Hybrids - The New Winter Tire

[Chickenmonkey]

Wanna make things even more complicated? Read this article on testing worn winter tires against worn all seasons.

Worn winter tires can be safer than new all-seasons! | Autofile.ca

A premium winter tire that’s even 75% worn out can brake and corner better than a brand-new all-season tire in snow and on ice.

autofile.ca

Now they did not test on ice, so take this for what it is. Good read though.

 

[raytseng]

What do you guys do for tire pressure?
Pressure varies about 1psi/10 deg F.
This issue immediately cane up when I had my snows installed and it was 10F outside. I had to add air inspite of raising it with the tire guy at the counter.

Personally I’d like to see more tests of things like tire pressure on surfaces line snow, ice, wet, and sizing performance of narrower etc. Because that applies to whatever tire you get.

https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=168

I've been following this that says to put 3-5 psi higher then the sticker recommendation for winter tires. This is to account for the softer rubber and more sipes vs the allseason rubber and tread pattern. This is not including temp correction.

 

[James]

https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=168

I've been following this that says to put 3-5 psi higher then the sticker recommendation for winter tires. This is to account for the softer rubber and more sipes vs the allseason rubber and tread pattern. This is not including temp correction.

In the end, that article sort of just attributes it to colder operating temp and filling in a much warmer garage. The fact that winter tires heat up less in use is interesting. But, no details.

 

[raytseng]

yea they did get a bit wishy washy to say it'll also help with correcting for winter cold temps rather then saying doubling and stacking both corrections.

I think they didnt want to get too far out on a limb to recommend +10 which may pose liability issues. .
I take it thst you're driving in true snow/ice below freezing you can use the sticker pressure at outside ambient because you want squishy handling in snow. But when it warms up above freezing you dont need to air back down, You can just leave it up to +5 in the garage temp to help drivability in just chilly but not frozen or snow like conditions.
I've got brand new 3pmsf vredesteins, and following that strategy. At 50degrees SF weather, they definitely felt too soft and like low tires on dry roads, so I'm at +5 over sticker in SF, but I'm not adding extra when going up to Tahoe and on the slush and cold roads (where I'm not going that fast anyway).

 

[James]

pecifically, I'd have the Michlin Crossclimate+ on one vehicle and drive it around town and on ski trips when conditions are expected to be relatively easy. Then I'd have the Conti Viking Contact 7 (James picked after a ton of research) on the snow vehicle for the bay area. As a new model with the latest technology, the Viking Contact 7 seems to be providing the broadest range of winter performance. For Colorado, it's studded Hakkas for sure.

I wanted to optimize ice and snow. There might be better choices if one optimized wet or dry braking. That Goodyear Ultra Grip Ice 2 or whatever looked good. Not sure if it's in the US. (What's up with that??) If you're spending a lot of time getting to the snow area, it might make more sense to skew ones winter tire towards dry and wet asphalt. It's still going to be much better than an all season on snow.

 

[cantunamunch]

At 50degrees cold, they definitely felt too soft and like low tires on dry roads, so I'm at +5 over sticker in SF, but I'm not adding extra when going up to Tahoe and on the slush and cold roads (where I'm not going that fast anyway).

Have you measured your actual sidewall deflection at sticker pressure at 32F?

One of the nice things about TPMS is that I can spot in-use pressure variations. For example, last week (22F/-5C airtemp, 110km/h) my load bearing front tires gained 3psi more than my rears about an hour into the drive. So I added 5psi to the fronts for the drive back and the heatup was more even (as far as TPMS could tell anyway).

 

[James]

Many tpms systems don't tell you the pressure.

Have you measured your actual sidewall deflection at sticker pressure at 32F?

How does one do this?

 

[cantunamunch]

How does one do this?

Ruler. Rim edge to flat surface.

Doesn't work on run-flats.

 

[raytseng]

Have you measured your actual sidewall deflection at sticker pressure at 32F?

I did not measure deflection but maybe next trip I'll take some more readings and fine tune the settings.


But on this original topic
I am running the new hybrid Vredestein Quatrac Pro 3pmsf allweather tire this season bay area to tahoe (75% warm highways, 25% mountain conditions) and made first trip last weekend.

I found an snowy/icy road in the morning to test, and hard brake tested much better than my prev half-worn pirelli all-seasons with only a slight abs kick in. On drive back in sections of steady rain and standing water, they plowed right through smoothly, I couldn't notice the water at all at the wheel.

So good tire, but I don't have extensive tire history to compare to though.

Mostly available via tirerack, highly rated, and on ConsumerReports GrandTouring picks this year, even without the winter testing. They are also very confident in 60degree temp, but noticeably squirmier then my worn pirellis, until I bumped +5psi see above.

Note: In the first 500 miles of wear in; they did feel sluggish/dragging from whatever nubs or blocks that were poking out until those got smoothed and worn to my car's alignment.

 

[cantunamunch]

I am running Quatrac 5s on the sedan right now, interesting. They don't count as hybrid, tho.

