Does Your Acura Need Winter Tires?

When winter’s approaching, drivers begin to think about how to prepare for slippery roads and poor visibility. There are various ways to winterize your vehicle, the most important of which is by switching to winter tires. Read on to learn if you should head to your local Acura dealer for a fresh set of snow tires this winter.

Does Your Acura Need Winter Tires?

Winter Versus Summer Tires

Summer tires are designed for road surfaces that are easy to grip and often hot. The rubber of summer tires is designed to handle problems related to heat. The rubber of summer tires is stiff and of a material that can resist scorching hot asphalt and tarmac without losing shape.

The treads of summer tires are not made to scoop down into the snow and stay close to the road. As such, they’re utterly unsuited to patches of road covered in slush, packed snow, or black ice. For these reasons, it’s very unwise to use summer tires during a snowy winter.

Winter Versus All-Season Tires

All-season tires are better than summer tires for dealing with a bit of light snow. But they cannot compete with snow tires when it comes to handling real wintry, icy weather. Even if your all-season tires have “M+S” printed on the side, indicating they’re suitable for mud and snow, they’re still nowhere near as good as tires engineered entirely for winter.

When deciding which to use, it really depends on how bad winters get in your neck of the woods. If you only see the occasional day or two of snow, and you very rarely see ice-slicked roads, then all-season tires might be sufficient. But if your local winters bring many inches of snow and frequent ice, then snow tires would be far more sensible. Let’s take a look at what makes these specialist tires so good at their job.

Hydrophilic Rubber

The special kind of rubber used in snow tires is more flexible, allowing a broader surface area to flatten and grip the road surface. This does a great deal to boost your traction.

Higher Void-To-Lug Ratio

The gaps between tire treads, otherwise known as the voids between lugs, is much greater with tires designed for winter. These tires have a higher void-to-lug ratio. This allows snow to be scooped up into the voids and thrown out behind the wheel as you drive. As a result, your wheels stay closer to the road surface underneath the snow, rather than riding on top of packed snow, which is what leads to skids.

Sharper Lug Edges

The shape of the treads is also designed differently on snow tires. The treads have irregular patterns and sharp edges specially designed to help them dig into snow and ice more easily. Again, this helps a great deal with traction.

Get Custom Sipes at Your Local Acura Dealer

Sipes are little zig-zagging grooves carved into the treads, which further enhance grip. Snow tires usually have thousands of sipes on each wheel, whereas ordinary tires have none at all. You can, however, get sipes custom carved into summer tires by a technician at your local dealership.

If you’d like a premium quality set of snow tires put on your car, head down to Ed Martin Acura. We’re a leading local dealership and an 8-time winner of the Acura Precision Team Award, which is an award determined primarily by customer satisfaction.

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Tags: Acura Dealer, Acura Service, Acura Tires, Car Safety, IN, indianapolis, Winter Tires
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