ICE, ICE, ICE

[chrisl]

Originally Posted by dsgerbc

Sigh.
1) No rubber will turn to hard lumps at regular winter temps, not street rubber has "glass transition temperature" that high. Maybe in the first few minutes of driving some tires will be a bit harder than others, so take it easy before you get to the freeway. After 5 minutes of driving tires come up to temperature way above freezing (like I said - touch the tread after driving). There is nothing wrong with driving A/S tires when it's -20C. You'll have less grip than when it's warm, and maybe a *touch* less than a dedicated performance winter tire, but nothing inadequate.

I've been driving around the past few days on Pilot Super Sports, on dry roads at ambient temperatures ranging from 0F to 35F. At 35F, they're just fine, but when you start getting below 10-15F ambient, you really do lose a lot of grip. Not enough to make them unsafe, but it's a lot more dramatic of a falloff than I was expecting. Even after driving around on them for half an hour though (with ambient temps in the ~5-10F range), they were still pretty low grip (which was fun, since I was expecting it). I've never experienced such a dramatic drop in grip at cold temperatures on all season tires before though (even at temps down to -25F/-32C) - it seems unique to the UHP summer tire genre.

[PoWn3d_0704]

I just got the Observs on my BRZ yesterday. We were at 2 Degrees after snowfall, so it was slick as hell. The Observs impressed the living hell out of me.

[cjsporl1996]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rog8ou-ZepE"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rog8ou-ZepE[/ame]

Sorry but I had to

[Porsche]

Originally Posted by Suberman

If you're brave and skilled at winter driving or your conditions involve mainly bare roads, especially cold and wet roads, then performance winter tires are the best choice. Continental again leads the pack at the moment with their TS 850

We have purchased the performance winter tires for our cars to drive in the Midwest for years now. They work well, but they do not approach the performance of the Michelin Xi2(?) that we had years ago on one of our cars. The dedicated snow and ice Xi series tire was astonishingly good in the snow and ice. The performance winter tires perform acceptably to us on snow. On ice, we creep along with everyone else; not much grip at all on ice, where 10 mph is fast.

However, because our area roads are plowed early and often, with a ton of salt added, the roads are rarely snow covered. In fact, if I want to play about in the snow, I need to get up at 2 am to beat the plows. Mostly, I'd rather not do that. I'm getting old. (Everyone calls me "Sir" these days; it's kind of discouraging, and I frequently wonder just how much time I've got left. )

If you live in an urban area where the roads are only rarely covered in snow, I recommend the performance winter tire category, provided that you're comfortable driving on the snow with limited grip. If the snow makes you uncomfortable, by all means select one of the dedicated snow and ice tires. Tire Rack has good information to learn more.

We put the Conti TS850 on our new 2006 Miata. We were very pleased with those tires through seven winters. They wore like iron, too. We even ran them through most of one summer.

So… why not just buy the grippiest, stickiest, safest dedicated snow and ice tires?

'Cuz there ain't no free lunch.

There are a couple of problems with those tires, and others may wish to add their negative experiences as well.

They're made to run on snow surfaces, not bare roads, wet or otherwise. On bare roads those dedicated snow tires would "hunt" on the straights; they'd squirm and writhe and wriggle their way down the road. One had to DRIVE them in a straight line. It was tiring and annoying.


If you enjoy texting while driving, those tires could kill you. A moment's inattention and you'd find yourself halfway into another lane.


Where's my sportscar? I want my sportscar back!

'T was 'orrible, 't was.


Wonderful on snow, but despite all the snow we get, it's all piled along the roadsides, not on the pavement. We drive 90%+ of the time on clear pavement, which may be wet, but the tires are not on SNOW. We hated those tires on pavement. The trade-off wasn't worth it to us.

Secondly, the dedicated snow and ice tires are very soft and wear very fast. Word is that they're used up in around 7000 miles of driving. We didn't have those tires long enough to judge the wear.


If we lived in a location that had long periods of snow-covered roads, we'd buy the snow and ice tires in a jiffy. They're amazingly good.


If YOU buy them, keep in mind that the guy behind you probably does NOT have your stopping power. Don't "surprise him" and have him stuff his radiator in your trunk.


I always EASE up to stops, giving following drivers plenty of warning and space to slow down without hitting me. (Actually, I love driving in the snow. It's the other drivers that cause me concern. They can be a problem. The trick is to save them from their own mistakes. I find that I need to do that more often than I'd like... )


For US, we prefer to drive on the performance winter tires.

YMMV.

We run Michelin PA3 on our Mazdaspeed3 in the winter. They're great and you'd be hard pressed to tell any difference between them and summer tires unless really pushing the car hard. Most drivers would never notice the difference apart from the taller sidewall offering a slightly more comfortable ride over our bumpy roads.

We run the Dunlop SP Winter Sport 3D in a 205/55-16 on our BRZ, and again they're responsiveness on pavement is little different than the summer tires in normal driving. Actually, they're harder riding despite the taller sidewalls on the 205s on 16 inch Sparco wheels. They're fine in the snow, but I have very little actual snow time logged on them, because the roads are just wet and slushy most of the time, if not clear and dry.

