Hazardous road conditions vs tire pressure

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I gotta take my son home tonite, a 150 mile round trip, and the national weather service just posted this for my area..



Washington County (OH) Sheriff's Office
13 minutes ago
The National Weather Service in Charleston has issued an urgent winter weather message for our area:

Winter Weather Advisory in effect until 7PM est this evening. Hazards of freezing rain, sleet and snow. Ice accumulations of less than 1/4 inch, snow accumulations 1-3 inches possible.

Precipitation will begin as snow early this morning and then change to sleet and freezing rain by mid to late morning.

Ice may accumulate on surfaces including trees and power lines leading to power outages and untreated roadways will become ice covered and hazardous for travel.



I picked him up Friday in the Festiva, it did a fine job but traffic was at a 35mph top speed for a solid 50 miles of my trip. Anytime I (or anyone else) would hit 40/45 you would start to slide. I was almost part of a wreck that happened right in front of me!!!

Due to a lack of tread depth (4/32"-6/32" iirc my boss friend measured the other day after we did his Tuareg)I don't want to drive the Festiva with 185/70/13's tonite. Instead I'll be in my Aspire with 195/45/14 falkien zeix up front and 195/45/14 Togo proxie t1r's in the rear.

The maximum pressure on the sidewall is 41 psi, I usually keep them at 44 trying to squeeze mpgs, and it works for 2 mpg, but what would be an optimum tire pressure for running in the snow?

[skeeters_keeper]

I had falken ziex 912 185/60/14s on the front of my festy and I loved them in the summer, pretty decent in the wet, but sucked in the snow. I found a narrower tire cut through the snow/slush much better. Maybe if it was a hard packed snow/ice the falkens would be ok.

I know your question was about tire pressure - but I'll leave that to someone else since I'm not sure. my "thought" would be higher pressure would be better for slush (where you want the tire to sink through it to pavement) and lower pressure better for hard packed where you're going to be driving on top and want a larger contact area. But don't hold me to it

[skeeters_keeper]

On a side note - I ended up putting some snow tires (165/70/13?) on steelies and using them when it would snow (just in the front) - 10x better than anything else I had, and they last a long time as long as you just put them on when there is snow.

[bhazard]

They're both winter death traps dude. Especially the way you have those wheels offset on the festy.

Those tires on the aspire are summer tires. Not made for this weather at all.

Get a cheap set of dedicated winters.

[TominMO]

+1 on dedicated snow tires. Normal tire pressure should be fine.
Nothing less than studs works well on ice tho.

[Gomez]

Remember when we talked on our Junk Yard day. I had the Toyo Proxes on my car. They are the worst possible tire you could put on that car in winter weather precipitation type conditions. Stay home or put something else on that car especially with your kid in the car and others on the road. UNLESS there is no snow then drive like your on rails. lol

Though I can't speak on the behalf of the Falken's I agree with Brad otherwise,

...winter death traps dude.

[bhazard]

Also my experience with winters on the front only was just as bad. Good traction taking off but everything else was scary. Nothing like hitting a patch cruising and having the rear come around for a visit.

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The festy actually did pretty good, one of the two or three tards that passed me Friday night was an SUV, got 4-500 ft ahead, was passing a truck I had been gaining on for about 10 minutes, slid around 180* and clipped the driver side bed of the truck, which caused the truck to slide sideways but he recovered... All at 30-40 mph lol it was crazy! There was 5 wrecks altogether mostly just people sliding off the road. Looked like one truck went head on into the gaurd rail, headlight out by the bump strip and the truck ended up facing traffic driver side pinned to the gaurd rail.

Anyway the snow started flying as I was typing the OP, it's getting worse all the time, so I was just wondering if I should run a lower pressure kinda like when you go mudding or racing.


Now that I'm thinking about it I probably would be better off running the all season douglas cheepos on the aspire, they're 175/70/13 and have way more sidewall than the 45's+ a skinnier contact patch. I want to say they're rated for 44psi on the sidewall, so what kind of pressure should I run in adverse conditions? I have ran these same tires for the last 4-5 years on and off, mostly in the winter, I just don't like the look of the steelies.

[bhazard]

I like to run 40ish psi

[Festy46]

If I were driving that trip, I would run 28 psi. That's hard enough to hold the weight of the car, but still give you a little flex for traction. The main thing, no matter what tire pressure you're running, is your speed. Don't worry about everybody passing you. Last winter I had to drive home in a snow storm (about 100 miles) and I had a set of those "V" type directional high performance summer tires on the car. I made it home while passing other cars parked in the ditches while they were showing me how fast they could go in the snow. I even stopped for one car that was facing the wrong way sitting in the ditch and ask them if they needed a phone to call someone. They said they had already called for help, so I went back to driving the speed I considered safe all the way home.

[TominMO]

True Festy46, adjusting the nut behind the wheel is the most critical factor. Many of the cars/SUVs I see in the ditch are 4WD. Every time I get into a 4WD car on a snowy day, I remind myself that 4WD helps you go but doesn't help you stop. That being said, at the very least I use good all-season tires that I know from experience work pretty well in snow.

[Gomez]

Sorry Matt. Can't help with tire pressure. I am an off road guy.

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Lol you did help Bryant... I had forgotten about our conversation in the mcd's parking lot till you reminded me, but I do remember you saying the toyos suck in snow... Brad says it too so I'll probably end up leaving the all seasons on till summer now. The wife drives the aspire more than me so I really wish I could buy a set of winterforce tires but it's just not in the budget. Festy needs tires lol.. Someday.

[TorqueEffect]

I am running those 13" Cooper Tires on steelies, and I don't remember my cheapo Douglas 12"s sliding around this much last winter.

I also noticed something peculiar since putting the 13" Metro wheels with Coopers on.
Any time one wheel loses traction, the steering wheel wants to turn in the direction of whatever wheel lost traction. It never did that with the 12" Douglas tires.

Even in the rain, the wider higher quality 13"s are almost no better than the cheapo 12"s.

[zoom zoom]

The weather people lied and the trip was just wet for the most part. Had me all worked up for nothing. Oh well hope for the best plan for the worst! I ran 40 psi there and back, if I get into snow again I'll try dropping the pressure to see if I like it or not.