Winter has arrived and you might be thinking about visiting a tire shop to get winter tires. The question is, do you need different tires for the cold season?
The simplest answer is that if you reside in a place where the daytime temperatures are regularly below 45 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter, then yes, you probably should get winter tires.
Do You Need Winter Tires If There’s No Snow?
Winter tires are actually called that because of cold temperatures, not snow. The rubber compounds in car tires are formulated to work in specific temperature ranges. This is called the glass transition temperature. It sounds weird, but in fact, it refers to the temperature point where the rubber in your car’s tires begins to resemble glass. It gets hard and brittle and may start to crack.
The rubber in summer tires is formulated to work best at temperatures between 50 and 100+ degrees Fahrenheit. Winter tires use a rubber formulation that keeps the tires soft below 50 degrees. It’s commonly thought that winter tires are for snowy and icy roads, but this isn’t exactly true. Winter tires provide a plient grip in all cold weather conditions. As you might imagine, tires that have become hard and brittle don’t provide good grip.
Are Winter Tires and Snow Tires the Same?
You might have even heard your local tire shop call them snow tires, but winter tire is a more appropriate term. The reason is that winter tires are constructed to take on any type of cold weather. It doesn’t matter if there’s snow, ice, or rain on the road. Even if you’re driving on a dry road with below-freezing temperatures, winter tires will give you the best grip.
You might be wondering if all-season tires work the same as winter tires. It’s true that the rubber formulation in all-season tires is designed to work in colder temperatures than summer tires, however, the glass-transition temperature of all-season tires is still higher than winter tires. The simple fact is that no tire provides rubber that stays soft between 0 and 100 degrees.
All-season tires don’t have much in the way of standards to be labeled as such either. Some all-season tires are close to summer tires, and other all-season tires are closer to being winter tires.
Why Are Winter Tires Different?
It isn’t just the rubber formulation that makes winter tires different. The tread pattern is different as well. Different grooves serve different purposes. For example, the largest grooves in your tire channel water out from under the area of your tire that meets the road. This helps prevent hydroplaning.
Winter tires have fine, narrow grooves called sipes. These also help remove water from beneath the tire, but they also have a more specific purpose. They grab snow and pack it within the tire treads. Snow sticks to itself, so a tire with many sipes packs snow into the treads and gives you more traction. The idea is similar to driving on compact snow versus freshly fallen snow.
If you’re ready to head to a tire shop and get winter tires for your rig, there are a few other things to know. Don’t go for smaller tires than what came stock on your vehicle, and if you’re currently running larger or wider tires, get winter tires that are closer to factory size and narrower. Narrow tires perform better in snow than wide ones.
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