when to put on the winter tires

[CarlW]

Hello, just wondering when to put on the winter gear, I am in the Toronto, Canada area, the temperature has been 5c .

I have some people tell me when the weather turns cold, it does not matter if there is no snow, that winter tires are good for cold weather as well. I have a set of Gislaved Nordfrost II, and have never used the brand before.

I guess my concerns are loss of nice drive/handling , and putting on un needed kms, especially when winter rubber is alot softer.

Any advise would be appreciated

Thanks

[Jngrbrdman]

If you are going to put snow tires on then you`ll want to do them now probably. You don`t want to drive on the dry roads too long with snow tires, but its better than fighting the mad rush at the tire store when it actually does snow. Unless you really like changing your wheels in the snow, I`d do it now. Its a good time to do it.

[NGB34747]

I live in Vancouver B.C and currently it drops down to 3c at night.



I would say it depends on situation.



If you are currently running all season tires and have a extra set of winter rims + tires I would wait till it drops below 0c and ice becomes a problem. At this point I would switch to winter tires. The reason is that winter tires have a compound that is more suited to gripping ice. All season tires will generally do "ok" in the snow when new but are completely useless in the snow.



If you do not have a second set of winter rims, I would advise you switch tires now, that is unless you like lining up for 6-8 hours to get your tires changed when the first sign of snow comes along. Tire shops are completely swamped at this time and you also run the risk that they pull a rushed job on you (mis balanced tire, non torqued lug nuts, etc).



If you are currently running summer tires, I would suggest that you also change to winter tires now. Summer tires have a very soft tire compound that stick like glue in the summer but will harden when the temperature drops. In low temperatures, the tire will be unable to conform to the road surface very well reducing your contact patch, will be completely useless in the ice and you can guarantee to get stuck in the snow... not fun..



The final consideration to think about is if the city has started to salt the roads yet. It is a good idea to keep the alloy`s out of the salt if all possiable, so when they start salting it`s time to switch to your steel rims.





btw..... after saying all that, i`m still running my summer performance tires on my Matrix with a full set of winter tires (with rims) on stand-by sitting in the garage. The reason is that they have not started to salt the roads yet and that the car is only driven during the day where temps are in the 10-15c rang..





Sorry for the long post..

Jon.