Quote:
Originally posted by hovisimo
how do skinnier tires give better snow traction? my 285s are way better in the snow than the 265s they replaced. i like the idea of having more rubber in contact with the ground.
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Larger tires (with large lugs) are nice in deep snow and *really* deep snow. In light snow they're a little bit of a disadvantage as you might not be touching any gravel on the road (which is going to help you stop), you'll just be floating on top of the road. You can end up sliding around instead of touching the road and hitting gravel or road surface to slow or stop you. You're relying on pushing snow around (which works okay as long as you don't need to stop or turn fast).
New flotation tires with a lot of tread depth are nice in the snow, but wait until they start to wear to half depth or less. Then start to see what happens!
Where large tires are *really*, *really* are awful is when you have a) slushy conditions or even worse b) slushy conditions hidden by 6 inches or more of snow.
You might as well have water skis on. A skinnier tire would cut further into the slush instead of floating on it and let you stop or turn better. With wide tires you're a the mercy of gravity and momentum until you can slow enough to stop floating.
The best tires I ever had in the snow were some 33 x 12.5 x 15 tires with a tread that was a little more open than a BFG AT (XT type tread). Those thing were awesome. They were like snow shoes across 6 to 18+ inches of new snow. I loved to go out in stuff that kept everyone else home. I could drive like a maniac and have great traction.
BUT, if you put them on slush you were taking your life in your hands. They were really bad on light dusting snow and ice too. Not enough pressure on the material to crunch it down and grab something.
The other place that flotation tires are bad is on puddling water at speed. It's really easy to lift off the ground even with most of the tread (well, unless it's an aggressive mud tread and there is still a lot there). That's a LOT less likely to happen on narrower tires.
Wide tires have more rotational mass to turn (and stop) for a given height so they use more gas to run too. Sometimes a LOT more.
The ideal tire general tire for just about any snow and ice that you'll ever encounter on the road is a studded XT tread, but they are going to be loud and there aren't a lot of places you can run studs. Taking the studs out of the equation, unfortunately, means that an XT type tires is going to not be very good on ice (not like a lot of tires are though) so it's big compromise. And you can't get a soft compound XT type tire that would be good on ice, it wouldn't last worth a darn.
Alan
Anyone ever try 245/75R16 tire size?
245 Tires
. i'll be up in pgh this weekend for certain, btw.
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