Snow tires VS winter tires??

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OK I'm old, Back in the days of RWD and carbs. Everyone bought Snow Tires (if you wanted to go anywhere).
So now there are Winter tires (kind of like all season tires).
So what is better? old school snows/or Winter? For a RWD vehicle.
Can you just put Winter tires on the rear only /as you did with Snows ??
 
People use these terms interchangeably to mean the same thing. Winter tires are designed to handle all winter conditions, including snow.

However, there are different categories of winter tires out there - some are geared more towards dry weather performance while others are geared more towards heavy duty snow conditions. So you should probably narrow it down based on what your priorities are and what type of road conditions you most encounter.

Quote:
Can you just put Winter tires on the rear only /as you did with Snows ??

I wouldn't.
 
I've never seen tires marketed/sold as "snow" tires, did you see that somewhere? I don't believe there are snow tires, only winter ones. But I don't know everything.

And I'll echo that every winter tire manufacturer I've seen wants you to have them on all four wheels. That's what I do for the three vehicles on which I have winter tires.
 
Snow and winter tires are terms used for the same item, although manufacturers tend to use winter.

Installing just two will cause erratic steering conditions. Don't do this. Buy four Nokian Hakkapellita 8 (studded) or Hakkapellita R2 tires and you'll be in good shape.
 
I believe "Snow" tires implies it is good in mud and Snow, but not the compound that would work as well on ice.

I had Pirelli Snow Controls on my Fit when I got it, and ditched them for IG-20 as the icy conditions in Montreal made them unusable.

I have them still in my storage, but will only put them back on when the car is near scrap yard time.
 
I am also of the old school of snow tires. Also known as mud and snow or M+S Back in the 60s and 70s and even 80s, I always put them on the rear wheels of the RWD cars I drove. They were MUCH different than the "winter" tires of today. They had very open tread, with almost tractor tread on the edges. I quite often had them studded, and even owned a stud gun to put them in myself, as my dad and I ran a full service gas station/repair shop, and also sold new tires.
 
Originally Posted By: kschachn
I've never seen tires marketed/sold as "snow" tires, did you see that somewhere? I don't believe there are snow tires, only winter ones. But I don't know everything.

And I'll echo that every winter tire manufacturer I've seen wants you to have them on all four wheels. That's what I do for the three vehicles on which I have winter tires.

Originally Posted By: rustytoolss
OK I'm old, Back in the days of RWD and carbs. Everyone bought Snow Tires (if you wanted to go anywhere).
So now there are Winter tires (kind of like all season tires).
So what is better? old school snows/or Winter? For a RWD vehicle.
Can you just put Winter tires on the rear only /as you did with Snows ??

Call them what you want to. But in Ohio, in the 60's-80's we had Snow tires (maybe mud&snow) They look like 4WD truck tires. And only put them on the drive wheels. The traction was far better that conventional tires,in the snow.
 
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Yep, you're the only one here who got what the OP was asking.
Back in the day, you might put a set of snows with a very agressive tread pattern on the back of your RWD car.
You might even have them studded.
That was what we had and used way back when.
The advent of radial tires, which offered decent grip in snow, put an end to these old-school snow tires.
Now, I know I'll hear from those saying that these early OEM radials weren't anything like winter tires.
Point taken, but unless you were driving in snow during the mid seventies when radials first appeared on common cars in this country, you can't appreciate or understand how much better these tires were under all conditions than were the bias belted tires that had come before them.
 
Like you, I used to run "Snow Tires" in the old days, with big cleats and an attempt to get traction by grabbing large amounts of snow. With many weeks spent in the mountains each winter snow skiing, I was an early adopter of "winter tires" and was stunned by the results. These, soft silicon rubber, finely sipped tires are a huge improvement in winter traction. Old "snow tires" are not even close! Since my son and I own both two and four wheel drive vehicles, it is clear that winter tires make a 2wd nearly equal to a 4wd for traction and greatly superior for braking and steering and safety

Of course, my son would point out that his Subaru with winter tires is amazing at all the above!

We have used Bridgestone, Dunlop, Michelin and Yokahama winter tires, all are hugely better than any all season.....our favorite it the Michelin Xi-3
 
I should add: Yes, you can successfully use winter tires on the back of a RWD car, it will not be as safe or responsive as having them on all 4 corners, but it will be stable on the highway.

You MUST not run winter tires on the front only of a FWD car. With the rear end sliding around everywhere, stability at highway speeds on snow is awful. Yes, I have tried it. Beyond awful. Try pushing a grocery cart around backwards with the castering wheels now on the trailing end and you will immediately understand.
 
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Snow tires (as in Mud and Snow) were a particular breed of tires that had better traction in mud and snow, which were considered to be equivalent low traction situations requiring special tread patterns. Sometimes a special tread compound was used - walnut shells being one interesting ingredient sometimes used.

Snow tires worked fairly well compared to the regular tires at the time, which was before radials were introduced. Typically the cars were rear wheel drive and Snow tires were mounted on the drive tires. It was known that the steer tires could use the additional traction, but overall, snow was such a low traction situation, it hardly mattered.

When radial tires were introduced, the improvement in traction was quite apparent, and because the wear rate of radial tires was much better, the tread pattern could be more aggressive without losing too much wear - hence the birth of "All Season".

Just about this time, Front Wheel Drive was introduced. It took 20 years, eventually FWD dominated the car market.

