Hello everyone and welcome! In this video we're gonna be answering the question;
do you need winter tires if it doesn't snow? And so I've got two different sets of tires for my Honda S2000
i've got some ultra high performance summer tires on it which are on it right now
and then I've also got a set of winter tires
which I'm going to put on in tests after testing these summer tires
so the whole idea is that summer tires have something called, and all tires will have something called a glass transition temperature
this is a basically a property of rubber so above this glass transition temperature
the the rubber is soft and malleable
and you know conforms to the road
below this temperature it gets very hard and plastic like and so a lot of tire manufacturers say this is generally around 40° to 45° Fahrenheit
for summer tires and so it's well below freezing it's below that temperature right now outside
there's no snow on the ground
so we're not you know
obviously, I think the winter tire is going to do better than a summer tire on the snow,
what we're gonna figure out is if it's below freezing outside
you know are you gonna benefit from a winter tire or are you gonna be okay on a summer tire?
so that's what we're gonna figure out right here. Just doing a simple braking test. I've got my equipment set up
i''ll include links to all of this stuff, so you know what I'm using in the video description
and so let's go ahead and go test these summer tires
see how they brake, okay, so I'm going to be running the same test three times
i'm going to accelerate up to 65 mph then at the same location
i'm gonna slam the brakes ABS is going to do all the work
it's going to be ABS braking and we're gonna measure the time
from 60 mph down to a dead stop so from 60 to 0
that's the distance we're going to measure and we're going to see what the difference is using summer versus winter tires
so first off is our first run with the summer tires
definitely a little squirrely there. I've done this before
when it was warm outside, and it was not nearly as squirmy the cars kind of shaking all over the place in the cold
and I am not that great at translating meters, but our results are in meters with all the metric people are gonna be excited
i'll include of course what this is in feet but
38.7 meters
was our 60 to zero for the first test with the summer tires.
Okay, we will run one more test and see how we do.
That one was a little bit better.
So our final test on summer tires
we're looking at a 60 to 0 in 38.7 meters and a 30 to 0 in 9.7 meters.
So a little bit better than the second run, but about the same as the first run, so we're looking at about
127 to 130 feet of stopping distance, 60 to 0 when it's below freezing temperatures outside
and you're on summer tires, so now we're going to go ahead and switch
and we're going to put winter tires on these are using the exact same
AP1 wheels it's a different set of wheels but both sets of tires are going to be on stock AP1 wheels
so we're going to be comparing the difference between this winter compound and the summer compound. Okay It is day 2
i've got the winter tires on yesterday I did a bunch of driving
primarily I did a bunch of hard stops
just to make sure that the outer layer of those tires was worn in enough
so they were broken in so that they'd be good for testing
but I also wanted to drive them a bit in the snow and see how they felt and I have to say it's extremely impressive
how well winter tires can do in the snow and the ice I had a lot of fun driving this thing
and it's amazing you know when I have those summer tires on any ice or snow
it's like the tires are basically plastic and they have zero grip, and you just immediately start sliding
so it's really cool that traction in the snow, and it's weird to do it in something like an s2000
but that's not the point of this test the point of this test is to figure out if it doesn't snow, but it's really cold
can you do any better stopping wise with winter tires, and my hypothesis
that they won't actually do much better the summer tires actually did okay all things considered in the dry with the stopping distance
you know I think these may be close up but to me
they feel like they're not going to stop quite as good. We will see with the testing one thing for sure
you do lose steering response with winter tires, so you know that tread block is softer
and you feel it kind of squirm around on the road
it's not nearly as you know quick to turn in
like summer tires are which are you know firmer and as you turn the steering wheel,
it's very quick to turn in with you
but that's just a note about how the steering feels and now let's get into the testing about how they actually stop
okay, here we go with test number one winter tires.
Wow.
So results from the first test 60 to 0 in 47.7 meters 30 to 0 in
12 meters so certainly a longer distance there for stopping
interesting to see and you know kind of what I was thinking when I was testing him yesterday
I felt like the braking wasn't quite as strong
and it's not so while they do perform well
certainly in the snow and ice it seems they are
certainly a drawback when it is dry even if it is cold
it's 26 degrees out right now when I was testing these summer tires. It was 24 degrees so very similar temperature wise
but regardless a longer stopping distance.
Okay test number two.
Something worth noting so far both of the tests with the winter tires
when I slam on the brakes it stays perfectly straight, and I really don't have to adjust it much
versus the summer tires especially the first time I did a hard brake, they were quite squirming
you kind of had to fight it to keep it to go straight
that said even still the braking distance is significantly longer with these winter tires than with the summer tires in
25° Fahrenheit temperatures, okay final test.
And slightly better than our last test but not by much
49.9 meters 60 to 0, 12.26 for the 30 to 0.
so fascinating to see what we've learned if you live in an area where it gets cold
but it doesn't snow you could probably be fine with your all-seasons or your summer tires left on the car
and then if there is a little bit of snow or ice one day. You know don't take your car out.
That said, you know if you do live in an area
where you do have plenty of ice and snow you can certainly take advantage by getting winter tires
so this was fascinating to me
I was surprised how big of a difference there was between the summer and winter tires in the cold the summers definitely were degraded from
how they do in the summer but still did decent enough and significantly better than winter tires
in these you know below freezing temperatures so interesting to see now one thing worth mentioning
I went with a recommended setup of a square set up so
205's on both the front and the rear that keeps the tire diameters very similar to what the rears were anyways
and so it's a square setup, so the rear tires were slightly narrower than the summer tires 20 millimeters on each end now
I don't think that's near enough of a difference to see the difference that we saw in stopping distance
I don't think it's going to make that big of a deal as far as stopping distance
but one thing it made to I mean keep in mind
you know the front is doing most of the work anyways and the front tires were the exact same width in both scenarios
one thing it may do however is mess with the ABS system so the ABS system is
designed for a car with 225s in the back and 205s up front rather than 205s front and rear and so it may
slightly affect how the ABS system is able to interact with the tires and get maximum braking out of them just one thing worth mentioning,
but aside from that same wheels same temperature outside same exact braking location starting from the same
speed and measuring from 60 to 0 so really keeping everything consistent wind speeds were not an issue
I was monitoring that the whole time didn't have any wind out there
so that's why I choose this place out in the middle of nowhere. It's a great place for doing testing like that
so hopefully you guys learned something. I've certainly found this fascinating if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below
thanks for watching.