Summer Tires - Winter Time

[NYGman]

Living in the Northeast, I expect bad Winters, but this year has been especially brutal. Now I know you shouldn't drive in the cold with Summer tires, but I didn't realize how bad it could be for the tires. It's 11F now, and while the car warms right up for my Sunday drive, not so the tires. I noticed clicking from the tires as they were being turned from straight, moving slow, figured I should not drive it today. Did some research and found this:

https://m.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=273

Felt my Mustang tires, hard as rocks, my Ford Flex with all season are still soft. So right now I will say they are too cold to drive on.

However, I do see GTs on the road with what looks to be Summer tires, in this cold, but my limited cold driving a few weeks back, took over 30min to get the tire pressure up to normal, and those 30 minutes we're not particularly fun. I have also seen some recent YouTube videos with people driving the new 2018 GT in freezing weather, which got me thinking...

So here is my question for you, how many of you drive with cold (sub 40's) weather on summer tires? What's your cut off temp?

I don't drive the Mustang daily, and only take it out if conditions are right for some fun. While today is clear, and the roads look good, I fear I will have to pass today, and likely a few more weekends. However given my limited driving, I can't justify a winter set, and don't want all season tires. Are tire warmers an option or even a thing?

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[randotheking]

I used to with my 2013 and I got stuck on I75 coming home to Cincy from Asheville in February. Ever since then I have a set of Blizzaks,the difference is night and day

 

[airfuel]

Tire warmers won’t help. The cold road will suck any heat out of them in no time.

They are called summer tires for a reason.....just like all season and winter tires.

If you must drive in severe cold like we are experiencing so far this winter, you would be better served with all season tires.

 

[N123456]

Ya, tire warmers won’t help driving on cold roads. I’d say get a winter set of wheels and tires if you want to be safe, or just not drive it until it warms up again. To your question, my cutoff on my summer tires is 50 degrees. Below that temp, they break traction just barely accelerating.

 

[Hack]

I will drive around down into the 20s F on the factory Michelin Super Sports that came on my GT350. As long as the roads are dry I typically don't have any issues at those temperatures with the SS tires. My main criteria is if there's a chance for ice I will swap over to my Blizzaks. The Super Sports can get you by in a little snow and ice if you are careful, but I try not to use them in those conditions.

 

[Jdenkevitz]

Living in the Northeast, I expect bad Winters, but this year has been especially brutal. Now I know you shouldn't drive in the cold with Summer tires, but I didn't realize how bad it could be for the tires. It's 11F now, and while the car warms right up for my Sunday drive, not so the tires. I noticed clicking from the tires as they were being turned from straight, moving slow, figured I should not drive it today. Did some research and found this:

https://m.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=273

Felt my Mustang tires, hard as rocks, my Ford Flex with all season are still soft. So right now I will say they are too cold to drive on.

However, I do see GTs on the road with what looks to be Summer tires, in this cold, but my limited cold driving a few weeks back, took over 30min to get the tire pressure up to normal, and those 30 minutes we're not particularly fun. I have also seen some recent YouTube videos with people driving the new 2018 GT in freezing weather, which got me thinking...

So here is my question for you, how many of you drive with cold (sub 40's) weather on summer tires? What's your cut off temp?

I don't drive the Mustang daily, and only take it out if conditions are right for some fun. While today is clear, and the roads look good, I fear I will have to pass today, and likely a few more weekends. However given my limited driving, I can't justify a winter set, and don't want all season tires. Are tire warmers an option or even a thing?

Don't chance it.
I have a 2016 GT with PP (Summer P-zeros). They are horrible below 40 degrees, and very dangerous near 20's. It is way to easy to break loose with the power this car has, even if driving reasonably careful. It doesn't even need to be snowing to be dangerous.

Get a winter beater or put all season/snow tires on it.

All it takes is a few seconds and you to slide into a curb or god forbid another car and you will be cursing your decision.

