AND, you can impress your friends by knowing how to spell : Hakkapeliitta.
;-]
@andrewRA My son has special Nokias with studs on his back country mountain car. Heâs never been stuck and the Finns really know how to make tires for really awful conditions.
Not true of modern winter tires but you are dated your post with reference to the 1950âs which has little bearing to modern tires except they both are round.
@AndrewRAâOf course I am dated. I hope modern winter tires have a longer tread life than the winter (we called the snow) tires we used back in the 1950s. However, I am not sure that todayâs winter tires have as long a tread life as all season tires. The last winter tires I purchased were Armstrong radial tires for my 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass. I think the size was 195 75R x 14. The Oldsmobile was rear wheel drive and I had the tires on the back wheels. Since the car came with one of those compact spare tires, I used a winter tire for the spare in the summertime and one of the all season tires for a spare in the winter.
The tires on our 4Runner are marked M and S and these tires work very well on ice and snow. The all season radials on our Toyota Sienna are o.k., but we use the 4Runner in really bad weather, so I see no need to buy winter tires for the Sienna.
@andrewRAâ
Even the cheapest of winter tires that I drive, from Firestone, Goodyear and BFG last 30 to 40k milesâŠjust as long as the all seasons I rotate. The all seasons last much longer because I donât have to dump them when the still have plenty of tread left for summer but start performing crappy in winter. Winter tires come with as much as 13/32 inch tread while all seasons are typically 9 or ten. You have as much as 8/32 inch of tread with winter tires to work with before they should be changed 5/32. Most all season tires are dreadful at 5. /32 which is often just half their life.
Not only are all seasons not as good, they get progressively worse then comparable winter tires as they wear, all the way down to replacement for the two of them. That is fine if you can avoid snow. But, driving in snow 10% of the time is really a whole lot of snow driving if you are comparing it to total miles driven. Thatâs as much as 4k miles in snow over a tires life span. I drive over a snow covered road every day in the winter and still, during winter, I drive way less then 5 % maybe as low as 2% or less of my total mileage in snow and on ice.That little percent is where the vast majority of accidents occur during the winter.
AT tires are a great alternative but tough to find in small car choices if you donât face much icing conditions. They have snow traction a s good as some of the better winter tires.
What most people donât realize or think about with winter tires is your no winters are not wearing out and last a longer time period for a given vehicle. The same is true of winter tires in the off season.
I had the same set of winters the entire 7 years I owned my 2004 WRX and the same set of high performance OEM all-seasons.
"And the same set of high performance OEM all seasons " @andrewRAâ
Exactly.
Without winter tires, you would have been looking at new all seasons in fewer then 20k miles, they would be terrible in snow. Without that worry, you could run them close to the wear bars just using them for summer driving. Thatâs how you avoid buying tires when you donât need to.
I wonder if OP is starting off in second gear to reduce wheel spin?
"I wonder if OP is starting off in second gear to reduce wheel spin? "
That is an excellent point, and I am always amazed at how many driversâeven some with many years of driving experienceâarenât aware of this simple trick for reducing wheel spin.
And, it isnât only for folks with manual shift cars.
Some manufacturers include the capability for â2nd gear startâ in their automatics.
Excellent suggestionâŠstarting off in a higher gear to reduce torque at the wheels. But, If you are having to do it all the time in snow, you need more help. If you have that much trouble getting started, it translates into a whole lot of trouble stopping and turning once you get going. One of the safest attributes of good traction tires is, you can drive slowly without fear of not starting up again and you donât need to drive like a madman just to âmake a hillâ.
And you donâ t have that same fear pulling out of a side street into traffic with a blind curve in snow, just waiting for that semi to come around the corner and run you over. You can GO. Winter tires become in essence, high performance tires for snow. It makes your car a Corvette compared to others with out them. It turns a Civic into a Maserati when every one else has all season tires.
Here in NC we donât have a lot of snow (thank goodness) so not much need for winter tires. I can see how they would be a must have in snowy parts of the country. Top Gear UK did a track racing segment using cars with different type tires. A FWD car with winter tires actually did better that an AWD car with all season tires. The demonstration was quite impressive especially the hill climb. When they put winter tires on the AWD car it was unbelievable how it handled the track and the hill climb.
