For those of you that switch to winter or all-season tires in the winter, when do you go back to your summer tires? I'm hearing people talking about the importance of the right temperature for the summer compound being as big an issue as ability to displace snow and mush -- do you look for temps to get above X degrees or just wing it? I've always had all-season tires before and I'm itching to get back to the summers but don't want to get hung out to dry while the average temperature remains in the high 30's... What's your sad story from switching too soon/late?

 

Sorry. No sad story. Switch back around the end of March.
Performance rubber will freeze during cold weather. Around here we need to worry about that late winter snow storm. If you do switch now, you can always put the snows back on the night before they are calling for snow.

 

It's been my experience that early spring/late winter snowstorms can be the worst. So, until I'm pretty sure that winter is just about over, I'm keeping the Blizzaks on.

 

I usually switch around late March, about the time autocross season starts around here.

 

mid to late march, sometimes early april depending on what the
10 day forcast says each weekend that it's potentially convienient
to swap them.

 

i usually wait until average ambient temp is at least over 45F-50F.

my MCS has summers on now, but not driven. my G35C has a/s on and
will swap to the summer probably by end of this month... HOPEFULLY!
i don't drive it either through the winter season.

 

I switched last weekend!

 

Hopefully by mid-next week..
Forecast says we are expecting some snow next Mon-Tues.

 

mid-late march... although i am known for early swapping up here, and snow tends to stay around with one last sweep late march

ahhhh ill never learn!

 

do you really need to change out tires btn summer and winter? even if you have all season tires?

 

don't have to take them off, ever!

Matt

 

a/s is different. you can use it throughout the seasons.

we're talking about high perf summer tires.

 

Switching to Dunlop Sport Maxx's tomorrow afternoon myself.

I've been watching those ten day forcasts since I bought my MCS a few weeks ago. I'm hoping Mother Nature doesn't decide to dash my hopes of escaping my AS run flats until mid-late October.

 

Tires are supposed to last long enough to switch?

My experience with Blizzaks is the "winter" part is gone after one season, leaving a rather squishy all-season underneath. Supposedly you can buy new Blizzaks every winter and ride on their all-season part the rest of the year, but I've always just tossed them by then for summer tires.

 

Ahhh! I knew there was something GOOD about living in CA.

 

Made the switch from snows to summer on March 1. I know I'm tempting fate, but I've been itching to do it. If it snows I can always put them back on.

It's been getting into the 40's and low 50's now, so we're on the edge.

 

The obligatory "rub it in" post

Up here in Mass I wait until mid April at a minimum (they go on early Nov)

 

Most good summer tires require temps>45degF to work well, otherwise they are rocks. I switched to my stock runflat summer performance (hah!) tires at the end of March last year, and there were a couple of days in the 20's that really beat the tar out of my mini! Plus I was spinning the tires left and right on DRY pavement! (Not in the fun way either!).

I personally wait until I see a week where the MAJORITY of the days are forecast above 45-50 before I switch. My winter tires are Dunlop Winter SPort M3's which are not too bad on pavement so I am not TOO nervous driving them about (other than spinning tires in 1rst, 2nd, and 3rd commonly!).

It's going to be esp. hard this year since my new wheel/tires have just arrived! As soon as they are mounted I am going to have to really be patient, otherwise I'll just put them on and slide all over the damn place!

RM2k5~out

 

We just received the year's single biggest snowfall of the season, with a mix of sleet too. Most cars around here have winter tires, so no issue for them. Saw a lot of cars (FWD and especially RWD) just spinning their wheels in the stuff, and some barely able to climb on-ramps, including a new Golf w/o winter tires that couldn't. Heard about a lot of wrecks coming into work today too. I'll probably switch back in early April once the temps drive completely out of the freezing range. I'm eager to get my real rubber back on, but I can be patient and wait for the right time.

 

hmm forcast says mid to high 60s by mid-next week in the DC area...:impatient

 

I have some Michelin X Ice winters that I am quite happy with, good snow performance (I drive to MI a lot) and they are showing decent wear since most of my driving is dry pavement.

 

This dilemma is exactly why I never use winter tires: I am certain that three days after I put the summer tires back on, we would get a major snowstorm, and I don't want to be responsible for that.

Also, it would drive me crazy trying to decide when to put them on - same reasoning - the minute the winter tires went on, it would become unseasonably warm, and I'm darned if I want to be held responsible for the weather...
6^)

 

Tire manufacturers recommend summer performance tires, when temperatures maintain minimum 45-50 degrees. Otherwise they get hard and slick. You can wait another month, after March Madness is over.
You wouldn't enjoy wearing a winter coat, gloves and a hat in the middle of summer; the Mini is not going to get the best performance out of those summer performance tires till it gets consistently warmer.
And you wouldn't want to accidently curb your nice wheels on a suddenly cold and slick evening twisty. Happy Motoring.

 

You're missing out on a lot of fun on summer tires then. With practice it only takes 10-15 minutes to swap tires, if I get nailed with late-season bad weather, I'll either take 10-15 minutes to swap tires or I'll take another vehicle. I don't feel the need for snow tires here where I live, but I do use all-season tires during the colder months.

I've found that different summer tires can perform very differently when the temps start to drop. The Falken Azenis I used to run would start to noticeably lose grip below 40-45° but the Toyo T1R tires I use on my MC now have maintained very good grip as low as 20-25°, unfortunately they don't grip in the warm weather nearly as well as the Azenis did :(

-Keith

 

You miss my point - I use high-performance summer tires all year `round.

We seldom see snow here, so I enjoy the summer tires almost as much in winter as in summer - they drift and slide beautifully when they get harder in cold weather, and it's really good training for much higher speeds on them in the summer.