not great in rain or on ice. "Winter tires" (aka the "Mountain & Snowflake Symbol") are the ones with the softer rubber compound and lots of sipes. You probably want to avoid running these in summer since they'll wear out quickly. You can enhance a "snow tire" with additional sipes and studs, as I did with my M-55s, but they can't really match the performance of a proper "winter tire" (like the Toyo G-O2 Plus for example) on the road. Then again, I can still run trails with my M-55s in the winter. :-)

js.

 

Winter tires ARE NOT all-weather or all-season tires, unless it's winter all the time!

So no, no one properly answered it :P

 

Running a winter tire in summer is probably on par with using an all-season tire in winter. Neither scenario is desirable. :-)

js.

 

I'm not saying studs are BAD on the road (and didn' mention road wear, I don't know about that), but everything I've read says that studded tires simply don't perform as well on dry roads. Makes sense: the studs are keeping more of the rubber part of the tire off the road.

 

Check some recent studies. Always question what you read -- if you're reading an article, ask yourself which studies the author read. Most of the source material out there dates from the 70s or so. Not the same studs, or tires.

js.

 

The articles I've read are recent (~2004). My brother in law who runs studded tires also has a PhD in mechanical engineering and typically understands how things work . Regardless, people who have done side-by-side comparisons say "They don't do as well on dry roads".

Anyway, using simple physics it's not hard to deduce that:
a) with studs, less rubber touches the road
b) rubber offers a more desireable road feel than studs.

Not saying they aren't worth it, and I know that studding tires almost always helps a TON on ice. I wouldn't doubt that the benefits of the studs far far outweigh the disadvantages, if the disadvantages are even noticable

 

These are the tires I am thinking of getting. First tire at the top of the link

http://www.remingtontire.us/Pages%20II/mudsnow.html