Well yes. Of course but if you are in snow country, how much time are you actually driving in deep snow versus hard packed snow/ice on the road. The glaze on the road is often the problem with spin outs and not snow on the road. Now since you are a bike guy, around here the folks that ride their bikes in the winter have gone to the “fat tire” bikes to use in the ice and snow. Wouldn’t it be better if they stuck with their narrow tire bikes year round?
Not to beat a dead horse, but the only reason you were able to do that was if you had posi-traction. I had that experience on an icy patch and about a one mile long hill pulling the camper. No way I would have made it up the hill if I couldn’t have gotten the right drive wheel on the shoulder where I could get traction with my Olds posi-traction rear end. Yeah Wisconsin interstate.
THE DEFENSE IS WRONG! Can’t help but picture Marisa Tomei when I hear this word! ))
1 Like
When you hear what word? Some of us have no idea what some people are referring to if you don’t at least spell it out a little. What word?
Kinda like that Superbowl half-time program. Couldn’t figure out what the guys in red coats and bandages meant. Who knew it was an anti-hollywood social statement. For some of us unplugged in folks, you have to spell it out a little.
Lets see , not everyone is going to know who Marisa Tomei is or what word you are referring to .
The word is Posi-Traction™, the film is My Cousin Vinny.
2 Likes
Man this is like watching Jeopardy. One step closer with the word identified, but what the heck is the stooory? Or do I have to watch the whole movie again? Asking for a friend.
Have not seen the movie and intend to keep it that way.
Sorry, this is a better one:
1 Like
Thank you. Never would have stuck in my mind. When I ordered my 74 Olds I never thought about posi, but after driving it in the winter for a few hundred thousand miles, when I ordered my 81 Olds, I added posi as a must have.
Lol, I own a car. I just really like bikes, and much of my professional research work has to do with bicyclist safety.
It’s a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison; bike tires and the loads they support are an order of magnitude smaller than cars, and you wouldn’t want a cyclist digging deeper into the snow…can you imagine the extra effort needed to peddle? It’s better to ride on top of the snow in that case.
But it also proves the point; much as fat tires help bikes stay on top of the snow, narrow tires help a car cut down into it. I’m very familiar with ‘snow country’ - I was raised in Iowa and I now live in Michigan - and while snow on roads does get packed down, rarely would it achieve the density of ice. Just because you can’t cut through snow with your foot or a shovel, doesn’t mean that a 4000-lb car traveling at 30 mph would be unable to either.
In urban areas with the traffic volume needed to achieve that level of compaction (including things like rural interstate highways), you’re going to have more treatments on the road to keep that from happening. And in rural areas with less traffic, you’re just not going to have the volumes for that to happen in many cases.
Slippery roads from simple snow compaction is a very very common thing. Coming back from Menards, the snow was being blown across the road where traffic had compacted it, it was very very slippery. Not to be a pain but as someone here said, some of this mis-information can be dangerous. It takes very little to compact snow on the roads into a very slippery driving surface.
Good luck with your bike safety though. I still think it is safer to ride against traffic so you can see what is coming at you, but that’s another issue long gone.
They didn’t think it would be an issue? Will they cover your costs if it turns out that the 16" wheels don’t fit? Who exactly did you talk to, if it wasn’t their brake and suspension specialist, I would NOT trust them. You can get a ton of misleading information from salesmen, service writers and the guy in the parts department.
Before I spent a lot of money on new heels and tires, I would pull off one front wheel and measure the diameter of the inside of the wheel where the caliper resides, then measure the radius from the center of the hub to the outside of the calipers. If the diameter of the inside of the wheel isn’t at least 2x plus 0.5", the radius from the hub to caliper, it wont fit.
Another option is to turn the wheels all the way to one side. Then lie on the ground and slip your fingers over the end of the caliper, between the caliper and the inside of the wheel. You will need the thickness of your fingers PLUS. Your first knuckle is probably a half inch thick, if it fits snug, you wont have enough clearance. You will want some air space between the new wheels and the outside of the caliper.
I’m not saying snow doesn’t get compacted; I’m saying it rarely gets compacted to the density of ice - because then, well, it wouldn’t really be snow anymore.
Even highly compacted snow can still be cut into/displaced a small amount, hence the continued need for a narrow tire. Even if your car is slipping around on compacted snow, I don’t think it’s correct to say that wider tires that put your car on top of the snow would be better.
Without being alongside the tire on the road, do you think you’d be able to tell when a tire is riding on top of the snow vs. when it’s still cutting/displacing snow at 20% of its capacity? I know I sure as heck wouldn’t be able to.
Different tire dia means 2nd set of wheels. New? Used? Steel? Tpms? It is what it is. Just more stuff.
Tire rack does a lot this for you - as others have said, it’s their reputation on the line with this stuff, and they’re not some two-bit company that’s just saying that everything works with everything…I used them myself for choosing snow tires for my Volvo XC60, and the people I spoke to were highly knowledgable about my specific vehicle and its systems.
If Tirerack says the tire/wheel size will work, and your dealer is saying it will work, then I think this is overkill…peace of mind, if nothing else.
1 Like
Great movie!
In fact, they guarantee it’ll fit:
What Comes with My Tire & Wheel Package? - Hunter’s Ramblings about Performance wheels & tire | Tire Rack
Well, yes, in a sense. More stuff. But it’s not like it’s useless stuff…having proper snow tires can be a matter of life and death in many situations.
Even if the tire diameter was the same, you’d probably still want a second set of wheels. Once you’ve had to deal with having to mount/unmount your tires a few times, that extra cost for wheels basically pays for itself.
1 Like