I comitted a sin

Last night it was 32F.

I drove my FiST 78 miles home from a wedding on it's summer tires.

Nothing untoward happened.

 guess it's time for the winter tires.

iceracer said:

Last night it was 32F.

I drove my FiST 78 miles home from a wedding on it's summer tires.

Nothing untoward happened.

 guess it's time for the winter tires.

I drove an entire winter on the stock potenzas that came on my speed3. I didn't die. 

My in-laws ran studded snow tires on the front of their Caravan for more than a year. Put them on in late fall. Took them off 2 springs later. 

I haven't owned a set of snow tires since I drove a 1976 Oldsmobile Cutlass.  That thing NEEDED snow tires.  Modern All-Season radial tires live up to their name.  They are at least "competent"  for street driving twelve months of the year.

If I lived in the uninhabitable frozen wasteland above the Mason-Dixon line, I might have a different opinion.

Friend of mine drove all last winter on a worn out set of RE-71s.  He didn't die either.

Meanwhile my dad drove all summer in Kentucky and Tennessee on the Nokians that came on his Canadian '13 Chevy 1500.

I've driven my Blizzaks on the interstate in above 50 F.

      They still work fine in snow.

In reply to T.J. :

They must be hard of hearing.

My coworker runs his snow tires year round. 

I put my winters on before the average temp was below 45*, still going strong 6 years later.

I drove my old 318ti for years on Star Specs.. 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Sun, rain, snow.. the LSD helped a lot, but I still only got stuck once when the snow hit 6 inches. The hard rubber did make hard corners a nice tail out experience though.

What are snow tires?

The tires pictured are RE-71R's. The location is over 600 miles from home at the start of a full day of driving. I think the roads were still warm, I didn't feel any issues. Visibility was another story. I run snow tires on the car during winter, it makes the difference on some hills.

Just because you didn't die doesn't mean it was safe.

I once pulled a girl back on to the road after her right side got sucked in by slush.  She went off to the right, cop car was on the opposite side, lights flashing.  Once back on terra firma, I said "You might want to think about snow tires".

Her reply:   "I don't need them, I have all seasons".

Cop just laughed....

In reply to TopNoodles :

What is that on your hood?

I know the warning for my Continental Extreme Contact Sports say if I let them go down to 20 degrees F its bad to use them until they warm up to at least 40 degrees F.   The warning also says that if you let them bear any load, including inflation load, down to this temp the rubber may irrevocably crack and warranty doesn't cover it.  Tire Rack's site says this for a lot of tires with ~300 and below wear rating.   

I am taking this to mean that for the few weeks in Houston this low of a temperature is possible I need to put my other set of tires/wheels on my car and bring my Continental ECS's into the living room and just accept the questioning  looks I will get from my wife. I could just put a circular piece of plywood on top of the stack, maybe a table cloth, and call it an end table for a lamp or to stack books.

Shadeux said:

In reply to TopNoodles :

What is that on your hood?

The white stuff is called "snow."

That funny-looking doodad?  I have no idea.

That's a retractable gun site.

I've done back to back driving on snow and summer tires enough to say that for temps in the 30s and dry, the summer tires have at least as much grip as snow tires. But running summer tires in freezing conditions long term is super hard on them. Two years ago I ran my 200TW summer tires into december in Ohio with no issues but they were ruined to the point of being dangerous come the next summer. So this year my snow tires went on this weekend, not because I was concerned about safety but because I want these summer tires to last as long as possible. And when I went out in high 30* and slightly damp weather, the snow tires had noticeably less grip than the summer tires did that morning.

I live just south of the edge of the suggested area of snow tires.

The general thought process is to just stay home when it snows the one or two times a year we get snow. Almost nobody has snow tires, and I think the people who do are northern transplants like me.

Even I've gone to M/S tires with the snowflake on them instead of actual snow tires, but I do take the summer tires off of the car. In fact, I need to do that this week, as the temps seem to be getting down in the 50s consistently. 

I stored my Miata outside one winter on 200TW tires and moved it a few times, because I had never had good tires before that. They were never the same. No cracking, but they wouldn't get any grippier when they were hot. They were like rocks at all times

I once bought and drove a $250 Trabant 601, on corded no-name tires, two and a half hours down b-roads through snow that was still falling.  When someone says "$250 Trabant" you dont go worrying about things like "traction" or "death in an east german E36 M3-box"...

Video from a few days later:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXBDBe6zf_A

I think the last track day I did in my Miata years ago was 25 F in the morning, when I drove to the track on the R888s.

I drive a 2wd ranger all winter on all terrains without issue.