The best way to handle the challenge of changing weather between the seasons is to have two sets of tires and then do timely tire changes between the summer and winter seasons. This way you will have the best tires for each season and the best safety. Your vehicle’s performance will improve if you get your tire selection correct. It is always difficult to design and develop a tire that can handle such big difference in conditions. This is why you will need two completely different tires and to change the tires. When you drive in summer conditions, you will need a very different tire. You need tires that will perform well on dry and wet asphalt, can manage high speeds and has good cornering properties. The tire should also have good properties for preventing hydroplaning, so that you can drive safely in rain and on wet roads. The tires should also have good wet grip and be able to handle the high summer temperatures.
An all-season tire would perform very poorly in cold and winter conditions as the rubber compound used in all-season tires is optimized for warm temperatures. This means that the rubber will become very hard at low temperatures, and they can’t provide the necessary grip required when driving in winter conditions. Therefore, you would need to change tires to a set of winter tires, also known as snow tires. Winter tires have a completely different rubber composition. The composition is optimized for cold weather to stay soft and comply with the road surface for optimal grip.
With winter tires, you can also choose if you want to have studded or non-studded tires. The studded tires have metal or ceramic studs protruding from the tread to ensure an excellent grip. This is the best option for icy surfaces. For the non-studded tires, they use a unique tread design to create the grip on ice, which gives you still a good grip, but not as good as with them studs. When it comes to snow, both these tires will perform well. However, when you have tightly packed snow, which is almost like ice, and therefore the studded tires will be better. The studded winter tires aren’t approved all over North America, so you have to check what rules apply where you live and where you plan to drive.
Using two sets of tires is the best option ensuring that you can drive safely all year round. The key challenge is actually when to change the tires. It is recommended to change when the temperature drops below 45°F as the winter tires outperform all-season tires at temperatures below this temperature. With studded tires, you often have restrictions on the period when they can be used, but you want to make sure that you have them mounted on your car in time well before the winter weather actually shows up, as it is not safe to drive without winter approved tires on your car.
For more information regarding summer and winter tires, visit: https://ww.nokiantires.com/