Summer Tires

[1.8T_WOT]

What are your comments on summer tires in Calgary, i.e. Goodyear Eagle F1's, Toyo T1R's? Is it a bad idea? How many months/year can you safely keep them on your car?

[Canadian Turbo]

Re: Summer Tires

I think you can generally run summer tires from April/May ish to October without too much issue. I think if you are a spirited driver that summer tires are a must and I think getting the benefits out of dedicated summer and winter tires is worth the cost. Fairly easy to switch with a good jack and two sets of wheels for quick changeover.

[1.8T_WOT]

Re: Summer Tires

Yeah, that's my preference, although I've heard some guys talking about putting all-season's on their summer rims to extend their usability by a couple of months. Personnaly, I'm not sure that the tradeoff is worth it (sounds like you agree). If I can get 6 months out of my summer rims/tires then I'll be happy with that.

[R_Ethug]

Re: Summer Tires

yea you can rock the summers from april/may depending on the rocks too if you don't mind them getting dinged up.. then off by halloween for sure.. but then again that depends too.. since the weather here is so nutty..

[Lars]

Re: Summer Tires

Ive got a set of winter and a set of summer tires well worth it traction handling etc in winter is a huge + and makes them last longer

[Khyron]

Re: Summer Tires

I have winter/summer rims and I went with ultra all seasons for the summer to get through those fluke snow storms that can even happen in July. They lasted long and all but my next set will be Falken 651s or the kumo MXs pure summer tires.

Khyron

[tirebob]

Re: Summer Tires

Okay, there is a lot of misinformation out there so hopefully this may help clear a bit of it up...

First and foremost... There is no real advantage to running an all season performance tire "longer into the season" than a summer performance tire... The main culprit here is rubber compounding, and with most tires, performance especially, the rubber compounding between A/S and Summer Tires is virtually identical, and it is rubber compounding (combined with a few other qualities) that truely make the difference in traction when the temperatures start to consistently drop below 5 to 7 degrees.

See, winter rubber compounding is molecularly designed to remain soft and pliable when the temperatures start getting low. Rubber will usually start to harden up (depending on the tire) at aprrox 5 to 7 degrees celcius, and by the time you get to below freezing temps, your tire essentially harden like a hockey puck does. I use the anology of when we were little kids and our moms would buy us the sponge hockey pucks so we wouldn't get hurt, but we all hated them because when you took a shot, they would not slide very far before slowing down and stopping, but when we played with a real puck, our shots would go on forever (or so it seemed when we were 5! lol)...

Winter rubber compounding stays softer, so all the sipes and tread blocks stay flexible and can do their jobs of sweeping away water from the surface of ice and dig out and throw snow away from between the tread and road surface, giving you more traction.

That being said, if you are bound and determined to run into the fall/winter as long as possible without switching tires, you biggest help (and it is not really that big at all) is to get a tire that will shed away water at the greatest capacity possible, because this is the only aspect of the tire that will do anything to help move a bit of slush etc away from the tread surface. The rubber compounding won't help without using a dedicated tire. Also a narrower tire will help somewhat more than a wide tire because it will apply more pounds per square inch over the surface of the tread to the road surface, but with performance tires, this is not usually a consideration, and if you are going to buy seperate tires in this instance, why not make them deicated winters?

A lot of what makes an all season tire or a summer tire is purely marketing. If a tire will not be accepted as a hardcore sport tire, brand it as an all season to appeal to a different market share. If a tire has hardcore sport ability, brand it as a summer because if it was marked all season, most performance enthuiests would not believe it is truely a hardcore sport tire. You also have to remember that there are probably more people in the state of California then there is in all of Canada... The tire manufacturers do not take into account Canadian conditions when marketing A/S tires because we are such a tiny portion of the marketplace... They will market tires based on their largest core consumer target group, which is virtually the southern 2/3's of the U.S., which does not usually see conditions as harsh as the majority of Canada...

Anyways, to finally answer the initial question of this thread, the rule of thumb is to wait until the temperatures consistently remain above 5 degree celcius before running your non-winter oriented tires. Obviously this is a little tough to predict exactly, but just remember to drive more carefully if you are on your summers and you go out one morning to freezing temperatures...

[Canadian Turbo]

Re: Summer Tires

Great info Bob!!

[1.8T_WOT]

Re: Summer Tires

Wow, straight from the horses mouth. Thanks Bob.