Yes, You Need Winter Tires: All-Season vs. All-Weather, Top Rated Winter Tires, and More

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

If you're a Talking Cars fan and want to see the Consumer Reports Test Track in person, here's your chance. On October 17th, Consumer Reports is hosting a 5K run and walk fundraiser here at our Auto Test Center in Colchester, Connecticut. It's a fun way to get outside, see the cars we talk about every week, and support our mission all at once. And if you can't join us in person, there's a virtual option too. Go to cr.org/5k to learn more and register.

Michael Croson (0:36)

Welcome back to Talking Cars. I'm Michael Croson.

Gordon Jengris (0:38)

I'm Gordon Jengris.

Ryan Pulikowski (0:39)

And I'm Ryan Pulikowski.

Michael Croson (0:40)

Also known as the Tire Guys. So I think that's what we're talking about this week.

But we'll get into tires in a little bit. But it is that time of year. I'm in a hoodie. Ryan's ready to go to the beach.

So winter's on the way. And there's a lot of things that, as vehicle owners and drivers, that we should probably be doing, we need to do. So we're going to talk about what are some of those things, get them fresh in our mind, and eventually we'll get to tires. That's why we have the Tire Guys here. And for the people listening, they may be getting ready to buy tires, or thinking about, do they need winter tires? So we'll get into that here too. Lots of, I think, good winter info coming up. So what are some of the things you guys do to prep your vehicles for winter time?

Ryan Pulikowski (1:15)

So, yeah, I mean, first and foremost, I mean, you should be constantly checking on your car, checking your tires once a month for age cracks, all that kind of stuff, tread depth. But, you know, you're coming out of summer, you might want to get the beach chairs out and put the snow brush back in, that kind of stuff. You're gonna check your fluids. I mean, it should make an issue of batteries up to snuff. Batteries don't like the cold.

You know, all that kind of stuff, because, you know, you're gonna be making trips up north or just commuting in the snow to work. Last thing you want to do is run into, you know, issues with your car.

Michael Croson (1:48)

Igor, what can you tell us about cold temperatures and tire pressures?

Gordon Jengris (1:51)

Yeah, so you're gonna lose tire pressure as the temperature goes down. It's about one PSI for every 10 degrees, give or take.

So, you know, if you, last time you filled your tires, it was 90 degrees in the summertime. It averages maybe 20 degrees in your area. You know, you could be down potentially six, seven PSI.

Ryan Pulikowski (2:15)

And all the, sorry, all the while, while through those temperature changes, tires are just losing air anyway. Air does permeate through the road over time.

Michael Croson (2:22)

And I mean, from being a former dealership technician, that first cold morning, our whole service lane would be full of people with the tire pressure light on. Everyone's now running late for work, and they got to get the car checked, and the techs aren't making any money because we're all just resetting tire pressure lights. So you can save yourself quite a lot of hassle, A, by checking them monthly. But when that temperature does swing, you know, from the 90 degrees summertime, set them cold on a cold morning, and theoretically should be good, at least as a baseline for the winter. And you can save yourself that annoying light, you know, checking for leaks or having to go to a tire shop or a dealer, right? Save a lot of time.

Ryan Pulikowski (2:52)

And you want to be mindful, you want to use the pressure that's in the door jamb, because there's a little placard in the door jamb or in the owner's manual. Don't go by the max pressure on the sidewall. That's meant for max load.

So it's-

Michael Croson (3:04)

The tire is physically capable of holding that pressure, but the car is not designed to ride at that pressure.

Ryan Pulikowski (3:09)

Right, and it translates to a lot of things. I mean, the car was designed with those tires in that size. The contact patch, the area of the rubber that's touching the road at a certain pressure is the proper size to maximize the handling and all the performance aspects of those tires. So if you put too much air in them, you actually shrink that contact patch. If they're too low, it gets bigger, but you also run into heat issues because the tire is deforming and reforming a lot more.