Car feels loose

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by StraightOuttaCanadaEh

omg why do you have summer tires on in the winter?! lol

I take mine off in october and put them back on in april or so. They have a fairly unforgiving operating range. They do well in wet weather (more so when they're newish), but the tread pattern is not blockish enough to grab onto snow covered roads. There is nothing to displace snow. If you look at the tread blocks on your tires, they're rounded off. Winter tires have square blocks with plenty of space in between. In cold temperatures, they get real hard too and you're actually harming them.

Many people like to focus on tread pattern but the ability of the compounds to deal with cold is the much greater factor. A really soft squishy winter compound with the same tread as the summer tires would work far better than a hard summer compound with a snow tread.

[stevesnj]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

Explains the high insurance rates there.

Here in NJ, someone hits you and it's their fault the victim's insurance goes up too.

[dinfern22]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

The cold affects tires far more than snow. The summer performance tires are designed hard so that in hot weather they soften up for traction. Anything even approaching freezing can firm them up into hockey pucks. All season tires deal with the cold a little better but are of course a compromise between being hard and soft so that they can deal with a wider range of temperatures. Winter tires are very soft so that when it gets cold out they can still retain traction even though they do firm up. Earlier in the year We had a run of sub zero temperatures here (-4 to -6 Fahrenheit) where even my winter tires got hard enough to lose traction on bare pavement.

Thanks man!

I'm curious, does the snow or salt hurt the summer tires in any way or cause its traction or deteriorate? I know it sounds crazy but I think I heard someone say it can wear out the residue/compound on the performance tires that adds extra grip?

[dinfern22]

Originally Posted by StraightOuttaCanadaEh

omg why do you have summer tires on in the winter?! lol

I take mine off in october and put them back on in april or so. They have a fairly unforgiving operating range. They do well in wet weather (more so when they're newish), but the tread pattern is not blockish enough to grab onto snow covered roads. There is nothing to displace snow. If you look at the tread blocks on your tires, they're rounded off. Winter tires have square blocks with plenty of space in between. In cold temperatures, they get real hard too and you're actually harming them.

Location: Toronto

...Makes sense. I'd buy the winter tires with the car if i'd lived in Canada. But here in Maryland the weather is confusing as shit. One year it can snow hard while another year its barley cold.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by dinfern22

Thanks man!

I'm curious, does the snow or salt hurt the summer tires in any way or cause its traction or deteriorate? I know it sounds crazy but I think I heard someone say it can wear out the residue/compound on the performance tires that adds extra grip?

No. It has no different effect than driving on pavement. There is no magical chemical reaction between rubber and salt.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by dinfern22

Location: Toronto

...Makes sense. I'd buy the winter tires with the car if i'd lived in Canada. But here in Maryland the weather is confusing as shit. One year it can snow hard while another year its barley cold.

If I lived in Maryland I would just run a decent all season. They can handle the slight deviations you have with ease. You could run summer tires for most of the year and just use the all seasons during the worst of the winter. I run all seasons for most of the year and just use the winter tires for the bad part of winter so you would just be dropping a level with the same effect.

[Sarlacc]

Originally Posted by Celica00

I'm bored so here we go. Converting the OEM tire 215/45/17 dimensions to inches would be ~8.5in x 24.5in. Get the area of the circle with pi x radius^2 => 3.14 x 12.25^2 = 471.2. Then volume of a 8.5in cylinder 471.2 x 8.5 = 4005.2

Now minus the rim area which is about 1928.4 making the area of the tire about 2076.8 cubic inches or 1.2 cubic feet

Let's compress this shit to idk what max is... 51 psi?

(psi x cubic feet)/ earth's atmosphere pressure

(51 x 1.2)/14.7 => 4.16 cubic feet per tire x 4 = 16.64 cubic feet

Each cubic foot of helium has a lift of .069 pounds.

If my partially drunk math is correct, then .069 x 16.64 = 1.15 pounds of lift.

Totes worth.

Imperial units makes my head hurt.
But, it looks like you're saying that pressurized helium produces more lift than helium at 1 atm, and that can't be right?

[StraightOuttaCanadaEh]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

If I lived in Maryland I would just run a decent all season. They can handle the slight deviations you have with ease. You could run summer tires for most of the year and just use the all seasons during the worst of the winter. I run all seasons for most of the year and just use the winter tires for the bad part of winter so you would just be dropping a level with the same effect.

Just to add my experience to this, I drove in bad snow in all season Michelin AS3 and had a lot of trouble taking off. Endless wheelspin, and terrifying braking distances. That was in a FWD Mini. Considering I get endless wheelspin in bad snow even with snow tires on in the 86, I doubt a performance all season tire would bring much improvement. One leaning towards good all weather traction would probably serve best.

[Capt Spaulding]

One thing to keep in mind - I've read discussions from the tire engineering types that the compounds used in high end summer tires can be irreparably damaged if they are even exposed to very cold temps. To drive those tires in the cold is claimed to effectively destroy them. WFTW

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Capt Spaulding

One thing to keep in mind - I've read discussions from the tire engineering types that the compounds used in high end summer tires can be irreparably damaged if they are even exposed to very cold temps. To drive those tires in the cold is claimed to effectively destroy them. WFTW

This ^ I should have mention this! Salt won't hurt them but cold can and will. Goes right back to how hard they can get. Chunks can and will chip right off. Storage isn't that big a deal if they are supported properly.

[StraightOuttaCanadaEh]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

Storage isn't that big a deal if they are supported properly.

what does that mean

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by StraightOuttaCanadaEh

what does that mean

[Riftur]

The message I sent you came off wrong. After i reread it I noticed it might have come off wrong. It was more about me growing up and not about threats. I reread it and saw that was not the point i was trying to make.

[StraightOuttaCanadaEh]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

*runs to the garage to flip wheels around*