What's Wrong with Running Snow Tires Year-Round?

Damage to the road surface.

I do not agree, unless he meant spikes, which I did not get from his post.....perhaps he will comment....

My apologies, When thinking of snow tires, I immediately thought of studded tires.

Of course non studded winter tires wont damage the road surface.

The reason many locations make studded tires illegal in the non-winter months is due to the damage to the road surface.

I only run with snow (studded) tires for the minimal time possible. The traction and control when running studded tires is awful when on pavement.

Hi, the snow tryes if not worn out by the next season will have become harder due to UV rays and will have less grip. Grip is also effected by wear rounding of the edge of the grooves. A few hundred miles is a lot for snow tyres on hot dry roads when expected life can be around 6,000 miles on dry roads compared to 30,000 for normal tyres. Snow tyres should be stored out of sun light and even then after 3 seasons efficency will be down as the rubber hardens over time. If they are studless they cause no damage to the road but do cause more polution as the rubber wears quicker releasing more carbon black and other chemicals in the compound, plus more old tyres to get rid of.

I don't agree. I kept my winter tyres on last year as they were still fully legal, but were not worth putting back on at the end of the year. So they did a whole year (slightly more!) and are still legal, in spite of hot roads (holiday in Italy towing a heavy caravan). I will put the summer tyres back on in April......

Snow tires will simply cost you more per mile to run and the grip is inferior on dry and wet roads.

If snow tires really were better gripping tires, then you would see them used in auto races and high performance cars. Obviously, that is not the case, so you sacrifice some safety and road performance with snow tires.

They are also noiser.

I disagree, "Good" snow tires are great in the wet and are more than adequate in the dry. How good I have no idea.....but as I use higher tyre pressures, so that might help!!

Go run the Nürburgring with good snow tires and then run the Ring on good street tires and report back your lap times.

Agree. Used to run my winter snow tires year round (even got them recapped) until I started looking at my gas mileage.

Up the tire pressures to the legal max in warmer weather.....not a complete fix, but helps dramatically.....

Can you imagine... at a drag race, having a contestant with 14 inch wide studded snow tires rather than "slicks"?

Much depends on where you live. Here, we get enough snow to cause problems once or twice a year. I don't have even have snow tires... but I do carry tire chains, and have had to use them twice this winter. We bought them 5 years ago when we got the car and this is the first year we have used them... (and what is this about "GLOBAL WARMING"??).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Of course on the other side of the mountains, we had "snow tires"... run them in the winter and go to "road tires" in the summer... we had months of snow. There, snow tires were warranted (with studs). Snow tires work on snow, but they don't work on ice. and they certainly don't work on dry pavement.

>>snows are made of much softer compounds, and they wear down fast

They are also louder to you and everyone else

They also have less tread in contact and so less stopping power on pavement

and if studded even less stopping power, briefly; until you finish popping them out

But yes, much wider more agressive stance; hence the number of trucks that run them year round!

I am on my second set of Bridgestone Blizzak snow tires, I actually have them on all 4 corners of my front-wheel drive 2003 Ford Focus. I am very happy with over 50,000 miles of tread wear under all conditions as the car has 200,000 miles and has been in almost all US states and all of the border provinces of Canada.

Almost bought a used AMC as pictured.

Have a 2006 Jeep Grand Cherokee now with 100,000 miles and I run nitrogen in the tires.

"Almost bought a used AMC as pictured."

Good thing you didn't. That's the AMC Eagle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMC_Eagle

Although a revolutionary vehicle, a true piece of crap.

Bricktop-

Agreed,

the wiki article has an interesting line of text in it:

Owners of the advanced design AMC Eagle are not the typical old car collectors of historic vehicles for purposes of nostalgia, status, pleasure, or even investment, but rather keep the cars because they work extremely well.

It did work well, when it ran. I was always a Jeep Guy, (still am). When the wife got pregnant with the first, the built and lifted CJ5 had to go. So, I compromised with an Eagle. You could actually off road a bit, and it was fantastic in the snow. However, it constantly broke down.

I know an old timer in Vermont that still runs one, (OK, he puts on about 500 miles a year), and actually has about 6 part cars behind his barn. Stubborn old coot. I think for every hour he drives it, he works on it for four.

As someone has mentioned the rubber compound is softer for winter tires. Not every area allow studs, can't use then here in Ontario.

I run BFG MT KM2 tries year round on my Land Rover Defender, they are far superior to their old design, and compound loss if much lower than previously. Noise level of the MT is akin to that of their AT.

The compound in snows is softer with a higher hysteresis rate than regular all seasons. The long hysteresis rate allows the tires to displace more frictional energy, thus providing more traction.

But less fuel efficiency... ja agree?

Good point. Commercial truck tires tend to be real hard to slow wear and reduce rolling resistance for better MPG. These tires are also awful in snow and ice.

The other way to increase efficiency is to reduce tire weight. Off hand I am thinking of the Pirelli P6. They can help MPG by about 5% over typical tires due to their lightweight construction. They are also very sensitive to proper inflation. They have very flimsy sidewalls and tend to wear unevenly if pressures are not checked regularly. I've run them and they can easily hit 80k miles if cared for.

GA from me.

That fits with my experience.

Higher pressures (that for fully loaded) seem to fix the wear and possible overheating problems in summer temps....