In Depth
Personal transportation
Winter tires
Making a comeback
Last Updated September 8, 2006
CBC News
They've come a long way in 30 years.
Time was snow tires were those great big clunky things Dad rushed to have installed on the old station wagon after the first snow of the season fell. Grabbed the road really well in the snow - but created nothing but noise when the roads were dry.
Then came the all-season radial - and a Canadian ritual was in danger of becoming extinct.
A 2002 study showed that 42 per cent of Canadians switch tires in the winter months. The numbers range from a high of 60 per cent of drivers in Quebec to about 30 per cent of Prairie drivers.
But things are changing. In 1999, Transport Canada and the Rubber Association of Canada came up with new standards for tires. Under the old standard, all-season radials were stamped with the letters "M + S" indicating they were suitable for mud and snow.
Transport Canada decided the label was misleading, because consumers could believe that the tires were approved for use in severe snow conditions when they were not. Under the new standard, only tires carrying a special logo – a snowflake in front of a mountain – are certified to have met specific snow traction requirements and have been designed for severe snow conditions.
"There's no such thing as an all-season radial in Canada," says Angelo Dececco, general manager of the Toronto office of Young Drivers of Canada. "The reality is the chemical compounds of the rubber that we need in Canada have to be pliable in cold temperatures. All-season radials don't have the ability to stay pliable when the temperature drops."
Transport Canada says all-seasons are adequate - as long as conditions are fairly moderate. But once temperatures are consistently below -10 C, all-season tires become less effective. And they don't come close in severe snow conditions.
"If the rubber is soft, it actually sticks to the road irregularities," Dececco told CBC News. "What you really want to think about is that when it's freezing cold and even if the roadways are actually clear, a good winter tire is going to far outperform an all-season radial."
They're not even called snow tires anymore. The manufacturers have adopted the more generic winter tire because they're designed to perform better not just in snow, but in slush, rain and even when the roads are dry.
Current technology has allowed rubber compounds to be produced that will stay flexible at lower temperatures, so tires don't harden in severely cold weather. That also means that the new winter tires don't generate nearly as much noise inside the car that the old snow tires did.
A study conducted by the Quebec Ministry of Transport showed a proper winter tire can improve braking by up to 25 per cent over an all-season radial and can improve collision avoidance by about 38 per cent.
Transport Canada advises you to install four winter tires on your car. In the old days, when the overwhelming majority of cars were rear-wheel drive, you only needed two tires. The driving dynamics of front-wheel drive vehicles in conditions of poor traction are very different. They need both linear (forward) traction, and lateral (sideways) traction, particularly on the rear wheels, to prevent spinout and loss of control.
But they're not cheap. Dececco says you can expect to pay $600 - $1,000 for a set of four winter tires that will last you five to eight seasons.
"This isn't the place to save money," he said. "There are only four handfuls [of rubber] that are touching the road at any one time."
Proponents of winter tires say there's another reason all-seasons may not be your best bet: this is Canada and we have four or five months when it's going to snow.
