If you want to drive with good control and safety during the winter, you will have to go for either winter tires or winter approved all-weather tires. If your tires are not officially approved for winter use that means that they are not meeting the performance criteria for winter driving. It is worth noting that all-season tires aren’t approved for winter use and shouldn’t be used when you have snow, ice or slush. You can’t really expect your tires to provide you with sufficient safety if your tires don’t meet the performance criteria and haven’t passed the performance tests on snow. This means that you will not have sufficient grip, you might end up skidding in curves, or not have enough traction to get you up a hill. Your braking distance will also be significantly prolonged.
You don’t really walk out during the winter without proper winter shoes. That would be unwise, but then you expect that your all-season tires will work during the winter. The winter really demands high quality premium tires that are winter approved. This is the only way that you can safely drive in the challenging conditions. Snow and ice are so different than dry tarmac. This will require a completely different tread pattern, so that they can create traction on snow and also be able to push snow and slush away from the area between the tires and the road to avoid slushplaning. The same way that all-season tires will need to push water away during the summer rainy days to avoid hydroplaning. However, snow is different than water and thus you will need a different design to be effective.
Contrary to what most believe, winter tires outperform all-season tires on dry surfaces when the temperature drops below freezing. This is due to the rubber compound used in all-season tires, does not have additives that keep the tires soft at low temperatures as they are optimized for warm summer temperatures. When the tires gets hard it will lose a lot of the traction, they are able to provide during warm temperatures. The winter tires however are optimized for low temperatures, so they will remain soft and can create the necessary traction. They also have the correct tread pattern to handle the snow and ice.
If you want to make sure that you are safe when driving during the winter you have to make sure that you have winter approved tires that are in good condition, with sufficient remaining tread depth. Tires that are worn out and have a low tread depth are not able to perform as good and will make the driving less safe. Braking distance will be prolonged and the risk for slushplaning is also increased. Once you go below 1/8 inch of tread depth it is time to invest in a new set of tires. In addition to that the tires need to be in good condition, they also need to have the correct tire pressure, so that they can perform as intended.
For more information regarding a range of winter approved tires, visit: https://www.nokiantires.com/
