Winter Tires

Evolution of Winter TiresHave you noticed all the "talk" on winter tires, and do you need or not need winter tires, and so on.

If you have been around for a few years perhaps you remember driving in winter on bias/belted tires, and snow tires just in the rear (we are talking a few decades ago). The winter tire landscape has come a long way. 

Back in the day, belted tires and black ice/ice were an interesting combination in winter, and especially at night that would activate several stages of adrenalin in a few nano seconds. Although the advent of radial tires dramatically improved traction in winter/snow without resorting to winter tires. Black ice at night...until the arrival of ABS remained an adrenalin event.

All season tires will probably provide reasonable traction in winter with a rear wheel drive car. If its a vehicle with 70 or 60 series tires it will work even better. Although front wheel drive vehicles provide better traction to start, the rear of the vehicle can become unpredictable on poor traction conditions.

Here is the deal:

Being an enthusiast you are probably using at least 18 inch wheels in the summer with high performance summer tires. You know that these tires are "useless" in snow...since on a few occasions you have had that helpless feeling of almost no grip, and if the car has a positraction, its no grip and moving sideways to make it more interesting. 

Having high performance summer tires, and rear wheel drive, you need winter tires just to move. 

For winter tires you would come down one size and run 17 inch and a narrower tire, since floating on snow at speed still provides an adrenalin rush until the vehicle "lands" and hopefully nothing happened durng the "float". The "float" usually occurs when there is slush/snow and your speed is slightly higher, the tires will hydroplane on top of the slush/snow. 

If your vehicle is insured at $1,000. deductible for collision (to save money and you are a big boy/girl), and a set of winters will safeguard you from some minor incident, its worth the price of the tires. 

If you have an all wheel drive vehicle, keep in mind that you still need to stop, accelerating is easy, stopping is the challenge. 

If there are several vehicles in the household you need storage space to keep all these wheels and tires. 

In 2013 most vehicles have ABS, electronic stability, and traction control. hopefully you know how each of these features works, and reacts on your vehicle, with winter tires these features do a better job than with all season tires. If you have no idea how these features work on your vehicle, register for a winter driving course, or find a snowed in parking lot and discover the characteristics of ABS, try to do donuts, discover how the electronic stability works on your vehicle (before you get in more yogurt than you wished), and how traction control works on your vehicle.

The driver is the "traction manager" of the vehicle, more so in winter conditions. Understanding how your vehicle, and the systems in your vehicle function in adverse conditions is an absolute necessity. 

You also know that the first half of high performance summer tires is the good half, the second half not as good, and the same applies to winter tires the first half provides better grip than the second half. 

Yes...we have winter tires on all our vehicles.

Slipping and Sliding

When a video is worth a gazillion words...

Driving in Winter

In Canada most of us endure, and are influenced by winter climatic conditions. This year with hardly any winter conditions, perhaps we overlooked that at some point winter would become a reality. In addition the "autosphere buzz" surrounding us 24/7....which might lead us to conclude that modern vehicles with the various technological platforms, and winter tires will overcome all winter conditions.

Yes...we know that "Canadians" want vehicles that transcend winter. 

It goes something like this:

"I have a modern vehicle with ABS, Traction Control, Stability Program, in many instances AWD, and winter tires, this vehicle is impervious to winter conditions."

Especially this year there have been numerous pundits exchanging, and sharing their thoughts on winter driving, the benefits or drawback of winter tires, and whatever other thought vector might attract more eyeballs for their publication.

It used to go something like this:

"I have a rear wheel drive vehicle with bias belted tires, and snow tires on the rear wheels. I need to know what I'm doing to stay on the road driving in winter conditions".

At that time, an individual had an innate understanding of the laws of physics that would come into play, and act on a vehicle, which did not have the benefits of the various technologies. As well as understanding that what looked like snow was often snow camouflaging ice. 

Today, some manufacturers have winter driving sessions with their different models, its a showcase of the capabilities of their vehicle capabilities under controlled, and planned conditions. Detached from reality...

Our thoughts:

A few days ago we had an opportunity to drive under ideal "no winter" conditions, and under "adverse winter" conditions. Fascinating experience expecially this year with winter arriving late, and catching more folks intellectually unprepared...

Our observations in no particular order:

> Most folks will become cautious, with some becoming overly cautious and turning themselves into slow moving road blocks.

> Interesting that the vehicles with all the technology, and all the wheels driving, are the ones which for one reason or another get in trouble. 

> Many folks have no conception or understanding of what can happen, which laws of physics will come into play, and how to drive their vehicle.

> The prevailing thought process seems to be "I'm guiding my vehicle along, with the technology, and vehicle features keeping me out of trouble". 

A few days ago our thoughts were simply reinforced "Adverse winter conditions can be treacherous, the laws of physics have not changed, and when they start acting on a vehicle (even with all the technology) its imperative to drive not guide the vehicle". 

