With winter rapidly approaching, determining what tires you need for your vehicle is essential. With the right tires, you can help ensure safety for you and your family while on the road. Part of being prepared for the winter season means making sure your car is riding on the right tires for the season. In a city like Denver, snow tires may be a good fit for your vehicle.
Snow tires are specially made to make sure they can grip the road, even in cold and snowy conditions. They’re made with a softer compound and contain more rubber than summer tires. Flexibility allows winter tires to bend and grip snow, much like the soles of a big pair of winter boots. Snow tires also contain silica, which resembles sand and gives the rubber a biting edge on snow. You can also find some snow tires with studs which are made for driving on wet ice or hard packed snow.
A big part of snow tires design is based on their tread. Snow tires are usually bigger and have a variety of tread designs to include asymmetrical, arrowhead, v shaped, and staggered. Each tread design is meant to give you more traction by pushing away snow and slush so you can brake properly and corner safely. You can learn more about tread patterns here.
All season tires are typically what you drive a new car off the lot with. All season tires are built to provide a quieter ride, good tread life, and help with fuel economy. Part of their popularity stems from their versatility to perform in a variety of weather conditions including wet roads and light winter driving. Basically, all-season tires are meant to offer a combination of benefits from summer and winter tires.
Since all-season tires are looking for a combination of benefits from summer and winter, they may fall short of performance capabilities during the winter months where heavier snowfall is involved. All-season tires are not designed to handle extreme winter conditions like trekking through snow and driving on ice. You could think of all-season tires like tennis shoes; you can wear tennis shoes all year but when winter comes, you may want to have boots for the snow.
Before making a decision about what tires you need, remember two things when deciding: where do you live and what are the conditions in which you drive? If you only see a few snow flurries a year, icy roads may be less common and all-season tires are probably the way to go. If you know during the winter months you’re more likely to see more snow and ice, winter tires are an essential safety measure that could save your life. Remember! When installing new tires, always use a full set because just changing out the front or back can lead you to lose traction and make it impossible to steer your vehicle in inclement weather. If you do decide to go with winter tires, be sure to re-mount all-season tires when spring rolls around because winter tires will deteriorate on warm, dry pavement.
If you or a loved one is involved in an accident, call the offices of Franklin D. Azar & Associates today for a free consultation. We fight for all of our clients to get them the compensation they deserve.
