For many vehicles produced today, all-season tread is the tire of choice. They provide a good balance between ride comfort, performance, and lasting life on the road in all conditions. Because of this, all-seasons tires are compromised when it comes to providing suitable grip for the more extreme conditions.
If you find yourself traveling down in wet, icy, or snowy conditions, an all-season will not provide the grip you need to get down the road safely. As it stands, if you want to be able to traverse the road in winter conditions, you are going to need a winter tire.
At Big Country Ford Lincoln, we like to share with you how these two types of tires compare, plus what are their strengths and weaknesses each.
Benefits of Driving In Extreme Conditions
When it comes to driving in winter, your vehicle's tires need to stand up to the roughest of conditions. Winter tires are constructed to deliver better tread flexibility when temperatures drop to freezing.
This flexibility allows the tire to grip the road more efficiently, essentially allowing more of the tire to make contact with the road surface.
When faced with the same conditions, an all-season tire tread compound begins to stiffen up, causing the tire to lose its contact patch with the road. With that contact patch, the tire can no longer provide traction for the vehicle.
Moreover, winter tires offer more aggressive tread patterns and tread depth. With the greater tread depth, snow can be quickly dissipated from the tire, allowing the tire to maintain grip. The tread pattern itself dissipates all the collected snow, water, and ice.
All-season tires, on the other hand, have tread patterns and tread depth that is optimized for efficiency and dissipating water in the rain. When encountering snow and slush, the patterns and depth are not aggressive enough to dissipate the snow to maintain traction.
Furthermore, winter tires have more biting edges or slits on the tire tread. These biting edges allow Brownwood, TX drivers to have more traction.
All-Season tires come with fewer edges, offering less confidence with going gets slick.
Benefits of Driving in Normal Condition
While winter tires are great in the most adverse conditions, they tend to lose their usefulness when subjected to normal weather. This is due to the tires having a softer compound construction. As the temperatures rise, winter tires begin to degrade and wear out.
Conversely, all-season tires are constructed with a harder compound, allowing them to last longer in moderate climates.
Moreover, all-season tires are, by their nature, easy to drive on. They offer better road handling and efficiency, especially at highway speeds around Santa Ana, TX, as opposed to winter tires.
Because of their extreme construction, winter tires can be cumbersome and have less fuel at highway speeds, making them a bit tricky to get a handle on when the roads are not icy.
Another benefit of all-season tires in normal conditions is convenience. With an all-season, Comanche, TX, drivers won't have to worry about getting their tires replaced once or twice a year to prepare for cold winter or hotter summer on the roads.
However, winter tires will need to change at the end of the season to avoid excess wear and damage.
Conclusion
In the end, the choice of tire for your vehicle depends on your location and the amount of travel you plan to do in the winter months. If there is a high probability of snow and ice being a regular occurrence, we recommend tires.
If however, you are not expecting snow or ice regularly, we highly recommend going with an all-season tire for travel.