Quote:
Originally Posted by tanith77
When I think of snow tires, I think big grooved chunky things... The tires are just kind of standard looking. (I didn't bring the truck to work today.) The former owners used the truck for ski area travel, so maybe so. Thanks!
Any other advice?
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True Snow & Ice tires, (not Mud & Snow; or MS rated tires) do not look like the typical all-terrain tires with the aggressive chunky tread you're probably thinking of.
Snow & Ice tires have a very close, blocky tread pattern and are heavily sipped. They're also made with a much softer, gummier rubber compound that will wear out very quickly under normal hot, dry road conditions; which is why most people usually have a winter set of tires on cheap rims that they run only during the late fall and winter months.
Also, despite popular belief, for driving in most snow and ice conditions on a hard road surface, much thinner tires, or "pie cutters" as some of us refer to them, are actually better for traction than big, wide tires that have the tendency to float on top of the snow and ice.
Thin tires are better for cutting through to the road surface because the entire weight of the vehicle is being distributed on a smaller contact patch, meaning increase psi of contact patch on the road surface. Big, wide tires with aggressive treads are best suited for deep snow, mud and sand.