mjs@g.cs.cmu.edu.ARPA (Mark Stehlik) (10/09/85)
In response to Mark Stevans's questions about snows: > I have 225/60HR14 Dunlop radials on my Toyota Supra right now, but, since > winter appears scant hours away here in northwestern New York State, I > solicit advice on what to do about snow tires. > > Should I get 70 series snow tires and buy narrower steel wheels to match, or > go with the only 60 series snows I could find, namely Goodyear Eagle Mud and > Snow 215/60R14 tires (at $113 each) and mount them on the existing mag > wheels? > > Assuming I do the latter, will my aluminum alloy wheels corrode and pit > because of salt during the winter? Will the lag bolts sieze up? Will > silicone spray on the wheels help protect them? Will the smaller 215/60 > tires affect my speedometer/odometer enough to make a difference? Are these > good tires? Will my handling be good on snow with wide, low-profile tires? > Anything else I should know about? I put two snows on my Mazda last season (I live in Pgh), and ran the stock tires on the factory aluminum mags all winter. After the season was over, I checked the mags and found the beginnings of corrosion and pitting. Another full season and I have no doubt that they would begin to corrode extensively. If I were in your position, I would DEFINITELY invest in set of steel wheels and purchase the appropriately-sized 70-series snows. I am not convinced that a 60-series profile is what you want in a winter tire. Mark -- ARPA: mjs@cmu-cs-g --
saltiel@cdstar.UUCP (Jack Saltiel) (10/13/85)
In article <314@g.cs.cmu.edu.ARPA>, mjs@g.cs.cmu.edu.ARPA (Mark Stehlik) writes: > In response to Mark Stevans's questions about snows: > > > I have 225/60HR14 Dunlop radials on my Toyota Supra right now, but, since > > winter appears scant hours away here in northwestern New York State, I > > solicit advice on what to do about snow tires. > > > If I were in your position, I would DEFINITELY invest in set of steel wheels > and purchase the appropriately-sized 70-series snows. I am not convinced that > a 60-series profile is what you want in a winter tire. > In snow, narrow tall tires are best. The narrower the tire, the more bite they will have into snow, since the weight on each tire will be distributed over a smaller contact patch. Tall tires help raise your car and give you improved ground clearance. Of course your car's aerodynamics suffer and it's ability to hold corners will drop like a rock! -- Jack Saltiel Cambridge Digital Systems {wjh12,talcott}!cdstar!saltiel "Here's to plain speaking and clear understanding." "I like a man who likes to talk."
gvcormack@watmum.UUCP (Gordon V. Cormack) (10/15/85)
> In snow, narrow tall tires are best. The narrower the tire, the > more bite they will have into snow, since the weight on each tire > will be distributed over a smaller contact patch. Tall tires help > raise your car and give you improved ground clearance. > Jack Saltiel Not true. Two tires with the same pressure will have the same contact area. The wide tires will have a wide, short contact patch while the skinny tires will have a longer patch. Which is more desirable is a difficult question to answer. Other than increasing pressure (which I heartily recommend), the way to get higher contact pressures is to choose a tire with an open block tread design and heavy belts. If, for example, only half of the contact area has tread (the rest is grooves), the pressure on the parts of the tread contacting the ground is double that of an untreaded (slick) tire. I quit using snow tires about 10 years ago. Instead, I choose a steel-belted radial with a tread as described above (all-season radials don't meet my criteria). Some tires I have had are Uniroyal 180, Can. Tire Supreme (european sized), Michelin TRX. These were all wonderful. I have never been stuck in snow that was shallower than the underbelly of the car. Even in much deeper snow, I have done pretty well. During the 10 years I have lived in Winnipeg, Montreal, and Waterloo, so I think I have seen as much snow as most readers are likely to.
mls@husky.uucp (Mark Stevans) (10/16/85)
As long as there seems to be interest in my snow tire dilemma (my life is so exciting!), I'd like to, shall we say, "sharpen" the debate: As Jack Saltiel says in the referenced article: > Tall tires help raise your car and give you improved ground clearance. That would be extremely valuable, but the wheel wells on my Supra (even though the springs are still strong) only clear the tire by about an inch, so I can't put taller tires on the car. I can only vary the width and tread here. Jack also says: > In snow, narrow tall tires are best. The narrower the tire, the > more bite they will have into snow, since the weight on each tire > will be distributed over a smaller contact patch. This makes a lot of sense, but wider tires would put more cross-tread against the snow. I imagine this would improve traction. Considering the logical extremes, inch-wide tires would work very poorly on snow and ice. Yet, I'd imagine that ten foot wide tires would work great, assuming they held onto the rims and I stayed in the center of vacant three-lane highways :^). Since the Supra is a reasonably heavy car, at 2886 pounds, I'm not sure narrower tires would be better. If loading the car would help, John M. Sellens recommends sandbags. Any opinions? Comments? Jokes? All concerned seem to agree that salt will kill my alloy mag wheels. Thanks for the info. I figure I'll pick up three or four steal wheels, and four completely non-matching hubcaps. One mail respondent strongly disrecommended the Goodyear Eagle Mud and Snow tires. He said they were nearly useless for traction. As you can see, the Eagle M ans S tread design is somewhat simpleminded: No, after four tries, I find myself no graphic artist. To put it into a thousand words, it just has inch-wide treads running the width of the tire alternating with 3/4 inch wide gaps. The treads are also cut to provide a 1/2 inch gap running parallel to the direction of motion every two inches. Isn't it better to have some zigzags?
goldman@ittvax.ATC.ITT.UUCP (Ken Goldman) (10/16/85)
> Should I get 70 series snow tires and buy narrower steel wheels to match, or > go with the only 60 series snows I could find, namely Goodyear Eagle Mud and > Snow 215/60R14 tires (at $113 each) and mount them on the existing mag wheels? A local tire dealer told me that wide tires get much poorer traction on snow than narrower ones.
smh@rduxb.UUCP (henning) (10/18/85)
> Considering the logical > extremes, inch-wide tires would work very poorly on snow and ice. Yet, I'd > imagine that ten foot wide tires would work great, assuming they held onto the > rims and I stayed in the center of vacant three-lane highways :^). I assume that "works great" assumes that you are driving a toboggan. I think that you would always go down hill. The faster you 10 foot tires rotated up hill the faster you would go down hill since you would create that nice low friction layer.