Winter Tires

March 16, 2009

Our Tip of The Week concerns winter tires. At best most cars comes with all-season or high performance all-season tires. The next level up in terms of winter traction is the proper winter tire. If you are thinking of purchasing winter tires, the most frequently asked question is: "do I need two or four?" The answer to that question is in most cases you should have four winter tires. For example, a front wheel drive car with winter tires on the front wheels only with have fabulous straight line traction: it'll go through the snow in a straight line no problem but breaking and turning is going to be a handful. If you don't have good traction on the rear of that front wheel drive vehicle, even though those rear wheels aren't driven you are apt to have pre-mature lock-up of the rear wheels and a situation where the rear of the car is going to want to skid out when turning or breaking and turning. So four winter tires is the answer for a front wheel drive vehicle.

If your vehicle is four-wheel drive or all-wheel drive you want to take advantage of the great traction that it has, so four winter tires are a given if you are upgrading your winter tires. On a two wheel drive vehicle like on my two wheel drive pick-up, winter tires are okay on the rear wheels providing the front tires are a quality tire with lots of tread depth and the vehicle is driven according to the weather conditions. But by far you are much better with four winter tires on a vehicle like that because there is no such thing as having too much grip in the winter.

That's your Tip of The Week.

Close Window