Winter Tires! by Brett @ 1:32 am on 13.12.05

Some may know that I now have the pleasure of owning my first car. Don’t let that fool you - I’m still an ancient 28 years old, I’ve just been very successful at bike riding and borrowing cars . But, as I use the automobile in strange and wonderful places, I have come to realise that there are things I must maintain. Tires are one of those things. Actually, I think that other than oil changes, tires are the only thing. Do you need them? That depends on what you do with your car, and what the weather is like where you drive. Blizzards, ice and snow? Yeah, I think it might be a good idea.

I’ve been learning some neat things while owning cars, but really, I’m not much of a car person. I don’t use diapers to wipe the car down. In fact, I’ve washed my car twice in 3 years. I don’t use vaseline on all the rubber places of my car to keep them nice a supple. I don’t understand anything about my car’s complex inner workings. Washer fluid? Opening the hood? I’m all over that. To be honest, I’m pretty proud of my ability to successfully pay companies to give me oil changes. “Synthetic Oil”, I’ll say, with a knowing wink to the mechanic. I’ll usually get a blank stare in return, which plainly says: “We both know I could put fish oil in here and you’d still tell me I do a great job and give me a tip - so just shut up and give me money.”

So, last year, I was driving around in the city at a rapid speed of 15 km/h and I decided that I would like to reduce my velocity, and perhaps cease motion altogether. Unfortunately, I decided to do that on ice, and after 20 feet of graceful gliding to outsiders, and panicked brake stamping and useless steering to me, I slid into a tree. This particular tree had no roots, had been stripped of it’s bark, and had wires sticking out of the top, which joined it to other nearby trees. Anyway, the point was that I smacked it and bent up my bumper pretty well. Ridiculously well, you could say, but you wouldn’t ’cause it would reduce me to tears. That incident impressed upon me that my tires weren’t what I once thought they were.

Please note that I have a Subaru. I love it. I have very bald tires, but I can take off on sheer ice, corner in snow, and control my car in most conditions just fine. I can’t, however, stop very well … or at all … in those conditions. As I consider stopping to be one of the best parts of the driving experience, I decided to remedy the situation. Also, I drive in the mountains quite a bit - those are usually snow covered roads, at the edge of which is a few hundred foot drop, at the bottom of which are usually sharks with lazer beams attached to the heads, or polar bears, or martians with science labs I’d rather not think about. <kip>That’s what I’m talking about</kip>

What to get?

1 - New All Season Tires
This was my 2nd place finalist - it’s what I have now, is cost effective (being less than new tires and rims) and gives me a few years on the life of my tires. If I get Nokian all weather tires, I even manage to get some tires that “Meets Rubber Association of Canada severe snow performance requirements.” The problem is that the tires won’t last as long, and really don’t have as good grip, as dedicated winter tires. I’ll have to go through this again shortly. But my aunt Laurey has these tires and she just loves them, they’ve done her very well.

2 - Just keep the tires I have, and be more careful
Well, I like to think that I’m fairly careful, and I wasn’t going that fast when I smashed up my bumper. And yes, I will admit that just about every driver in existence thinks they’re a great driver and I very possibly suck ass. Either way, this option is completely unacceptable and really means I’m too lazy to pay attention to my safety. That might be true, but I can’t use that argument for the passengers I have in my car, or the other drivers on the road. The commitment I made when I bought the car compelled me to buy something better - I am responsible for my car - personally I think people forget what they’re really doing when they get in the car and direct a +1 tonne mass of metal and flesh randomly accross the planet. This was rated #4.

3 - Throw some winter tires on my rims
Winters on my rims wasn’t a bad idea, but then I’d have to switch my tires on and off alloys every spring/fall. That can actually hurt the alloys over time, and more importantly costs about 90$ every time you feel like doing that. So, better tires is a good thing, but the maintenance costs threw this option to a #3.

4 - Get new rims and throw winter tires on them
The obvious 1st Place Winner of the “What the hell should I do about my inability to stop” contest. Turns out that if you buy some rims and get the tires put on them, you get free tire installation, rotation, balancing and all that good stuff for the life of the tires. So, all of a sudden it costs nothing to switch between winters and summer tires. I got some good rims at about 80$ a rim (heavy steel so I can continue to off-road) which is great ’cause I can destroy them and not hurt my pretty alloy rims. After much profound brain things going on deep in my head, I decided that most cost effective solution over time was winter tires and new rims.

At the end of the day, I spent less on my new tires and rims than it would to fix my bumper, and that was just a little dent. Considering the winters will last at least a good 4-5 seasons of heavy use, I really think winter tires are a must-have for all us hosers who enjoy being out in nature during the winter. For the record, I went with Michellin X-Ice tires from Kal-Tire. They were excellent to deal with, and very helpful. I highly recommend them.

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