How Weather Conditions Affect Tire Performance

The specific types of tires you use and how you drive in different weather has a big impact on tire performance, handling, and safety. At City Tire, we want you to fully understand how key weather factors like outside temperature, rain, snow, and ice can drastically affect your tires. This allows you to be well-prepared for changing conditions.

How Hot Temperatures Negatively Affect Tires

When the weather heats up, the air trapped inside your tires expands due to rising temperatures. This expansion causes the tire air pressure to increase above where it should be. Driving on overly inflated tires reduces traction, braking capacity, stability, and tire contact with the road. It also causes accelerated center tread wear, meaning you’ll have to replace them sooner.

Extreme outdoor heat can also soften the rubber compound in tires, especially high-performance summer tires. The tread rubber becomes less resistant to wear and abrasions. Softened rubber leads directly to decreased grip and traction in hot conditions. High speeds, hard cornering, and sudden braking or acceleration should always be avoided when driving on extremely hot days to maintain vehicle control.

How Frigid Cold Temperatures Impact Tires

Just as expanding hot air increases pressure in tires, contracting cold air has the opposite effect and lowers tire pressure as temperatures drop. Underinflated tires negatively affect handling, braking distances, stability, and fuel economy. Tires become less flexible in cold weather as well, reducing traction and grip. 

Winter tires engineered specifically for cold weather use specialized rubber compounds that remain pliable and flexible even at frigid temperatures. This improves winter traction and grip tremendously compared to all-season tires which become hard and slick. 

Why Wet Roads Are So Slippery for Tires

When roads are wet, an extremely slippery layer of water becomes trapped between your tires’ rubber and the road’s pavement surface. Since water does not adhere to or grip well to tire rubber, this causes the tires to lose contact with the road and start to hydroplane across the water layer. Reduced actual contact with the pavement leads to severe loss of traction and vehicle control.

Worn-out tires with shallow remaining tread depth greatly worsen wet weather traction and increase the chance of hydroplaning. The minimal tread cannot properly channel away water through the sipes and grooves. Slow down and drive with extreme care on wet roads, increasing your following distance behind other vehicles significantly. 

Tips for Safe Winter Snow and Ice Driving

Snow-covered and icy roads are extremely hazardous and slippery because of poor tire traction. Having a set of dedicated winter tires, or at least all-season tires with deeper tread, is highly recommended for winter. The deeper tread blocks, sipes, and grooves allow the tire to bite into powder snow. Studded winter tires provide the very best traction and grip on icy roads.

 Avoid any abrupt steering, braking, or acceleration maneuvers to prevent skidding and sliding. Be smooth, steady, and easy on all the vehicle’s controls. Make sure to completely clear off snow and ice from your entire vehicle before even driving in winter conditions. 

Get Expert Tire Advice from the Team at City Tire

Weather conditions greatly impact your tire performance, vehicle handling, and control on the road. Here at City Tire, our tire experts can guide in selecting the right tire types for your specific vehicle and local driving conditions. We carry top-quality all-season tires, ultra-high-performance summer tires, and the latest winter and snow tires to keep you safe in any weather. Stop by City Tire or Consumer Tire soon and we’ll make sure your tires are properly inflated with adequate tread depth to handle whatever the forecast brings throughout the year!