Re: You Want Winter Tires (Even If You Can't Find Them)

chiefenterprises01 — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 03:06:08 -0600

A good guideline for installing your winter tires is once the
temperature is regularly 10 degrees Celsius or less, and they should be
removed once the temperatures are consistently higher than 10 degrees
Celsius.

Chief Enterprises | America's provider of Bosch Relays, Solenoids, Connectors, and Diodes

Mandatory winter tires?

Denise — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:05:48 -0600

Ouch. That's an expensive mandatory...

~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager

Flamingo House Happenings

Best investment I've made

Michellesamom — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:44:14 -0600

for winter driving. I put them on a few weeks ago (same set from last year... they're great). I've had snow tires every year and I honestly think they have saved my life on more than one occassion.

Michelle writes at Michelle's Blog

You Want Winter Tires (Even If You Can't Find Them)

sassymonkey — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:24:54 -0600

Growing up the idea of whether or not we'd put snow tires on the car in the winter was laughable. Of course we did. We didn't just get snow tires, we had studded tires (which sadly are illegal in most of Ontario where I now live). We'd have been foolish not to put winter tires of some sort on our car when I was a kid because we lived in a very rural area. I've seen snow drifts as tall as our single level house and we consistently had several feet of snow for the entire winter. Now I'm not an automotive expert (ha! just ask my boyfriend how often I drive) but I have no problems stating that I think that everyone who drives in snow and ice should have winter tires.

Why is that I think everyone should have winter tires? They are designed to work best in snow and ice. The rubber in winter tires is slightly different than those in all-season tires and where an all-season tire will start to stiffen in cold weather and ice while a winter tire stays pliable allowing it to maneuver better. Basically it's winter tires for the win when it comes to gripping the road. Wheels.ca goes into why you want winter tires and Canadian Driver tested a bunch of them for you. Science is great and all but I put it into Sassymonkey terms - when I look for a pair of winter boots I'm not buying ones with no grip or wimpy grips. Those really, really cute Kenneth Cole boots with the soles smoother than a babies bottom? They're staying in the closet until spring. I need winter boots that keep me from falling on my behind (I also want them to look nice but that's a whole other kind of blog post). Is seems that Driving.ca is with me on the shoe comparison.

The best way of thinking about the differences between a winter tire and an all-season tire is to take a look at your footwear. Most would not venture out on to a snow-covered sidewalk wearing leather-soled dress shoes, but that's exactly what happens when the car is driven while "wearing" all-season tires.

Does everyone need to have winter tires? Not all of the time no. I've heard many people argue that they rarely drive in the winter and when they do they go out when conditions are ideal. Those of us that live in cold climates never know what weather Mother Nature is going to throw at us. We might only get a small amount of snow this year or maybe like last year we'll have another record breaking snowfall year. (Just please, please, please not another ice storm.) Vancouver has even been experiencing a bit of a winter wonderland as Collen Anderson points out while she compares Calgary snow to Vancouver snow.

That was a good memory and even if the snow stayed, it was crunchy and you could get a grip on it, whether in boots or a car, and you could build snowmen and igloos (Yes, we built an igloo once, how fun was that?). Vancouver on the other hand, has the majority of drivers not used to driving in snow. And our cars don’t have snow tires. And the snow becomes this wet sludge that melts through the most waterproof boots and is slippery for any sort of tires. I hate it, a lot.

People probably do not "need" snow tires all the time. Maybe there are even people who do not need them 98% of the time but there's always that 2% of the time when they have to go out when the conditions are not ideal. I tend to think of snow tires a bit like I think of smoke detectors. Most of the smoke detectors that have been in places that I live annoy the heck out of me and I consider them to be pretty useless, not to mention ugly, ceiling accessories. I had one that screamed every time I opened the oven door and another every time I showered. Generally speaking the chances of me needing a smoke detector are pretty low but when I need it, I really need it. Winter tires are a car's equivalent of a smoke detector - when you need them, you really need them.

Apparently the government of Quebec agrees with me. This year they made winter tires mandatory by law between December 15 and March 15 of each winter. Why'd they do it?

Information collected in 2005 shows that 38% of the accidents that occur during the winter involve at least one vehicle that is equipped with all-season tires. These vehicles are strongly overrepresented in these accidents, as it is estimated that 90% of passenger vehicles already have winter tires. In addition, the proportion of the occurrence of loss of control is even higher when the vehicles involved are equipped with all-season tires.

The thing that surprises me the most about this new law is not that it didn't already exist or that they created but that it has caused a shortage of snow tires outside of Quebec. This Star article says that the shortage even goes all the way out to Vancouver. The law isn't hurting Northern New York tire retailers either. Car owners who are trying to find winter tires this year, like soeurs de jour in Ottawa, are having a hard time of it.

BB started about 3 weeks ago trying to get winter tires for us. He went through the rigamarole of phoning around to be told that the tires were back ordered with no delivery date in sight, there were none available or the best of all, hope against hope, the tire store would have a set and then we would discover they were priced way out of our range and even if we had the money, $1,000.00 is too much for a set of tires.

Even the Carleton Place Public Library is encouraging people to get snow tires...if they can find them.

If you live in a place where you get snow and ice do me a favour and start hunting yourself down some snow tires. It'll help me sleep better at night.

Contributing Editor Sassymonkey blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.

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Re: You Want Winter Tires (Even If You Can't Find Them)

Winter Driving School

Mandatory winter tires?

Best investment I've made

You Want Winter Tires (Even If You Can't Find Them)