DRIVEN: Understanding Winter Tires

With the cooler weather upon us, it's time to think about switching over to your winter tires. To better understand the importance of winter tires we have shared some information below.

Tires are an important factor in safe driving, for both yourself, your passengers, and other drivers on the road. Below you will find key differences between summer tires and winter tires.

A higher percentage of rubber in winter tires keeps the tires soft and flexible to better grip the road in cold weather. Driving on winter tires in the summer will cause faster wear, reduce fuel efficiency and create a need for greater braking distance. Because winter tires are more pliable in warmer temperatures, they wear more quickly on hard, dry asphalt.

Another benefit of winter tires is extra, deeper, grooves, which provide better traction on snow and ice. There are also smaller channels, or 'sipes', that allow the tire to keep better contact with eh road surface.

We all know that winter tires are for winter driving, but when is the ideal time to make the change-over? Most experts agree that below 10 degrees is when winter tires do best on the road, and above 10 degrees is when summer tires do best on the road.

It's important to note that all-season tires and winter tires have the same grip, that is until the temperature starts to drop. As the weather gets colder all-season tires start to lose their traction, while winter tires gain grip. With this in mind, "all season" doesn't mean you shouldn't switch over to winter tires to combat Canadian winters.

Your car will skid if you drive on summer or all-season tires in winter - see for yourself what that looks like and how winter tires fare in the summer.