Here is another thought "The technology of modern vehicles often raises the threshold of when the laws of physics come into play, catching the folks that guide vehicles off guard, and raising the stakes due to the higher velocities."

Our last thought "The modern vehicle bristling with technology that transcends winter, creates a misleading envelope of capabilities at lower speeds. The same vehicle at higher speeds still needs to be driven not guided".

Agreed, we are humans, we are equipped with weapons of distraction while driving, and we can have "brain fades" or even worse "brain fails".

Adaptive Cruise Control

Yesterday driving (my car) on the 404 southbound (if you know the GTA) on a mission to fetch the next vehicle to review. As I emerge from the on ramp in the right lane, and start chequing the mirrors to progress to the middle lane. 

You know when you notice an unfamiliar grille...is it a Genesis, is it an Equus, grille seems too big for a Genesis...linger in the middle lane to let the car come up in the left lane...its an Equus...first time I see an Equus on the road. Reasonable street presence, but not a wow moment.

Get behind the Equuus, the restengular exhaust tips are cool, acceptable stance from the rear, on a few occasions the brake lights of the Equus light up depending on traffic conditions.

Here is the deal....

This Equus is on the cruise control at a speed slightly higher (+ 5 kph) than the flow of traffic. As the brake lights come on a few times, its obvious that a human would not brake in such a fashion, plus the car resumes instantly after braking. 

Could it be? Sure looks like it...YES this Equus is on the adaptive cruise control set at xxx kph. Following the car, the moment its brakes lights blinked, I momentarily let off the gas, to maintain a constant distance from the Equus, as its doing with the vehicle in front. 

As an aside, this is easy if you have had an opportunity to drive a vehicle with an adaptive cruise control for enough kilometers to acquire an understanding of how the adaptive cruise control behaves, and its decision process under various conditions. 

Followed the Equus for several kilometers, at one point the car in front of the Equus changed lanes, and as expected the Equus accelerated vigorously seeking to achieve its set speed. 

Wondering when or if it will present itself again, to follow a vehicle on the adaptive cruise control, and replicate the actions of the cruise while following the car, a unique experience. Yes the human brain fully engaged in driving is "smarter" than an adaptive cruise control, especially that you can anticipate ahead of the vehicles immediately in front of you. 

Driving in Winter

Our thoughts last week on drum brakes, and our exchange with @lars2885, in addition to an entry we did on a Suburban in winter a while back prompted us to share our thoughts on driving in winter.

Since the ambition of every Canadian is to have a vehicle that transcends winter. We need to set the stage and time frame for "driving in winter".

The stage and time frame:

A time when the majority of cars were body on frame, front engines, rear wheel drive, with 14 or 15 inch wheels, bias ply or perhaps belted tires, no seat belts in most cars, obvious that if cars did not have seat belts they surely did not have electronic gizmos either. Yes drum brakes and at best winter tires in the rear only.

In 2011 it might come across as suicidal, but when cars had drum brakes, no seat belts, bias ply tires it was perfectly normal, and yes...folks did drive in winter.

Lets not forget carburetors, manual or automatic choke the various vageries of a choke, fast idle, interfacing with an automatic trasnmissions.

Lets assume there was a fresh snowfall overnight, its reasonably cold in the morning, and the car has winter tires in the rear. Yes...today 10 cm of snow are apocalyptical, back then it was winter and snow was normal. 

Here's the deal...

<> You go out unlock the car, hope it unlocks (locks not frozen), get in step on the gas at least once to engage the automatic choke, or step on the gas while pulling on the manual choke knob. 

<> At minus 10C (lets say) the engine starts immediately, and settles on a fast idle (1,500 to 1,700 RPM), get out of the car, brush the snow off the car, make sure the wipers are not encrusted with snow, and hopefully the car was not parked on the street and the plow buried the car in snow. 

<> If the car was in the street buried, you most probably had to shovel just to open a door. 

<> Get back in the car, depress the accelerator to remove the choke, if its a manual choke you probably went in the car to lower the choke setting. 

<> Imagine that you are going to drive without a seat belt, no ABS, no Traction Control, no Stability Control, no Brake Assist, on bias ply tires, with snow tires only in the rear. 

<> Lets not forget that the windshiel washer reservoir is at best 1 liter, you would endure a dirty windshield at times since there was no way of stopping to refill the reservoir. 

<> You knew how to "rock" a car to get yourself out of trouble. 

<> You knew that bias ply or belted tires had poor traction, stopping was always interesting.

<> If you had a vehicle with a positraction it was comparable to an AWD of today. 

<> Cars had steel bumpers giving or getting a "thud" while stopping was normal, folks did not even get out to check...today you give or get a thud and its probably over $1,000. in damage.

<> Imagine driving on country roads with snow drifts across the road...don't slow down...hope that the car will not go sideways and land in a ditch.

<> Hitting black ice and covering a good distance sideways, and perhaps actually doing a 180 waiting for the car to slow down or the tires to acquire some traction, or simply landing in a ditch. 

How did those folks drive in winter?