It’s okay, you can admit it. Despite living in an area where it snows in the wintertime, you have never owned a proper set of winter tires. At best, you may have a set of barely-there all-seasons left over on your old stock wheels. We’ve been there too…
The reason behind such an unwise decision on winter roads is this: Snow tires suck. They are mushy, don’t handle, are an extra expense and unless you live in Finland (or some other place where there is snow on the roads 90% of the time) they’re just not that necessary at most times.

When Falken Tire, known for their high-performance range of rubber, invited us to wintry Montreal for the introduction of the new Eurowinter HS439, we were on a plane faster than you can say “maple syrup”.
The HS439 is Falken’s entry into the performance winter tire category. The idea is that you can have your cake and eat it too. A tire that maintains a sporty and fun-to-drive character in the dry and wet, but won’t leave you in a ditch at the first wisp of a snowflake.
We’ll bring you a small taste of what these tires offer here but you can find a more indepth review in a later issue of eurotuner magazine.
The core elements are the asymmetric tread design, high volume circumferential grooves, multi-angled sipes, and a special new silica compound. Big, beefy tread blocks sit outside for cornering and dry traction, while the inside tread provides maximum traction in the snow and rain.
Although they meet severe snow service requirements, under the most extreme deep snow and ice conditions, the HS439 won’t provide the traction of a traditional winter or studded ice tire in deep snow. In the real world, they should take care of almost every winter storm thrown at them.
So how do they work? In a word, quite well. Falken set up four arenas at the International Club Academy Racing (ICAR) – a motorsports complex located at Mirabel Airport just outside Montreal – to allow us to safely test the limits. They had instructors on hand to ensure that we got the most out of each event.

The formula finesse and accident avoidance courses were fun and informative, showing just how responsive the HS439 was under hard braking and delicate low speed maneuvers, but the snow drifting and handling segments got the blood flowing in the freezing cold conditions.
The handling course was essentially a medium speed autocross. Turn in was surprisingly crisp, and overall road feel was excellent. We were able to achieve much higher entry speeds and push much harder through the corners than was expected.  
Drifting a BMW 328i is one thing, doing it in the snow and ice is another, but with the right steering input and power application we were able to maintain a solid, if amateur drift around the circular course. We were getting excellent feedback from the HS439’s, which was impressive given the conditions.
Naturally we couldn’t go all the way to Canada without experiencing some of the local attractions. We went on an extended (90 mile!) snowmobile ride with the crew from Falken, hitting speeds of up to 60mph as the incredibly beautiful scenery of eastern Canada slid by.