Here's How Winter Tyres Work
Winter can be a tough time for any car, with the onslaught of grit, salt and general moistness paving the way for unwanted corrosion, accumulations of clotted road grime and slippery driving conditions. Thankfully, there are a few ways in which you can prepare your car for the worst of winter, the most obvious of those being a set of winter tyres.
Although they can be costly and will normally sit dormant in your garage for the vast majority of the year, they can literally be lifesavers. So how do these special bits of rubber keep your car on the straight and narrow?
Winter brings with it wet and icy roads that standard road tyres are simply not designed to effectively deal with. Tyres are manufactured to operate at certain optimum temperatures, with the temperature affecting the stiffness of the rubber compound and giving it the flex needed to maximise friction between the rubber and the road surface.
Winter tyres are made up of a softer compound than standard tyres by using much more natural rubber within their construction. This means that – as temperatures dive to below seven degrees centigrade – the rubber stays malleable rather than becoming rigid, keeping good contact with the road surface and therefore creating much-needed friction. Braking distances are decreased and general grip is increased compared to standard tyres.
Winter tyres also feature more grooves and crevices within the tread design than summer boots. Due to the sheer amount of water and even snow covering the roads during winter, standard tyres can often have a tough time wicking water from the tyre contact areas which leads to the coefficient of the friction of the tyre suddenly decreasing, making the car quickly uncontrollable. This is amplified further when snow is involved, with the clogging of the grooves effectively resulting in slick tyres and putting you and your car in a world of hurt.
Known as ‘sipes’, the rubber channels moulded into a winter tyre’s construction are much more efficient at displacing the large amounts of water and snow that you drive over. The centripetal force induced by the spinning of the wheel allows the grooves and sipes to channel fluid away from the contact area of the tyre. Sipes can also be used as simple teeth to grapple snow much more effectively than a normal summer tyre, biting into even the most-compacted snow covering the road.
Unfortunately, the rubber compounds used in winter tyres are designed only to work at low temperatures. Winter tyres do not work anywhere near their optimum performance when used in spring or summer conditions, as the rubber becomes far too soft and heats up due to the increased friction with the tarmac they’re driving over. As they soften, the sidewalls begin to lose stiffness, making handling less responsive.
On their own, winter tyres can only do so much in the way of keeping your car driving as it should in crappy conditions. The modified rubber isn’t going to pile-drive you through the heaviest of Scandinavian snow storms or completely eradicate all forms of slippage over large expanses of black ice. In countries where ‘winter’ means multiple feet of snow, much more extreme measures need to be looked into in addition to winter tyres, like chain covers for your wheels to bite into the heavily-compacted snow and slush or even spiked tyres.
In this day and age, you can buy winter tyres for virtually any size of wheel on the market; I’ve even heard of a Lamborghini Aventador owner who decided to daily drive his raging bull throughout a Swiss winter, so slapped on some 335/30 ZR20 winter shoes! Due to this mass-production, we no longer have to venture into the world of 4x4s to get to work when the going gets tough and can make a good stab at getting even the smallest of city cars through a blizzard to our place of work.
So should you get winter tyres? Well, as mentioned above, it can come down to the winter conditions that you are used to in whatever country you live in. For example, here in Scotland, I wouldn’t outlay over £100 a tyre for a full set of winter shoes for my MX-5. On the other hand, tyre manufacturers now offer a happy medium through ‘all weather’ rubber which is a much more appetising prospect. Not only will these tyres work in the spring and summer due to only slight softening of the compound, but the added sipes will also see your car deal much better with the odd flurry of snow and heavy rain throughout the winter months.
Whether you fork out for a full set of winter tyres should come down to the weather you plan to be driving in and your relative budget. Although the vast majority of us seem to just take our chances with standard tyre treads and compounds all year round, the added benefits especially in safety may sway you one day towards buying a set. Also, not only will they reduce wear on your standard tyres (saving them for summer hooning), they will also allow you to drive even the most-extreme of dailies, knowing that you won’t end up spinning into your neighbour’s garden while reversing out of the driveway.
Do you switch to winter tyres once the leaves fall from the trees? What is the most extreme car you’ve seen sporting winter shoes? Comment with your thoughts below!
Comments
This is ridiculous. If you plan to drive through the winter in a climate with any real winter, winter tires, or at the very very least all-seasons are an absolute must. Trying to drive in the winter on summer tires is just tempting fate.
Here in Sweden the law say you must have winter tires from 1st December to 31st Mars. I always use winter tires, both because the law says so and because the grip is way better. Usually I put them on when the temperatures stays around 0°C or under and the summer tires does not go back on before the temperature are steadily over 0°C.
Most of us here in Sweden use studded winter tires for the best grip possible.
Most “extreme” daily driven car in the winter I have seen irl is a Porsche Panamera . Well I have seen several RS Audis but I don’t count them as “extreme” because of the quattro wich make them phenomenal winter cars.
If you’re living in the part of the world where it does snowing, you’ll know that summer tyre at winter condition is like plastic on the wheels. Doesn’t pull, stops or steer when it’s snow on the road. My father didn’t want to spend the money on winter tires but also didn’t drive on snow, only when it’s clear…and even then it was risky. Try hitting the snowy road with summer tires…don’t make posts afterwards like “it would be funny they said”. No one thinks it’s funny when hit the brake and car won’t stop.
i smell a clickbaity/misleading title
Also in Romania, the winter tires are mandatory when the snow falls. I bought 4 new Nokian WR D4 , with A grade on wet surfaces since November. I know that the “All season-All weather” are convenient related to price but I still think that the top winter tires are better than all season and also the top summer tires are better than all season . So I prefer to buy 4 new winter tires with steel wheels and 4 new summer tires with alloy wheels that I can relay on.
Gonna go get myself some track day tyres now! BF Goodrich or Pirrelli Zeros? Lol.
Here in Belgium we literally had one day of snow last winter. Snow was gone by the crack of dawn so to speak. I’m driving Bridgestone Potenza’s this winter and I’ll put on Uniroyal Rainsports once they’ve worn.
Im running Uniroyal Rainsport 3s myself. Really good faux all season tyre, on snow they are better than the cheap Chinese winter tyres my brother is using, in the dry they are a bit wobbly but one of the best wet weather tyres ive used
As long as insurance gives a discount for having them on, im in
I’m TYREd of snow.
Come on, this doesn’t need winter or summer tyres