What was interesting was that the California Highway Patrol required "Mud and Snow" tires for certain weather conditions, so a definition for "All Season" tires was developed by the Rubber Manufacturers Association (RMA). This definition described the appearance of the tread pattern, and if the tread pattern met that definition, the tire could be labeled with the letters "M" and "S" with an additional symbol between the 2 letters, such as "-", "/", "&", or "+".

Why a description of the tread pattern, rather than a test? Because, snow traction testing was in its infancy and wasn't reliable enough.

Needless to say this created confusion because "All Season" and "M*S" have different letters and the concepts are quite different. Over time, the use of snow tires reduced to the point where it was hard to find snow tires.

Over in Europe, they went a different direction and created "Summer" tires and "Winter" tires with each designed for the specific conditions. These tires were quite different both tread pattern-wise and tread compound-wise.

The Europeans noted that radial Winter tires had so much better traction than bias Snow tires that the use of 4 Winter tires became more or less standard. Not to mention that FWD cars would lose control at the rear with winter tires on the drive axle, which is not the way you want the car to behave.

After a while it became apparent even in the US that Winter tires had much better traction than All Season tires and Winter tires started to sell. By this time, winter tires had much much better traction than the old bias ply snow tires that marketing the tires as "Winter" as a good idea to emphasize the improvement.

In some locales (Quebec comes to mind), the improvement in traction of winter tires was such that they felt the need to mandate winter tires. The problem was determining what was a "Winter" tire. The Canadian government asked the RMA for help and the RMA came up with a standardized test and the "Mountain/Snowflake" symbol to indicate passing the test. This was intended as a winter tire test, but it was quickly discovered that some All Season tires and most All Terrain tires would pass the test.

However the Canadian government wanted the symbol to delineate winter tires, not aggressive all season tires, so they asked the RMA to mandate the symbol for use only on winter tires - which the RMA can not do, but they passed that suggestion onto the tire manufacturers, who aren't always following that suggestion.

Meanwhile, the Europeans suffered a bout of "Not Invented Here", so the symbol is NOT looked on with favor in Europe and some winter tires over there do not have the symbol.

So, today, we have a mix of things. Winter tires sold in Canada and the US have the Mountain/Snowflake symbol, but not necessarily in Europe. The symbol appears on some all season tires and some all terrain tires, but absence of that symbol does NOT mean the tire will not pass the test.
 
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Originally Posted By: rustytoolss
OK I'm old, Back in the days of RWD and carbs. Everyone bought Snow Tires (if you wanted to go anywhere).
So now there are Winter tires (kind of like all season tires).
So what is better? old school snows/or Winter? For a RWD vehicle.
Can you just put Winter tires on the rear only /as you did with Snows ??

Snow and winter tires are same thing.
To be a winter tire has to have M+S designation and snow flake on the sidewall. All season tire has only M+S designation but NO snowflake on the sidewall.
I think confusion cam because in Europe, which is biggest market for snow/winter tires, term that is used is Winter tire.
 
OK, so modern Winter tires give far better traction than the old mud&Snow tires. And you must use them on all four corners.
If you were to use modern winter tires all year round (Ohio) , how long would they last ? (mileage)?
 
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Originally Posted By: rustytoolss
If you were to use modern winter tires all year round (Ohio) , how long would they last ? (mileage)?

Wife's Nokian WR lasted about 30K miles*, driven all year round, primarily in Wisconsin. Now, WR is theoretically classified as an all-weather tire, but really geared more towards winter. And honestly, if you are seriously planning to run them all year long, then something like Nokian WR (or their current successor) is probably the right thing to get.


*If she hadn't taken the car to Texas towards the end of the tires' life, she probably would have gotten another 10K miles out of them in WI.
 
Originally Posted By: rustytoolss
OK, so modern Winter tires give far better traction than the old mud&Snow tires. And you must use them on all four corners.
If you were to use modern winter tires all year round (Ohio) , how long would they last ? (mileage)?

Problem for me would not be longevity.
ADAC (German auto club) did once test of winter tires at 22 degrees celsius. Best winter performing tire in warm weather had like 50 feet longer braking distance than worst performing summer tire in warm weather.
 
No way. If I'm late in getting my summer tires on, that takes quite a toll on them especially if it is a hot spring.

And I saw a rash of failures of my Gislaved Nordfrost 5s when I was slow to remove them, I posted pictures here. I was eventually convinced that it was my daughter's driving habits rather than riding them in the spring, but I still don't think that helped matters any.

Originally Posted By: rustytoolss
OK, so modern Winter tires give far better traction than the old mud&Snow tires. And you must use them on all four corners.
If you were to use modern winter tires all year round (Ohio) , how long would they last ? (mileage)?
 
I agree with that. Overall the handling is just nowhere near the same.

Originally Posted By: edyvw
Originally Posted By: rustytoolss
OK, so modern Winter tires give far better traction than the old mud&Snow tires. And you must use them on all four corners.
If you were to use modern winter tires all year round (Ohio) , how long would they last ? (mileage)?

Problem for me would not be longevity.
ADAC (German auto club) did once test of winter tires at 22 degrees celsius. Best winter performing tire in warm weather had like 50 feet longer braking distance than worst performing summer tire in warm weather.
 
As a note to the positive though, the difference in the snow with winter tires is nothing short of remarkable. I have found that people who never use them more or less discount the improvements, but those who do use them become steadfast evangelists.
 
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