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It’s not quite common knowledge yet but some people are starting to understand that tires – because they are made of rubber – have a certain operating range within which the rubber adheres to the road surface. Go above that and the rubber becomes greasy and is prone to tearing, go below it and it reaches its ‘glass point’ and gets hard and slippery.

For this reason your average ‘all-season’ tire gets slippery on a dry cold day below about 40 degrees and your average performance tire gets slippery below about 55 degrees until you warm them up. It of course varies from tire to tire but something on the TireRack website got me thinking – apparently once you expose tires to extreme cold permanent damage can occur!

Like the motorsports tires this Extreme Performance street tire has evolved from, the ADVAN Neova AD07 radial’s construction and compounds have been tuned to maximize the tire’s traction and performance within a specific range of ambient temperatures. Therefore, unlike less highly-tuned tires, Yokohama’s care instructions specify that due to its compound characteristics, ADVAN Neova tires must be used and stored at temperatures above -10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) to maintain its performance and avoid tire damage.

For the past ten years I’ve been trying to convince people that all wheel drives cars and SUVs need winter tires more than two wheel cars (due to the added mass the tires need to bring to a stop, and in the case of SUVs inherently inferior braking and handling and tires with hard rubber designed to take the punishment of off roading).

if a picture is worth a thousand words this video from Automobile is worth many times that.

Sure it’s spring again, but now you’ll be safer come next year…

When your tires were new, they had 10 to 11/32 of an inch of rubber on them.

To pass state safety inspection you are required only to have 2/32s. That’s only 18-20% of what you started with.

Here’s the thing – testing shows that you’d have to have a deathwish to drive with less than 4/32” (just over a third of the original) in the rain or 6/32” (just over half original depth) in the snow.

Most mechanics still follow the state minimum but given that tires are typically cheaper than insurance deductibles as the wet and slippery weather approaches I hope you’ll consider replacing yours a bit too soon rather that a bit too late.

Some people think driving with your lights on in the daytime looks silly, but when you dig a little deeper driving with them off seems downright stupid.

Every study I’ve seen lists a double digit percent reduction in accidents for cars equipped with daytime running lights, while this page from a British website lists 3-5%.

Lights on at all times isn’t about seeing, it’s about being seen, especially in low contrast times (e.g. dusk, bleak winter days) or during sunset when drivers are overcome by glare as they head west.

It only takes a moment to turn ‘em on and there are other benefits too: people are quicker to get out of your way as you come up behind them in the fast lane and the laser guns police use are literally blinded by the light.

I’ve been driving with mine on since the mid 90s, when I found out a rental car company saw a 2000 percent drop in insurance claims after wiring their cars so the lights were on when the car was in drive. (No that’s not a typo).

Given my experience with the H rated M2s and the positive user reviews I was expecting more from these V rated M3s. They are very good tires but there are a few traits I haven’t seen anyone mention so you might want to take them into account…

First the rolling resistance is much higher than the M2s – even with the pressures bumped up to max load levels fuel economy is down by 2-3 mpg. The car needs more throttle to keep rolling and feels sluggish as a result, losing more speed on uphills etc unless you remodulate the throttle (I find myself delaying upshifts and reaching for downshifts more often now).

Second even at equivalent pressures the ride is appreciably firmer, no doubt due to the V speed rating – too bad they were not available in the H rating suggested by BMW in this (-1) size.

Lastly they don’t have the precision and stability I remember in the M2s. Aside from these being at 10-11/32s vs. the M2s being down to 3-4/32”, the way the center blocks are arranged seems a factor…

I liked the M2s so much I drove ‘em year round but these I’ll change over come spring…

test car: ‘03 BMW 325i sport – 16” OEM Ci wheels

other tires sampled on this car: Continental ContiWinterContact TS810

That’s what you’ll get if you read this piece by Andrew Frankel comparing SUVs vs. wagons on 4car.

Here’s an excerpt:

The traditional car classes are collapsing and spaces between them are being filled with an ever increasing array of crossover product. We have [minivans] that don’t carry any more people than hatchbacks and [wagons] that are useless at carrying loads. We have supercars that are never driven fast and convertibles that are at their best with the roof up. It’s hardly a wonder we have no problem accepting as normal the concept of an off-roader that can’t be used off-road.

Can be found in this interview Slate.com’s shopping guru did with me a few years back.

(Note that the tires I suggested then have since been surpassed… aside from that the ‘best’ tire varies based on the car, driver, conditions, etc.)