Do I need winter tires or increase my psi?

General Discussion
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41

I can’t say if anyone needs winter tyres or not. Different driving conditions, different cars, driving needs etc. all help determine what you need.

If you live in Tampa FL your needs may be different than North Dakota. Some people have ice problems others snow some drive freeways others back country roads. What you need I could not say.

I do have one universal comment. Stay safe! If you are not sure it is safe to drive, then don’t drive.

Always keep in mind that the point of any trip big or small, is to return un-harmed. If the weather is really bad, it is wise to consider not making that trip. Also remember that it is more important to be able to stop on time and to avoid getting into the ditch, than having a car with 4WD and super snow tires that will get you out of the ditch, when you should be worried about avoiding going into the ditch.

42

Mike, you’re stuck on this issue of snow being required to benefit from winter tires. The more prevalent condition that IS related to the benefits of winter tires is ICE. Ice is much more of a concern than snow.

ICE…Yup you’re right…so add 2 more days of POSSIBLY driving on ICE. I don’t know where you live…but we have these things called plows that sometimes put down salt on the road. And guess what…when there is ICE…winter tires are MARGINALLY better then summer tires. On black ice no tire in the world is going to help. And you know what also helps…is when the weather IS bad…we tend to SLOW DOWN.

As I said…some places in the country NEED winter tires…NE (Except for the mountains) just don’t get enough snow/ice to warrant it. If you think you NEED it…GREAT…After over 1 million miles of driving I can safely say that I DON’T.

43

You’ve got to be kidding. 2 days of ice??? That’s just plain ridiculous. Precipitation occurs all year long and it gets cold in the winter therefore ice is far more prevalent than you’re willing to admit. I live not far from you Mike but we have back country roads that are exactly two CAR widths wide with NO SHOULDER. Giant oak trees grow right next to the road. The margin for error is miniscule. Sure, plows come through but they don’t often put down any salt because there are a lot of drinking water reserviors and protected wetlands around here. Couple that with dense forest areas that, even though leaf-less, are shaded by 140’ tall oak trees and you get a lot of ice. Then there’s the black ice. You say winter tires are MARGINALLY better. Doesn’t mean much if you’re against them in the first place and not using them. Anyone who has tried them will say differently. They have a tremendous improvement in all traction challenged conditions. The road I live on and travel every day has an outside corner with the road sloped down toward the edge. It’s a white knuckler in almost any vehicle. Nice 150’ plus pine trees line the road. Winter tires make the car so sure footed, I feel very comfortable taking that corner. Even my 4x4 slides on that corner but the car with winter tires is like night and day different.

BTW- I never said you NEED them. They are a great benefit. Heck, you don’t NEED a car Mike. You could walk but using a car makes it a bit more comfortable and safe…

44

You say winter tires are MARGINALLY better.

Argue against what I said. Don’t take something out of context and argue against that.

I specifically said “ON-ICE” winter tires are MARGINALLY better. No tire in the world is going to give you much grip on ice.

If you feel that you need winter tires…FINE…But don’t think that the rest of us do…and that you MUST have winter tires to survive a NH winter. NH just doesn’t get that much snow or ice. And it’s RARE that I ever have to drive on ice in NH. Oh sure you come across some ice patches every now and then…but the few and far between don’t justify the NEED for winter tires. If there’s a chance any rain will turn to ice or we have freezing rain (which is very rare) the plows are always out. I live in a fairly rural area of southern NH and the roads are kept clear often and quickly.

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MIKE IN NH: So any decent all-season tire should have no problem getting you around for those 10 days that the roads have more then 1" of snow.

I would be far more worried bout that 1/16 in of ice than snow.  In my experience, snow gets me stuck, on ice it is more a matter of just trying to stay safely on the road.
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If you’ve had problems driving in that type of weather and winter tires are the ONLY way you can travel in that type of weather…FINE. I’ve driven my 4runner with AT tires and my wifes fwd Accords and now Lexus in that type of weather here in NH and in upstate NY. Never had a problem.

I’m NOT saying winter tires aren’t better…all I’m saying is they’re NOT needed. NH just doesn’t get enough adverse weather to warrant it. Well over 90% of our driving in NH during the winter is on DRY pavement. Those few times we get a major snow storm…we usually stay in-side. No need to be out. Storm stops…plows come out…apply salt…roads dry up in just a couple of days.

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My kids live in Manchester and just outside of Boston. We have been caught in the worse conditions while visiting them. We always travel down from Maine in the winter with winter tires as that’s what we need where we live. In the times we had to deal with storms in that area, I can’t remember a time when the roads weren’t bare the next day after a storm. Our kids do fine with all season tires year round.

From Augusta North in Maine, it’s significantly different, mainly because of the lack of efficient snow removal on side roads and colder average temps. So, as Mike said…if you pay attention to the forecast or can wait it out 24 hours, there is little need for snow tires in NH, but not where we live. You can’t paint all of NE with the same brush.

