Snow tires.....

[B Vibert]

For the last few years I've been using Goodyear Eagle Ultra-Grip
(GW-2) all year round on my quattro.  They are great in winter
conditions and also behave themselves on dry pavement.  Not too loud
and they actually handle somewhat.  YMMV as I don't primarily drive
the Audi in the summer months.
I guess the thing is, you can use a winter tire all year round, but
you can't use a summer tire all year round, as Kneale says, the
compound freezes.

Burl Vibert
1987 5kcstq
Kingston, Ontario


Kneale Brownson wrote:
>
> --
> The trouble with using a tire year-around that isn't specifically designed
> as an all-season tire is that the rubber compounding normally is too hard
> to work well on frozen roads.  A couple winters ago, I delayed installing
> the Hakka's on my 200q20v, and we had an unexpected cold snap with light
> snow toward the end of October.  I spun out going around a street corner at
> between 15 and 20 mph.  The high performance summer tires just plain had no
> grip on the frozen pavement.   I'd previously used all-season tires (mostly
> Cooper Cobra's) on my quattro-equipped cars, and never experienced the
> difference in performance.  Of course, they don't give the grip on warm
> pavement a summer performance tire gives either.
>
> Anyway, I went home and exchanged tires and went right back to the same
> intersection, where the winter tires worked as expected on the frosty
> pavement.  If you're going to drive where it gets cold, you don't want a
> Florida tire.  If you don't care about maximum grip, get an all-season model.
>
> At 07:27 AM 09/15/2002 -0400, Roger M. Woodbury wrote:
>
> >Here in Downeast Maine, I have never used winter tires of any sort on any of
> >my Quattros.  I maintain my tires at not less than 1/2 tread depth, and they
> >work just fine.
> >