Here in NC we don't have a lot of snow (thank goodness) so not much need for winter tires. I can see how they would be a must have in snowy parts of the country.
Most parts of the north donât need winter tires. Even here in southern NH 95% of the time weâre driving on dry roads.
I found for my purposes all-seasons with AWD works better then FWD/winters.
Our winter place has a driveway that crosses a field and drifts quickly in after being plowed. Our Subaru and MDX with great in winter all-seasons find traction at one wheel at least to make it up the icy below/deep snow driveway(6"-16" drifts). Our friends minivan and CRV both FWD and winters get stuck in the deep stuff. I typically pull them up with a tow strap.
I concur winter tires do better then my setup but there is a lot to be said for a great AWD system having a tire finding any traction. Most FWD have crappy traction control systems.
@MikeInNH - While it may only snow 5% of the time near you it has been documented that winter tires provide extra traction in wet conditions up to 50 degrees. This comprises more than 5% of driving in the northeast, even where it does not snow much. In any event, I donât want to argue. Winter tires are like insurance. Nobody wants to pay for it until, one day, they need it. I have found myself grateful on many occasions that my winter tires have kept me and my family safe. Each person has to do their own risk based analysis for what they feel is the best acceptable risk for them. Itâs not an argument, itâs a decision based on risk.
@AndrewRA, I know that your friends appreciate the help when they are stuck. Good friends with 4WD/AWD are always a plus to have. The Top Gear test was on a snow packed race track so it canât really compare to 16" drifts.
While it may only snow 5% of the time near you it has been documented that winter tires provide extra traction in wet conditions up to 50 degrees. This comprises more than 5% of driving in the northeast, even where it does not snow much
I never said that winter tires didnât give you better tractionâŠI said they werenât needed. Never had a problem with traction with any all-season tire weâve ever ownedâŠNow maybe if I was traveling 80+ mph when itâs 10 degrees then I might notice a difference.
Yeah, but if you went that fast in freezing weather, youâd actually live near DC. Iâm constantly amazed at how fast people go around here, especially just after freezing rain or snow. There was freezing rain at this past Monday. On Tuesday, people were back to 80 or so in a 65 zone.
^
Sadly, itâs not just on the highways.
A couple of days ago, a young guy went off a rural road near me because he was goingâŠslightlyâŠtoo fast for conditions.
What were the conditions? Patchy, intermittent ice.
He went off the road, hit a utility pole, and sustained serious head injuries.
Naturally, he was using âall-seasonâ tires.
While there is never any guarantee of any outcome, more than likely the outcome would have been better if he had been using a set of 4 winter tiresâor at least that was the opinion of my neighbor, who is a cop serving on the accident investigation team.
This thread sound to me like the 60s argument: âDoes smoking really cause cancer?â
There is very little disagree ment about the advantages of winter tires. There is lotâs of disagree ment about who needs them. Itâs really a disagreement as to who âwantsâ them. Both of my kids live in the mid NE area area and each find no need for snow tires. They say the snow is gone from the roads in a matter of hours in all but the most severe storms and the hills just arenât that difficult. Still, when they do get snow, and they have half worn all season tires on their AWD cars and still have to go to appointments as my daughter found out, you can leave the road quickly. Guess it was just one of those less then 3% times they had to drive on snow or ice.
Still, being young and invincible, she just replaced them with new all season tires. She didnât care about my one time comment that itâs cheaper for her to buy two sets of dedicated tires as the tires she was replacing still had half their life left. The extra room in the garage and the inconvenience of changing them over just isnât worth it to them till the next time one of them has an experience that frightens them. Then, off go the half worn all seasons, and on go new ones. Bottom line is, if you live where it is cold and/or snows, and use all season tires only and have never had a winter related accident, no one can make an argument that makes sense to you to use winter tires. And thatâs fine.
Itâs just funny that when ever we are down there in the winter, which we are regularly; during the occasions there is snow on the ground, they donât hesitate to take my car with snow tires to go shopping. Itâs the first car every one grabs,
@MikeInNH - When a deer jumps out of the woods when it is wet and cold out you will definitely appreciate the extra margin of safety.