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if you pay attention to the forecast or can wait it out 24 hours, there is little need for snow tires in NH, but not where we live. You can’t paint all of NE with the same brush.

EXACTLY…Agree 100%. There are times where you get caught in the snow…like this past Monday night. Took my son to the Celtics game on Monday. When we got out of the game and back to our car at Wellington Station…there was 1-2" of snow on the ground and the roads were very very slick. I was driving the wifes Lexus with her All-Season tires…Getting to I93 was a little tricky. But the car handled the un-plowed roads with out any problem. Sure I was only traveling at about 20mph. I93 hadn’t been plowed yet (well the South bound was plowed) and the Lexus handled it fine…Again could only do about 40. Between Wellington and home in Southern NH I saw about 5 accidents (people driving too fast for conditions). The Lexus had no problem what-so-ever. Didn’t skid…or loose traction…or give me any problems at all. Just have to drive according to conditions. Would Winter tires have helped??? Maybe…But they weren’t NEEDED. So instead of doing 40 I might have been able to go 43.

49

I am glad that there is rarely any ice or snow in my neighborhood but as for tires, it would seem that reducing tire pressure to the minimum would improve traction for any tire but especially ‘winter’ tires. Here in the south “mud and snow” tires were once very popular with pickup owners who often trekked off the road onto soft wet dirt and reducing the pressure gave the tires more flotation and also caused them to flex and throw out mud and snow to the back rather than loading up the tread. But I hope that I don’t have the opportunity to test that on snow any time soon.

50

The Michelin X-ICE, as the name implies, is a tire suited to loose snow as well as ice and PACKED SNOW. the last 2 we have here for several months each winter. It’s 20 below outside and all the supermarket parking lots are hard packed snow and ice. The Michelins act like gum shoes on this stuff and give great confidence.

If you live in Northern Sweden, Canada or Alaska you might have more loose snow than packed snow and ice.

Also, every intersection with traffic lights becomes a small skating rink because of the car exhausts condensing and then freezing on the pavement. We used to have studded snow tires for this situation, but the new winter tires ar far better.

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@Rod Knox - I am glad that there is rarely any ice or snow in my neighborhood but as for tires, it would seem that reducing tire pressure to the minimum would improve traction for any tire but especially ‘winter’ tires.

Reducing tire pressure would improve traction for ice…but DECREASE traction for snow.

52

There really is so little advantage to changingair pressure, for what reason ? The best that would happen for all seasons is nothing. Does someone have a Humvee tire pressure system they can change on the run. Otherwise, it’s a non sensical approach that isn’t worth the effort. Whether it helps a little or not, I am always inclined to keep pressure on the high side to compensate for that sub zero night. I don’t want to hit a curb or pot hole and pop a tire because I forgot or it was too cold to refill them. It’s like hypermiling…and doing something with minimal benefit that comes back to bite you in the “end”.

BTW, one neighbor calls me at 5am this morning to get the number of the other with the sand truck. He among 4 others are scattered along the road, unable to move even with 4wds and half with studded tires. Ice around here is spelled ICE…when the road is so steep nothing moves. Nothing except we retired folk walking the two and a half mile trip to get the paper in our ice grippers.

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Mike it doesn’t matter how many times you say it, I never said NEED but you keep saying it over and over…

And ice is exactly where they are VASTLY superior. I have them and have a point of comparison. Do you?

Stay home? That’s ridiculous. Around here you’d be unemployed from taking too many days off. I encounter ice patches all winter long on my commute.

Can you manage without them? Obviously you can. I can manage without a heater too but I choose not to. I choose to pay a little more for the added safety these type of tires provide.

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@TwinTurbo - You seem to think that driving without winter tires you don’t have any control over the car and that it’s extremely dangerous to drive. GEE…I encounter ice patches too…So what…You mean to say that any NON-Winter tire is going to have a problem with ice patches??? That’s ridicules.

Stay home? That’s ridiculous.

Please stop taking my words out of context. I only said to stay home on the really snowy days. Even with last years unusual amount of snow that would account for 4 days. And even then my wife got caught in one of them…again no problem.

We have driven vehicles with winter tires. My mother-in-law has them on her Avalon. You NEED them in upstate NY. They do better in snow…and marginally better on ice. No tire is going to do extremely well on ice. But all you have to do is slow down.

Winter tires MAY be better…but a waste of money. If it gives you piece of mind…GREAT.

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MikeInNH “They do better in snow…and marginally better on ice…Winter tires MAY be better…but a waste of money. If it gives you piece of mind…GREAT. No tire is going to do extremely well on ice.”

