When is best to change to summer tires?

After a rainy and snowy Lower Mainland winter, the sun is starting to shine, the birds will soon begin to sing, and the smell of spring will finally be in the air.

With temperatures hitting above the 7 degree Celsius mark before you know it, it'll be time to change your winter tires over to your summer or all-seasons tires.

With the warmer weather approaching here are the:

Top 3 reasons why you need to swap to summer tires

1. Winter tires are all made for a lower temperature range than all-season or summers tires.

All tires start life with differently engineered rubber compounds, each designed for specific temperature ranges.
Whereas summer tires turn hard as hockey pucks in the winter, all-season tires lose grip below 7 degrees C and are virtually useless on snow or ice below 0 degrees C.
Conversely, winter tires are designed to have flexible tread below the freezing mark. This means that they have a lot more sipes and tread blocks for gripping on snowy or icy surfaces. But not for consistently dry and warm pavement.

2. Your winter tires will wear much faster above 7 degrees Celsius.

As the aforementioned sipes and tread blocks come into contact with the dry and warmer spring pavement, heat is created as the rubber blocks are compressed.
This is because the sipes rapidly open and close as they come into contact with the dry pavement with nothing to cool them down. And too much heat is the worst enemy of a tire.

3. You won't be able to brake as quickly or avoid collisions as effectively.

By design, winter tires are designed to be more flexible to dig in for traction in the snow. Compared to a good all-season tire, a winter tire will have 2-3 times as many tread blocks and significantly more sipes.

On dry and warm pavement though, this flexible-by-design construction can make stopping distances significantly longer.
Regardless of the type of tire, too much heat makes a tire’s tread blocks too flexible and therefore squirmy. The tire will get a greasy feel because it is chemically dissolving. And obviously greasy tires do not grip!

Call National Tire Wholesale and we will give you a competitive quote today!

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