People wait for snow to book their winter tire swap. By then the shop is booked two weeks out and the roads have already been icy at 6 am for a month. The number to watch isn't snowfall; it's seven degrees.
Why seven degrees
All-season tire rubber is designed to be soft enough to grip between about plus seven and plus thirty. Below seven it starts to stiffen, and below zero it behaves more like plastic than rubber. Winter compounds stay pliable well below minus thirty. On dry pavement at minus ten, a winter tire stops noticeably shorter than an all-season, before there's a flake of snow on the ground.
Around here the daily highs drop under seven for good somewhere in the second or third week of October. That's the time to book. In spring, the reverse: once highs are reliably above seven, usually mid to late April, the soft winter compound starts wearing quickly on warm pavement, and it's time to swap back.
Making a set last
- Keep them on their own rims. Mounting and dismounting every season is hard on the bead and costs more over the life of the tire than a set of steel rims does.
- Rotate them. Swapping front to back each fall evens out the wear, and we do it automatically when we mount them.
- Check the pressure in the cold. Tire pressure drops about one psi for every five or six degrees; a tire set at plus twenty is badly under-inflated at minus twenty.
- Store them clean, dry and out of the sun. Our rack is available for a seasonal fee if you'd rather not haul them.
All-weather versus winter
“All-weather” tires (the ones with the mountain-snowflake symbol but sold for year-round use) are a real improvement over all-seasons and a fair choice for someone who mostly drives in town. For grid roads, highway commutes to Regina and anyone who can't take a snow day, a dedicated winter tire is still the better tool.
Book your changeover in early October and mid-April and you'll never wait.