 

[Norm Peterson]

I've never put a hard cutoff number on when it was time to take the summer performance tires off, going by "feel" instead. Once it became easy to get the tail to step out a bit turning onto a main road from a full stop, that's been my cue.

With the GY Asymmetrics I used to have on my '08, that seemed to happen in the low to mid 40's F. These days with MPSS tires, it seems to be considerably lower than that, with no apparent adverse effects so far even down into the mid to low 20's F. Colder than that, with us being retired and having less need to have to drive anywhere (like the job), we can choose to stay in.


Hack - it's interesting that we've both noticed this about the Michelins. I knew I wasn't imagining it. I've actually tracked mine at 1st session ambient and pavement temperatures in the mid to upper 30's. (Beware of lockup under braking for the first lap or two, though).


Norm

 

[NYGman]

Let me be clear, I do not intend to drive it in snow, and while I did take it out a few Sundays ago, in the high 30s I was very careful, and actually turned on snow/wet mode until tires came up to pressure. This is my fun car and I take care of it. I have the Ford Flex EcoBoost AWD for bad weather fun and daily driving. Even though I bought this Mustang to keep forever, I don't see snow tires being worth it. Would rather get some new axel back exhaust or stage 2 performance package for the money. I am really looking for a range of when I can drive and how I may be able to maximize my drive time. For now, I will just start it up once a week to warm the fluids, crank the tunes, give it a few revs, and hear it sing a bit, before turning it off and driving the Flex.

What triggered my question was watching this guy at 1:41 in the video, shows 24F and he proceeded to drive his brand new 18 GT with what looks like summer tires. And this was just one of a few I have seen recently while watching some videos of the 18 GT, which by the way is magnificent, but still quite pleased with my 17. So got me wondering what other people do. Before I asked I was thinking 40F, but starting to lean a bit higher.

 

[BmacIL]

Yeah I was also very surprised at how "fine" the super sports I had on my previous car were in the 30 deg mornings of the fall before switching to winters. The Bridgestones I have on my summer wheels are similar and were drama free in the 30s in dry. Once the roads got a little slick, though (day before changed over to winter this year), braking alone was a bit scary.

PZeros in any condition below 50 deg are terrible. Dry, wet, anything and they're hockey pucks. Not terrible tires in the summer when you get them hot, but far from a good street summer tire.

 

[NYGman]

I had an Audi S4 Avant with Michelin Pilot Super Sport Summer Tires, and never noticed an issue driving in the 30s, but I just figured that was Audi AWD traction at work. However first cold drive below 40 and I feel it right away in Mustang, just wasn't as sure footed.

 

[Norm Peterson]

We might actually be going out (currently 18°F). Both my car and hers still have MPSS tires on it. Her AWD only helps forward acceleration; braking is still subject to any limitations of either RWD or FWD. Cornering limitations imposed are probably less severe than with FWD, a little more so than with RWD unless you can't keep your right foot out of it with the RWD.


Norm

 

[BmacIL]

I had an Audi S4 Avant with Michelin Pilot Super Sport Summer Tires, and never noticed an issue driving in the 30s, but I just figured that was Audi AWD traction at work. However first cold drive below 40 and I feel it right away in Mustang, just wasn't as sure footed.

That's those Pzeros. Replace them something better and it's night and day different.

 

[NYGman]

Think next set will be MPSS as they were great, however at this rate, that may take a while, and still need to get through this winter.

 

[BmacIL]

Think next set will be MPSS as they were great, however at this rate, that may take a while, and still need to get through this winter.

Most have turned the whole tread of the pirellis into bits of rubber by 10-12k miles. The newer Firestone Firehawk Indy 500 is a great tire as well. Several friends and many on this forum very happy with them in stock sizes and they're pretty cheap too!

 

[NYGman]

Most have turned the whole tread of the pirellis into bits of rubber by 10-12k miles.

And I have just over 3k for this year, so at this rate another 2-3 years. Maybe I should try out line lock, help them along a bit...

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