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Do You Need Snow Car Tires?
Whether or not you need to snow car tires might depend on how much snow, sleet, slush and ice (particularly freezing rain) your area typically gets during the winter months. Snow car tires are specifically designed to deal with this. However there are many people out there who think that their all season tires can stand the wear and tear of winter. This is not necessarily true. All weather type tires are meant to be used in most conditions but do not necessarily stand up to full blown wintry conditions and the salt they use to create traction on the roads.
Snow car tires are very different from all season tires because they are made of a much more durable rubber compounds. They also have treads made out of very special compounds that increase the tire’s grip on the road as they have very tough studs. Winter tires also have a silica compound in them that also helps the tire melt the snow and ice as it goes. All season tires just can’t compare to this. They have good traction but once the temperature dips below forty-five degrees Fahrenheit the soft studs on this type of tire start to harden and lose their ability to grip the icy or watery road surfaces.
Yet another unique thing about snow car tires is the way their tread designs dump water. Snow tires have wide groove that can drain water and throw off clumps of ice and snow easily so they do not clump up on the tires. The grooves on winter tires are also one quarter to one half deeper then those normal all season tires which allows snow and road debris to be gathered and then sloughed off the wheel as the car moves. All winter tires can’t grip or expel snow in the same way as they simply do not have the grooves. The flat treads of all winter tires simply slide and slip around on the ice.
One reason that some people do not like installing snow car tires is because they make a lot of noise. However they are being designed in ways so that their casings are rounder so that they are quieter as the car moves. Also some people find them expensive and a lot of trouble to install especially if they end up living through a wintertime that does not have much snow due to global warming. Yet another drawback of installing snow car tires is that you need to take them off in the spring as your car will not handle as well if you run it on dry roads with the snow car tires still on.
The main reason to install the new and improved quieter snow car tires that are on the market nowadays is for safety. They can definitely mean the difference between getting your car and your family home safely in a snowstorm or being stranded and possibly freezing to death on a highway that is whited out because of a blizzard.
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