Why Winter Tires For Winter Driving- Join The Adventure

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

If you live in a northern climate with temperatures below 7C then you should consider the need for winter tires designed for winter driving . As the leaves change, so should your tires.

Winter tires are not just for snow anymore. The aggressive treads are clearly made for more than just snow. The deep channels of the tread funnel away water and slush from the changing seasons as well as snow. This prevents hydroplaning.

If the tire cannot shred the water between it and the road it will ride up on a cushion of water and loose traction. Hitting a puddle on the road a speeds can be dangerous without good tires.

The micro-grooves in the tread are for better traction on ice. Finally the rubber content of winter tires is such that they grip the road surface better at lower temperatures than all-seasons or summer tires. As a rule when the weather drops below 7ºC or 45ºF; that is the time to change tires.

So get them on before the snow flies and you’ll not only be prepared but your dry road stopping power will increase in the colder weather.

All-season tires really should be called three-season tires as they fall into a category between summer and winter tires. They have a more aggressive grip than summer tires but lack the cold weather grip of winter tires.

Another question commonly asked is whether to use two or four winter tires. It was a common misconception to install two winter tires on the driving wheels of the vehicle. Saved space during storage and saved time during change over. If you are going to change two , it makes sense to change all four.

More Winter Driving Tips

Most of today’s vehicles have ABS brakes; computer controlled traction sensing systems or are all wheel drive. You need all four wheels to have the same grip for these safety features to do the job correctly.

If you put winter tires only on the driving wheels of a front wheel drive, you run the risk of loosing control if the back end swings away because of lost traction. If you only put them on the rear driving wheels you have potential to loose steering. Use four winter tires on any vehicle to be safe. That is the whole purpose of using winter tires in the first place, to be safe.

Here in Canada the tires are marked with a snowflake within an mountain pictogram on the sidewall of the tire. This indicates that is approved for and is within the requirements for use in winter driving in Canada. The M + S symbol on some tires stands for Mud and Snow but they have no standard requirements so are not considered a Winter tire. M+S just usually have more aggressive or deep tread design. Be careful not to rely on these tires for winter driving.

Winter tires are required in some provinces for winter driving here in Canada. Stay indoors and read more blogs like Northen Trial – An Adventure in Online Marketing or stay tuned here and Join the Adventure .