hello everyone and welcome in this video
we're going to be talking about winter
tires and answering a question that i've
often wondered about so if you have
winter tire versus an all-season tire
versus a summer tire the winter tire is
going to have the softest compound and
it's designed with that soft compound so
that when it drops down into those lower
temperatures the compound still remains
really soft and so you have good grip at
low temperatures that's the biggest
advantage of winter tires is keeping
that compound soft at those low
temperatures where all season or summer
tires will get much more firm and they
won't have as much grit
now what i've always wondered is if you
take this soft compound that you're
using on winter tires and use it in the
summer are you going to simply have more
wear but also more grip or are you going
to have more wear and less grip does you
know a winter tire provide more grip in
higher temperatures purely because it
has that really soft compound or is it
actually better to have those firmer
compounds
that remain more rigid but you know
they're designed for that temperature
range and so the test that i conducted
is a braking test from 60 miles per hour
to zero miles per hour and we're going
to do three tests with each tire so i
had this previously on bridgestone
blizzak ws80s i switched over to some
all season yokohama geolander uh all
season tires and so from a winter tire
to an all season tire
and did brake testing exact same
temperature outside i you know made sure
to get the temperature perfect both of
these tires are pretty much brand new
both of them with less than 4 000 miles
on them and both of them less than a
year old and both of them the exact same
time
exact same size using the exact same
tire pressures so all the variables are
held constant the only difference is the
tire themselves when i did these brake
tests from 60 miles per hour to zero and
so what was interesting on the winter
tire when i did the first brake test uh
which is what i was using first
obviously uh the first one slowed the
first run i came to a stop in 127 feet
or about 128 feet
versus the all season the first time i
stopped was 124 feet
now when i did the second stop the all
season was once again 124 feet so it
remained consistent
and the winter tire jumped all the way
to 134 feet so once they got a little
bit of heat into it it dramatically
reduced how much grip it had and the
stopping distance was much longer
and then i did one more break test the
third brake test where the all seasons
stopped in about 127 feet and then the
winter tire stopped in
135 feet so you know you could see the
consistency in the all-season tire and
it is interesting to see that even
though the winter tire does have a
softer compound it does in fact have
less grip in the summer
now one of the things that came up when
i did some brake testing with my s2000
people were saying well how do you know
that that's not brake fade that you're
experiencing
well looking at the data you can tell it
you can also tell it by actually driving
the vehicle so when i slam on the brakes
when i'm doing these tests i can feel
the abs pumping
and i can hear the abs working so you
can feel it in the brake pedal you can
hear it working
you know that those brakes are locking
up and so if the wheel is able to lock
up the brake isn't the limiting factor
it's the tire that's limiting factor and
that's the case with every single one of
these brake tests i've done the other
thing is you can see based on the data
so with the s2000 the braking improved
using the summer tires it wouldn't
improve if there was brake fade
with the crosstrek when i got on the all
seasons you can see the first two runs
with the all season tire they were you
know almost identical whereas the first
two runs with the winter tires they
weren't there was a big gap so you can
tell that it's the tire and not the
brakes
because if it were the brakes you'd see
a more consistent distance
a gap between the first stop and the
second top stop regardless of what tire
you're using because you're limited by
the brakes not the tires and so it's
very easy to tell both by feel and
looking at the data that brake fade is
an issue here you wouldn't expect brake
fade to be an issue with just three you
know strong stops from 60 miles per hour
that are spaced out with you know a
minute or so in between um you know
brakes can handle that they're certainly
designed for
the gross vehicle weight rating which
you know i'm just stopping with me in
the car there's not a bunch of cargo and
stuff in here so the brakes are
definitely over designed to be able to
stop brakes aren't a concern the point
is winter tires do perform significantly
worse in the heat and so this was at 63
degrees fahrenheit not even that warm
yet and already there's pretty dramatic
difference in how these winter tires are
behaving versus all season tires
now why is that i think a big part of
the reason why the winter tires stop
slower has to do with you know both the
soft compound which i believe it's just
kind of breaking away and kind of just
you know getting destroyed as you're
slamming on the brakes rather than
actually holding shape and slowing the
vehicle down it's just kind of sliding
off material shearing off that tire and
you're not getting as good of a stopping
distance
the other thing is the tread blocks and
all the siping on these snow tires uh
there's so much movement in the tread
blocks and i think that also plays a
role where in low grip it's good to have
that amount of movement because you can
grip all the different surfaces but in
high grip scenarios it's going to kind
of have too much movement on the tread
block
and so as a result you don't have that
stiffness of the tire and so it doesn't
break as quickly
now the all seasons are a bit more stiff
and obviously improved and they don't
have that siping so the tread blocks are
a better design as far as stopping and
you also have you know a different
compound that remains a bit more firm in
these warmer temperatures
so very cool to see some actual data and
see how it changes you know from an
all-season tire to a summer tire
stopping the exact same conditions if
you guys have any questions or comments
feel free to leave them below thanks for
watching
you