“waste of money” I agree but only if you never use them more then what you perhaps do and in conditions that demand little. It is a FINANCIAL decision my kids in NH make as you do. But the difference is Not “marginally better” on ice; they have nearly twice the traction on ice and with studs greater still, especially braking.
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/testDisplay.jsp?ttid=116
" all you have to do is slow down. " Not always true…You can actually drive slower with winter tires, as MOST of them tend to do. With out winter tires with any hills, merging and on ramps involved, there is the innate fear you won’t start off if you stop or make a hill with following traffic…winter tire drivers don’t have that fear.

56

We have no problems driving up hills or merging in traffic unless there’s more then a few inches and the plows haven’t been out yet. And as I said those times are very rare here in NH.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again…I agree winter tires are superior for snow and ice. And if we lived back in upstate NY where the average snow accumulation is 3-4 times what NH gets then we’d be getting snow tires. But NH just doesn’t get enough snow. I can count on one hand the number of times where winter tires would have been a benefit in the past 20+ years of driving with All-Season tires here in NH. Manchester averages 50" of snow a year…( http://www.city-data.com/top2/c464.html )…Where I live…even less. Driving to work today with the little storm last night…the plows had been out…I93 was dry (except for the shoulder). I guess driving would have been a little hectic last night at 3am when it was snowing. There are many times where it snows and it doesn’t effect us at all. Not all the time does it snow during our commute. In fact those days are very very rare.

57

I’m tired of this debate, so I’m going to end it with a question for MikeInNH:

You’re driving down the road, in whatever car you want.
Its snow covered, and you’re taking it easy, say about 35 mph.
You’re approaching an intersection.

Now, from the cross street, a little kid is being chased by a bunch of bigger kids.
The kid slips and falls, directly in your path.

Would you rather be driving on Winter Tires, or All Seasons at that point in time?

Regardless of the outcome, I would rather have the winter tires on my car, because even if I did hit the kid, I would have tried every single possible thing I could have done to have avoided him. Slam on the brakes, turn the steering wheel to try and go around, whatever.

Winter tires give me the best chance to avoid hitting that kid, whether there is 12 inches of snow on the ground, or half an inch. And it doesn’t matter one lick where you live in the world, if you run into that one off situation.

You should always prepare for the worst possible event if you can reasonably afford to do so.
Just having great insurance isn’t good enough.
Giving yourself and that kid at least a bit of a chance to me is worth having those winter tires on my car.

And I live in Colorado.
Not in the mountains.
I could have done a lot of things with that $758 I spent on winter tires for my RX-8, but I bought them because I know I’m going to be driving it on occasions where there’s snow on the ground, in neighborhoods that have stupid kids running around like idiots.

BC.

58

Blade Cutter; I’m with you. From our house to the nearest shopping mall there is a steep hill downward. It also has an intersection and a Croation church right after that. On Sundays the place is crowded with churchgoers who have not seen each other for some time. They also have kids who wander out onto the street.

Most of the winter we have packed snow, ice, slush. or loose snow.

Soooo; we invested in Michelin X-ICE on both cars for about the same amonut as you did, including rims. They go on in early November and come off mid April. We also spend many Saturdays in the mountains, where those tires are wrth their weight in gold!

Lets terminate this post since each will have stated his (her) position several times over!

59

+1 to both Bladecutter and Docnick.

The way that I think of winter tires is similar to how I think about insurance.
Even though I have not had to file a car insurance claim since 1970, I would not consider dropping my insurance coverage, even if I was legally allowed to do so. Just because something (insurance, winter tires, innoculation against disease, etc) may “save your butt” only on rare occasions, I would still consider the money to be well-spent in the long run.

Long ago, I gave up trying to convince Mike that many folks in many areas of the country could benefit from the use of winter tires, and I suggest that you also give up.

60

You’re driving down the road, in whatever car you want.
Its snow covered, and you’re taking it easy, say about 35 mph.
You’re approaching an intersection.

First off if it’s a snowy road I’d probably be LESS then 35mph…I don’t know about you, but I drive according to the conditions of the road. If you can travel “Safely” at 35mph with winter tires…GREAT…Good for you. Personally I think you’re FOOLISH to be traveling at that speed…

As with any car and any tire you drive according to the conditions of the road and what your vehicle can handle. You mean to tell me that because you drive Car A with winter tires it’ll ALWAYS be better then me driving Car B with just all-season tires??? Conditions vary among drivers and car and conditions of the road. You should learn how to adjust to them.

Now let’s turn the tide…It’s NICE and sunny…road is nice and dry…and a kid runs out in front of you chasing a ball…You’ll be able to maneuver better and break better in all season tires then with winter tires. And since NH sees so little snow…it’s FAR FAR FAR more likely that you’ll be driving on dry pavement then on snow.

So far this year we’ve had a total of 1 day where we driving on snowy roads…Last year with all that snow…less then 10.