Quote:
Originally Posted by gthal
Yes, it is possible. But I don't believe it is smart or practical. Most who drive the car year round don't have an option to not drive the car in light snow or 3-4 days after a storm. Second, black ice, etc isn't always predictable and you are toast, IMO, if you happen across this condition on summer tires. Lastly, what about unexpected snow/ice/precipitation? This past winter, there were at least 2 or 3 occasions where I was out of the house when it started to snow and it wasn't forecast. On summer tires I would have been taking a completely unnecessary risk running summers.
The manufacturers, car industry, BMW, everyone always say summer tires are not intended to be driven at or NEAR freezing temps. That's not propaganda to make more money either... if you run snow tires, your summers last longer. Overall, you aren't spending more money (other than the nominal cost to swap of the summers for winters).
Bottomline is that if someone can afford a $70k car, they can afford to spend $1k on the right shoes for the condition? Doesn't make any sense to me not to. Sure, it can be done but WHY would anyone take that chance just to save $1K.
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I was just making the point that for someone in my situation, there's no need for winter tires. Especially in NYC, where most of us have the option of 24/7 public transport and taxis. And in regards to the summer tires in cold temps issue, it's not propaganda, true, but rather a warning that grip will not be of summer levels (which is true of winter tires, too!). It doesn't mean that there is no or little grip, unlike what people seem to claim all the time. Then there is the tire storage/swapping issue. The expense is more than $1k, since you need to pay for your tires to be swapped twice a year, and for one set or the other to be stored through th entire year. If you work it out, it actually ends up being more expensive than simply burning the summer performance tires a little prematurely.
That being said, most people are not in my situation, and so your advice, despite me disagreeing with it, is very very good