 

[raytseng]

My mistake! very correct, this is about hybrid AT, versus the allweather "hybrid" between winter and allseason.

 

[cantunamunch]

very true, this is about hybrid AT, versus the allweather. my mistake!

No big deal. Your observations about the Pro are right in line with mine about the 5. I find them squishier and less precise than Conti PureContact/ControlContact but that is actually a good thing on dirt and semi-dirt roads. Much, much better in both freezing rain and snow than whatever the Kumho and General equivalents are (Ecsta and Altimax, IIRC). Slight dent in the mpg against the Contis.

 

[raytseng]

Yea, agree on the mpg, last few trip with my worn pirelli scorpions worn I measured 24mpg (car computer) vs 23.5 with new Quatrac Pro; that comes out to be about a 2% drop.
First 500miles though it was more like 21mpg though, and could feel the drag when coasting.

 

[cosmoliu]

Speaking of run-flats, I had an interesting experience yesterday. I had essentially a right rear blow-out with complete loss of pressure within one minute. I carry a pump and it couldn't keep up with the leak at all, much less reinflate the tire. I could feel air escaping from about a 1/16" hole in the middle of the running surface, but the nail/screw was absent. About 60 miles from my destination and in the middle of nowhere, I took the recommendation of "up to" 50 miles at "up to" 50 mph for run-flats at face value and continued at 35-40 mph for the next 30 miles. I was watching the temp of the tire on the TPMS system and it hovered around 110-120 F for most the way, decreasing if I decreased speed. Then it pegged at 129 F and wouldn't go down regardless of speed. At that point I was able to stop in a small town with a tire store I had passed many times before and asked to get the hole repaired. When the tech took off the tire you could see from the inside that the sidewalls were thoroughly shredded. He recommended against putting the tire back on. So, the take-home lesson seems to be that a run-flat tire might be OK to drive around town for a bit before getting it fixed, but it definitely cannot tolerate anything approaching 50 miles at 50 mph. The second take-home is that I'm REALLY glad that I got the $150 optional mini spare tire on this car I've had since just last June. The preceding X3 models did not offer that option.

Which raises a question I'd like to pose: Has anyone here had any experience with the tire repair in a can solution? I've carried one around for years, but I didn't deploy it yesterday thinking that I'd be OK to get somewhere to have the hole repaired.

 

[raytseng]

The fixaflat goo will also ruin your tire and is to be treated as unrepairable by a mechanic.
But now, you will also need to pay extra to the mechanic to clean the gunk off the wheel and if there was a tpms sensors or other stuff in the tire that could have been reused, those are now considered ruined.

It is always a lesser of evils of safety to get you to where you need to go, vs damage later

 

[Ogg]

@cosmoliu The fix a flat, slime, etc is only really good for a nail or screw puncture and wouldn't have worked in your situation. It would have just oozed out of the hole and made a mess on the ground. I really hate that so many new vehicles have run flats and no spare. I find this particularly troublesome on SUVs that you may actually be using off pavement. I like BMWs solution of a collapsible spare and a compressor much better. It's still not as good as having a real full sized spare but it's better than a donut and much better than run flats with no spare, IMO.

 

[James]

Which raises a question I'd like to pose: Has anyone here had any experience with the tire repair in a can solution? I've carried one around for years, but I didn't deploy it yesterday thinking that I'd be OK to get somewhere to have the hole repaired.

Yeah years ago. It can work. But no one likes dealing with it after. Maybe carry a plug kit? Till you get to a shop to do it from inside.

We once had three flat tires on a rental suv doing a 2,000 mile drive in a week around Wyoming. One time I heard hissing opening a cattle gate and thought it was a rattle snake. It was the tire. Town was 30mi away. We beelined it, gooed it, and parked it for the night with the hole down. Got us to the tire store next day. Didn't help with a blow out later.
Turned out those were the infamous Firestones that became a public fiasco a couple weeks later.

 

[cosmoliu]

Not familiar with a plug kit. Could be a good consideration. I was able to put my finger on the hole while the pump was doing its thing to get the pressure into the 30s. But as soon as I uncovered the hole the air rushed out and TPMS read 1 psi by the time I got back behind the wheel. Of course, of all the times I've picked up nails/screws, this is the worst. So, now I know some of the parameters for trying to plan for the worst. I'll consult with the America's Tire guy when I get the new Conti DWS 06s installed Friday. Fortunately I had ordered them when they had a Thanksgiving special deal going. Though the OEM summer tires only have 7000 miles on them, I've considered those expendable since day one.

 

[cantunamunch]

Not familiar with a plug kit. Could be a good consideration. I was able to put my finger on the hole while the pump was doing its thing to get the pressure into the 30s. But as soon as I uncovered the hole the air rushed out and TPMS read 1 psi by the time I got back behind the wheel.

Assuming the hole is in a tread block and not a groove and not wider than about 1/8", this is totally a plug kit repair scenario.

 

[KingGrump]

We always have a inexpensive tire plug kit in all the cars along with a tire pump.
Haven't had to use one on the road yet. Knock on wood.