quattro digest, Vol 1 #4337 - 18 msgs

[Larry C Leung]

This message is in MIME format.  Since your mail reader does not understand
this format, some or all of this message may not be legible.
--
[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
Okay, since it's dry, the opposite is true, less traction up front, more
in the rear.

The issue is balance, if all four is the same, then the car will remain
in a similar
balance to before.

As a rule, snow tires have notably less dry and wet traction than dry/wet
weather
tires. On nose heavy cars, then tend to promote more understeer in dry
and wet
conditions. They USUALLY don't feel squirrly when mounted on all fours,
and according
to Audi's owner's manuals (remember them?), when snow tires are mounted,
one should
raise the cold air pressures in the tires by 3 psi.

When PUSHED hard, snow tires, by having smaller, taller tread blocks, do
feel a bit more
unstable than regular street tires. In normal driving, EVEN ON THE
HIGHWAY, they shouldn't
feel bad. Also, keep in mind, that you are downsizing the rim size (and
thus increasing the
sidewall size) making the tire sidewalls less stiff and responsive.

Certain snow or correction, WINTER tires give up some of their winter
prowess for better
dry and wet performance, such are the high performance snows such as
Dunlop WinterSport M2,
Pirelli Winter 210,  Nokian NRW (which are touted as actually
"all-season" consider that the all
seasons they are talking about are in Norway!) etc. Most of these high
perf winter tires are H-rated,
if that helps. Note, that these should be bought and mounted in sets of
4, so don't mix with her
present winter treads.

Finally, my personal experience may net you a good choice for a winter
tire. The Michelin
Artic Alpin is an Ice tire that has VERY good dry and wet weather
characteristics, with the
added benefit that they work VERY well in icy and freezing rain
conditions. If the roads your
mom travels on are frequently cleared of snow, so the concern is more
hard pack or freezing
snow melt, these would be a great choice of tire. Where they fail to
impress is in fresh snow
and heavy slush conditons.

If you want more winter tire info on a right now basis, log onto the
TireRack.com website.
Great explanations there.

HTH,

LL - NY
>
> the roads were dry/snowfree when she complained of the problem while
> driving
> @ 75 mph on the freeway.
> chris


> To: spokes at the-wire.com
> Cc: benswann at comcast.net, quattro at audifans.com
>
> --
> [ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
> In a message dated 12/13/02 1:14:56 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> spokes at the-wire.com writes:
>
>
> > designs winter tires have _far_ more traction then they did ten
> years ago.
> > This is likely to cause a very unbalanced traction situation, much
> more so
> > days
> > of yore where we used to mix snows up front and all-seasons out
> the back.
> > The
> > difference in traction can lead to the rear end stepping out by
> quite a
> > bit,
> > and causing an accident.
> >
> > Thus, any reputable tire shop will strongly suggest you put four
> winter
> > tires
> > on a car.  Quite a few shops have stopped selling snow tires is
> 'twos'
> > altogether.
> >
> > Note that I've been using 'winter' tire, not snow tire. Now a-days
> there
> > are
> > snow tires, and ice tires. Ice tires should NEVER be used in
> two's, only in
> >
> > fours.  Snow tires depend on the brand, some are okay in
> twos...others
> > cause
> > really nasty handling in deep snow/slush.
> >
> >
>
> "winter tires" "snow tires" "ice tires"   geez!  i should have left
> the damn
> all seasons on there.    so what are you saying, it will handle
> WORSE with
> the snow/ice tires on there?   even if i do get matching snow/ice
> tires for
> the rears?   so basically its pointless to even run snow tires
> then...?
>
> chris
>
>
> --__--__--
>
> _______________________________________________
> quattro mailing list
> quattro at audifans.com
> http://www.audifans.com/mailman/listinfo/quattro
>
>
> End of quattro Digest
>
>
--