I wonder if the dedicated snow and ice tires are much improved for dry pavement from years past? If not, then I can tell you this: you won't like them at all on your sportscar on dry pavement. Wobbling around on stilts is no fun in a sportscar.

Even with performance winter tires, though, you'll find the braking is not as good as on your summer tires on dry roads. If you have a few favorite country roads to zoom around, you'll want to move your braking points back up the road a good ways to re-learn new "winter" braking points with your new tires.

[Suberman]

Originally Posted by PoWn3d_0704

I just got the Observs on my BRZ yesterday. We were at 2 Degrees after snowfall, so it was slick as hell. The Observs impressed the living hell out of me.

They are impressive winter tires. I found them particularly capable at around freezing. Their ability to smash through heavy slush at high speeds was amazing, and that was ten years ago now. They will have improved even more now.

Now we have ABS there is no warning to drivers behind that you are on ice while they may not be, yet. Pre ABS the mad brake light flashing of cars having the brake pedal pumped was informative. On the slippery stuff I flash my brake lights a few times if the ABS is active, to give the guys behind a heads up that traction is about to disappear.

ABS release rate strobe for brake lights could be useful. Also, I think brake lights should get brighter as pedal pressure increases. With led tail lights these additional potentially useful effects could easily be implemented.

[Wepeel]

One thing to keep in mind - I've had summer tires "flatspot" freeze overnight in the winter. Took some driving in the morning to make them flexible/round again. If I recall it wasn't even that cold when that happened, maybe around 15-20*F.

Also, a few summer tires actually have a warning that the compound will be damaged if stored in, let alone driven on, in freezing temperatures, I think it was something like 35*.

[dsgerbc]

Originally Posted by chrisl

I've been driving around the past few days on Pilot Super Sports, on dry roads at ambient temperatures ranging from 0F to 35F. At 35F, they're just fine, but when you start getting below 10-15F ambient, you really do lose a lot of grip. Not enough to make them unsafe, but it's a lot more dramatic of a falloff than I was expecting. Even after driving around on them for half an hour though (with ambient temps in the ~5-10F range), they were still pretty low grip (which was fun, since I was expecting it). I've never experienced such a dramatic drop in grip at cold temperatures on all season tires before though (even at temps down to -25F/-32C) - it seems unique to the UHP summer tire genre.

That's fine, there's temperature somewhere toward zero where advantage of big tire blocks is finally negated by rubber getting harder. But it's certainly somewhere below ambient freezing.

Important bit I forgot:
If you're on Extreme Performance Summers, that is your RE11s, RS3s,Rivals,AD08s, ZIIs - what said about summer tires does not apply, these tires are geared to take the heat of track days and really lose a lot of grip in the dry at temps just above freezing. I have not seen this tested, but my butt confirmed this multiple times.

It's gonna be similar to what you've described about MPSS (Max Perf. summer tire), but it will happen at higher temps.

And a reminder - this is about how much dry grip there is on winter tires, not about advocating driving on summer tires well into sub-freezing temps.

[PoWn3d_0704]

Originally Posted by Suberman

They are impressive winter tires. I found them particularly capable at around freezing. Their ability to smash through heavy slush at high speeds was amazing, and that was ten years ago now. They will have improved even more now.

Now we have ABS there is no warning to drivers behind that you are on ice while they may not be, yet. Pre ABS the mad brake light flashing of cars having the brake pedal pumped was informative. On the slippery stuff I flash my brake lights a few times if the ABS is active, to give the guys behind a heads up that traction is about to disappear.

ABS release rate strobe for brake lights could be useful. Also, I think brake lights should get brighter as pedal pressure increases. With led tail lights these additional potentially useful effects could easily be implemented.

Funnily enough my brakelight does flash, since I have the Valenti Tails, which have made a number of people pay attention and realize that traction is gone.

Honestly, I'm amazed what a difference tires made in cold/wet. I've always read about the difference, but never experienced it.

[lionbacker54]

[QUOTE=dsgerbc;1376775]It's bogus, there is no increased grip in the dry over OEM Michelins until you hit like -30F.

Yeah, it's dry but about 18 degrees out there

[Suberman]

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/...y.jsp?ttid=181

[Frost]

Originally Posted by Suberman

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/...y.jsp?ttid=181

The wet traction freaks the hell outta me. I am glad I went X-Ice 2 though I think my current set is on its last winter...

[chrisl]

Originally Posted by Suberman

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/...y.jsp?ttid=181

I have to say, for sporty street tires, Michelin is really on the ball right now. In every category, they make the best tire available.

Want a performance winter tire? Pilot Alpin PA4
Want a performance all season? Pilot A/S 3
Want a performance summer? Pilot Super Sport
Want a barely-street-legal track monster? Pilot Sport Cup 2 (admittedly only available in a couple sizes right now, but it's hard to go wrong with the PS Cups either)

[Suberman]

I tried it. The only effect is a slightly increased tendency to slide sideways as I expected increasing the rear polar moment would do.

The effect on grip for acceleration is exactly zero.