Originally Posted By: rpn453
Originally Posted By: Craig in Canada
Who said anything about "regularly"? Some lady pulled into a 55mph flow of traffic in front of me without looking while another car was beside me - brakes (and horn, and high beams) were the only course of action.
I apologize if I misinterpreted you. I got that impression from this statement:
Originally Posted By: Craig in Canada
Switching to my snow tires even in proper, cold conditions always brings a huge drop in vehicle performance. In particular the first thing I notice is braking effectiveness drops substantially.
I guess that statement caught my attention because I've never noticed a drop in braking effectiveness with winter tires, since I've never been anywhere close to braking at the limits with them on clean pavement.
Well, maybe we're just running into a matter of perception. I detect, instantly and without a doubt, the change in tracking and other characteristics of the car as soon as my winter tires go on. You don't need to be anywhere near the limit to detect this. My wife comes home after her drive on snows and comments and she's just noodling about going to the grocery store with no high performance driver training etc... The squirming of the sipes dramatically reduces the directness of the vehicle's connection to dry pavement. My brand new Hakkas are the wintery-est winter tires I've had in a while and exhibit this dramatically in both acceleration and braking. (Yes, acceleration has also been compromised somewhat) When it's over 5C it's quite noticeable and accompanied with grippy, velcro-like noises. When it's closer to 10-15C (we had a warm spell) they might as well be wheels of cheddar. I had to tippy-toe all over the place trying not to ruin them for a day or so. In the end I decided to take them off for what ended up being 4 weeks, since I change sets myself in less than half an hour.
I know my car and how it behaves fairly well, as I'm sure many others here do, and I notice a definite "whoa, Nelly" with decreased braking performance when the snows go on. When the summers go back on she feels like she can nose-stand again.
Far too many drivers are unaware of where the limit actually is. This isn't a recommendation to behave like a hooligan, but a statement about driving training. It's good to experience this sort of thing in at least one training session.
During the emergency moment I mentioned this week I wasn't exactly aware what the limit on my RSis was at that temperature since they're new and I'm not accustomed to them. I can say that if my summers were still on the car in those same conditions (1C, dry) it would have been a total non-event - a one second firm squeeze of the pedal - to scrub off the required speed and it would have simply been annoying. With the snows my brake response wasn't linear and progressive, and at least one wheel was starting to lock as I was threshold braking (despite ABS). Now it became an "event" as there was a brief instant when I couldn't confidently project a good outcome. (And I was really happy to be locking up my brand new snows on dry pavement).
We're talking a real difference here, not a couple hundredths of a g. I listed all of the winter tires I've used in the past to demonstrate that these observations aren't just from one tire. Around 12 years ago I was using all seasons in the summer (Michelin MXV4s) and Michelin XMS100 in the winter. When we had that run of El Nino winters where the Toronto area had almost no snow I left the all seasons on because the braking performance was so much better in the wet/dry that we were seeing that winter.
Originally Posted By: Craig in Canada
It doesn't take "regularly" to total two or more vehicles, injure occupants or strike a pedestrian. I think just one incident in a lifetime would be worth a set of tires, don't you?
It's not just one set of tires, it's an ongoing expense.
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All of the points you raise in this paragraph are valid but are, IMO, an argument for a top-notch set of all-seasons or all-weathers if you aren't going to bother changing tires, not a good argument to run snows all year.
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And, there's no guarantee that incident will ever happen, or that the person be either injured or at-fault. If they have
Yet we need to pay far more than $5000 in a lifetime on car insurance
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I'd also greatly reduce my chance of a head injury in a collision if I wore a helmet while driving.
This made me chuckle
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How often would a few less feet worth of braking distance or a few hundredths of a g in cornering ability change the outcome of a collision significantly? I don't think I've ever heard of a collision involving anyone I know that would have been prevented, or even significantly reduced in severity, by a little more dry pavement traction. Yet I've heard of many
One of my repeated points is that I (personally) find the effect dramatic even when my snows are in their proper temperature range. In the scorching heat of summer I don't think it would be a few "hundreths of a g".
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where better winter traction would have helped. Semi-trailer trucks have far longer braking distances than passenger cars, yet they somehow manage to crash less often.
Originally Posted By: Craig in Canada
I agree with you here. My point in the discussion is those limits will be FAR lower if you're running WS-50s in 90F summer than a proper tire rated for summer.
We do agree on that!
We're still agreed on winter traction.
At any rate, I'm really not trying to turn this into any kind of heated argument. I'm just trying to provide some first hand observations that in the dry snows are less capable than other tires even when in their temperature range. If you go far out of their temperature range, you could be in some real trouble. And for those drivers who drive around unaware of where the limits are for their current vehicle and conditions, they (and others) might be in for quite a surprise when they actually need full capability.
The OP was wondering if this is a good idea. Based on personal observation I feel it's a bad idea. Based on how compromised my RSis are at only 15C at night with no sun I would even call it "reckless" depending on a number of factors. Though, as rpn453 asserts, it's even more reckless to run bald all-seasons in winter conditions. You might be able to get away with it in the realm of a performance snow tire (Nokian WRG2, Michelin Pilot/Primacy Alpin PA3, Pirelli Snowsport 210/240/Sottozero, Dunlop 3D) but they won't be as good in the white stuff - a well-known compromise. By the time winter rolls around the summer use may have rounded off the sipes so much that they're useless, however.
