Last word on snow tires? Not likely!
You’re forgiven if you’re sick of reading about snow tires this time of year. It seems to be a popular topic for just about any type of automotive media outlet, with plenty of advice to go around. While more and more Canadians have got the message on the need for four purpose-built snow tires for their vehicles, there are still a few who believe that all they really need are two. These folks are often surprised when their tire retailer balks at filling their requests and become even more shocked when told the snows will have to go on the rear of their ride and not the front. It doesn’t seem to make sense to install two snows on the rear of a front-wheel-drive auto. After all, don’t the front wheels do all the work? Shouldn’t they have the best traction? Yes, but it’s not a matter of traction, it’s a matter of feel. When driving on snow, slush, or ice-covered roads, the steering wheel provides a lot of feedback, enough that most attentive drivers can take corrective action when the tires break loose because of poor traction. The problem is that the rear wheels don’t provide any type of road feel to the driver and they don’t give any warning until it’s too late. So by the time you find out they’ve lost all traction, you’re in a spin with little hope of getting straight again. When we were all piloting rear-wheel-drive vehicles, having only two snow tires mounted on the rear solved the spin-out risk, leaving us to hopefully keep our auto travelling in the direction we intended. This spin-out factor is the same for all vehicles: front-wheel, rearwheel, all-wheel and four-wheel drive, regardless of their size. With all-wheel or four-wheel drive there’s an additional hitch. Mounting just two snow tires on them (and leaving two all-season or summers on the front) may cause the driveline to bind up because of the differences in tire circumferences. This can cause driveline vibrations and, in some cases, the inability of certain four-wheel-drive systems to easily engage in the first place. Another related kink to consider with winter driving is your vehicle’s traction-control system. If you have anti-lock brakes you probably have traction control. This is the feature that automatically applies individual wheel braking units on acceleration when the wheel-speed sensors detect slippage. What few drivers know is that these systems have a built-in fail-safe to keep the brakes from overheating. When the system starts to work, its control computer counts the number of times the brakes are applied. Once a preset limit has been reached, the traction-control system shuts off, leaving you to muddle through without it until things cool down.