How To Choose Winter Tires Better

Snow. If ever there was a love / hate relationship in our lives it is with snow. We grow up building snow forts and chucking snowballs at our friends and family. Then we got our first Canadian driver’s lesson. Sometimes we get this lesson with an instructor, sometimes with a parent or peer, and sometimes we get it with a snow bank.

Every year as winter approaches we get excited about the prospect of a white Christmas but deep down we have a certain unease at the thought of the black top turning white. We diligently install our winter tires (not snow tires, those no longer exist) and put a general trust in the fact that how much we paid for the tire is a good indicator of how much faith we can put in those tires.

There is one small problem with that approach. On the less expensive end, there is a hope that the tires are underrated or a “trade secret”. On the more expensive end, we think the tire is half downhill ski and half suction cup. There is a better way to figure out if the tires you want to buy will be more or less reliable.

A Break Down Of What You Need To Know:

The shoulder

These horizontal lines are called grooves. The same as the vertical ones. The horizontal grooves on the “shoulder” of the tire are notably the biggest differentiator between summer and winter tires. This is the groove responsible for the majority of your grip on snow and ice. They are also largely responsible for your ride quality (sound and sometimes vibration) going down.

Approximately every inch is a block of rubber, and inside of each block, there are some important design features. There is the sort of “half groove” called a block (blocker) and the “small zig-zag lines” called sipes. The three have very similar roles. That is to grip and maintain control on snow, ice and water. They just work at different levels bringing a sort of group effort of grip.

In the good old days when there was no need to have winter specific tires, Conscientious fleets would simply add these thick shoulder grooves to turn a thick summer tire into a winter one.

The tread design

On passenger vehicles, the tread designs we see today are designed partly to be as effective as possible and partly to be attractive. Most of us are pretty good at picking out the cooler ones (they typically just look more expensive) and that’s not a bad thing. Most people would be absolutely right in guessing which tire has a better, more effective design. But what exactly does Better mean?

The tread design has essentially one practical goal. That is to displace snow, water, and mud. That is why race cars on a perfect track can and do have “bald” tires known as slicks. The thicker the groove, the more efficient the angle, the better the snow displacement. More tire is touching more asphalt or, at least, more solid ground.

The rubber

This is the big difference between tires of today and yesteryear. In the past, a “snow tire” was simply a normal tire that had better shoulder grooves that could better handle the snow and ice. This was a half solution, literally. Tread design is very important and so are shoulder grooves, but they are worth very little if the tire compound has frozen. The tires of today, Winter Tires, are simply Snow Tires with a compound that will maintain its qualities in the cold. Conversely, in the summer heat, they get much too soft and sound like rubber sloppily slapping on the road.

The industry standard is 7 degrees celsius. Some can handle below that mark, while others, not so much. It may seem that +7c and -40c is a pretty big range. All that it represents is the dividing point between summer and winter tire classification. All-season tires are summer tires. A quality winter tire manufacturer is not testing their compounds at temperatures where there will be no snow.

Common sense

Along with all these winter tire qualities, there is a major caveat that is often forgotten. No tire compound or configuration can perfectly handle the task of slowing thousands of pounds to a halt. I am not saying no one could invent such a tire. I am saying that it hasn’t been done and you do not have them. Better than any tire, stud, chain, etc. is a conscientious driver, driving at a safe speed and keeping a safe distance. Only with experience do we learn what that means for any given vehicle, I just hope none of us ever have to learn the hard way.

Drive safe,

Kevin Gauthier