Worth The Effort?

TIRE RACK AND MICHELIN HELP US TEST WINTER AND ALL-SEASON TIRES BACK-TO-BACK.

- Bradley Iger

Flashbacks to my misspent youth come flooding in as I grab a chair in one of Notre Dame hockey team’s classrooms. Just a few steps away, a pair of sedans are staged in front of a drag racing Christmas tree out on the team’s ice rink. Taken at face value, by a native Southern Californian, that scenario appears to be fraught with peril. I don’t know how fast we’ll be going, but there isn’t a whole lot of space left after going through the traps to get these cars down from any speed on a sheet of ice.

My own superior climate of choice aside, I’m here to learn; and the lesson plan that’s in store for me is likely going to prove crucial for a wide swath of North America in the coming months. “A lot of drivers wonder if winter tires are really worth the added expense,” says Tire Rack’s Woody Rogers. “Well, we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t think so.”

But both Michelin and Tire Rack have an uphill battle to climb in this regard. Less than ten percent of drivers who live in North American regions that experience what they classify as “severe” winter driving conditions actually swap over to winter tires during the months when those tires are needed – roughly from Thanksgiving to tax time. With very few OEMs offering factory-installed winter tires, the responsibility falls on consumers to ensure their vehicles are equipped with the proper footwear for the season.

For the vast majority of drivers, that translates to running all-season tread throughout the year. “All-seasons are designed to provide balanced performance in light to moderately bad weather conditions,” explains Michelin’s senior technical manager Ron Margadonna. “But when the driving conditions get really bad, the design optimizations in winter tires become very clear.”