A Public Service Announcement regarding Summer tires in Winter

[Frodo]

Many---maybe most---of you may not have even opened this thread, knowing full well what it’s about. This is submitted for those who had no clue.

Found out the hard way how poorly summer performance tires react to the cold a couple nights ago. Was leaving the house to go retrieve some take-out (Italian) for dinner. It was cold (mid 30s, I suppose) but no precip at the moment. As I backed out of the garage and up the driveway, we started getting some misty rain, which picked up as I drove the 3-4 miles to the restaurant. (I initially considered switching cars---I don’t too often drive the Box in the rain. But, since I was already rolling, I was lazy, didn’t feel like switching and blew off the idea.) Most of the way there, I was leaving a busy intersection and, being at the head of the pack, I decided to put a little space between me and the cars behind me. Going up this moderately steep hill, I punched it a bit. Millisecs later, I was sideways, and ended up doing a complete 360, colliding with the curbing on the passenger side. In the process, I managed to take out someone’s mailbox, which exacted its revenge by exploding my sideview mirror and then banging mercilessly onto the top of the rear quarter panel of my blameless car. Also managed to tear a fatal gash in a relatively new (~8K miles) right rear tire. She needs work, for sure, but it could have been worse: I stayed on my side of the road, no other vehicles were involved and there were no boys in blue to witness the excitement. But as hard as I work maintaining the finish on this car, hours and hours of back-breaking detailing, it was a painful lesson.

Some of you guys had warned me about this before. RandallNeighbor and bmussatti come to mind, but I know others have mentioned it. (When I asked, in one thread a bit over a year ago, whether driving summer tires in the winter was hard on the tires, bmussatti replied “it is mainly detrimental to your sheet metal! ") Summer tires just ain’t too grippy in the cold, and get downright slippery in the wet and cold. I grew up driving a RWD back in the ‘70s (1964 Buick Skylark), but for the past two decades it’s been mostly FWD vehicles with all season tires, a relatively safe arrangement even in inclement weather. Got the Box about 3 years ago and, as indicated, don’t really drive her much in the cold and, until the other day, virtually never in the wet and cold. I’ve got Goodyear F1 Eagle Asymmetrics on the car, pretty nice tires that were rated great for use in the rain. On those fairly rare occasions I’ve driven in the rain, that has proven true. Unfortunately, as I quickly learned---the hard way---that characteristic is true when it’s warm rain.

[JFP in PA]

Sorry to hear that you "bent" your baby, but I’m sure she is fixable. This is why I put mine into hibernation when the air temps drop below 45F……………

[tnoice]

My sister in law just wrecked her chrysler crossfire yesterday because she all of a sudden lost grip and slid around (it was very cold yesterday). She has summer tires on her car that are about the same as the boxster. Road was slightly damp. I have also noticed that the tires on the porsche get a little skiddish when it gets colder.

Sorry to hear about your accident.

[timothy]

Agreed that when the temperatures dip, summer tires can lose grip before you know what happened. I has the world's slowest spin on an icy Dallas highway three years ago. Going no more than 15mph in a straight line when the back end came around, and around, and around. Luckily in my case it was purely drama and no damage, but the lesson is the same. Be careful out there.

[crios]

That sucks! Sorry.

I too went sideways yesterday, accelerating out of second gear. I hate this weather! Keep us posted on how the repairs go.

[blinkwatt]

Glad to hear your alright.

I've posted multiple times about how horrible of a tire my HRTZ IIIs are in cold and rainy weather. I don't even answer my phone when it's raining and I drive the car,I have little trust in performance tires in cold and wet weather.

I lost my 99' just switching freeways, not speeding or doing anything stupid,it was just the 1st rain of the year and cold. The car had P Zero Rossos.

[boxsternut]

Sorry to hear about your boxster! As we north of the border mostly know, when the outside temperature dips below 7C or approx. 45F, all-season and summer tires lose a lot of their grip...that's why Quebec (our neighbouring province) made winter tires mandatory by law! The road may LOOK fine, but it is starting to freeze, just like your tires! Good luck with the repairs.

[Lordblood]

Ouch! Hope things go alright, at least everything is fixable.

Living in a desert that stays relatively warm even in the summer (55 degrees today was our high, and that's considered as low as it goes for the most part) I have stayed with all season tires that work well in the rain. Today, however, in the morning I was driving in mild rain, but it was about 40 degrees outside. I soon found that anything over 1/3 throttle while turning right or left meant complete loss of rear traction. It's nowhere as bad as what you had to go through, but it's still a lesson well learned.

[Mike_Yi]

At least it sounds like the car is not too badly damaged. I'm guessing your pride was more damaged as all those cars streamed by.

I know exactly what you mean though. I drove an '89 Firebird Formula 350 year round for about 10 years in Chicago winters. For a few winters, I had Goodyear Eagle GS-Cs which are extreme performance summer tires. Of course, I had no idea that they were summer only tires. Here's what they look like:
Tire Rack link

As you can imagine, high hps and torque with a limited slip rear end, and FR format, coupled with these wide tires with absolutely no sipes, made winter driving a challenge. I got stuck a couple of times, but mostly it was on ice. I did enjoy starting from a stop though. As soon as I eased pressure off the brake, the rear end would start coming out one way or the other. It would stay that way (or sometimes go from side to side) until I picked up some speed. Needless to say, other cars gave me lots of room. Driving up hills in the snow required picking up speed before hand in order to have the momentum to make it. If I had to stop on even the slightest hill (overpasses are a good example), I would generally end up letting the back end come all the way around, then crank the wheel into the spin to move it over into the lane going the other direction, and just go back the way I came. I got very good at planning my route while driving to avoid any hills. It was always a white knuckle ride when there was snow on the ground though. I wouldn't want to do it again.