If you live where winter means snow, now is about the time of year you should be thinking about a switch from summer tires or all season radials to dedicated winter tires. The video below does a good job of illustrating why, but it has one fatal flaw: it compares “summer only” tires, which shouldn’t ever be driven on snow and ice, to dedicated winter tires, which optimize grip on snow and ice, and in low temperatures.

There’s an intermediate step, of course, and that’s all-season tires. Like a Swiss Army knife, all-season tires are better than nothing at all, but they’re still not the performance equal of a dedicated winter tire. Expect all-season radials to perform somewhere in between the summer tires and the winter tires shown in the video below, which isn’t quite good enough in our book.

Winter tires aren’t cheap, but they’re a lot less expensive than having an accident on all-season radials. If you can fit it into the budget, have a set mounted up on steel or cheap alloy wheels, so that changing between summer and winter tires is a twenty minute, do-it-yourself job.

Apparently back in the 1960′s and early 1970′s women who drove didn’t have the mental capacity to read street signs, dodge potholes or drive in the rain. Thankfully though men everywhere were able to purchase Goodyear Polyglass tires for their cars in order to ensure the safety of their wives. Believe it or not but this was an actual Goodyear commercial from back in the day, and honk my hooter if it’s not the most sexist thing I’ve ever seen. Maybe Goodyear thought that women back then didn’t care about cars, safety or tires. Or maybe, just maybe this was truly the way the company viewed female drivers. Either way though this is one for the record books and one that I’m sure raised a few eyebrows when it was released way back when.

Source: Youtube.com

The Goodyear Blimp. Image: Sao Paulo 1

I’ll be the first to admit that tire pressure monitoring systems are a very good thing. Most drivers rarely, if ever, check tire pressure, and TPMS systems can at least give you a heads up if you’re about to have a flat tire or blowout. In the grand scheme of things, checking your tire pressure involves about as much time and energy as getting dressed in the morning. Somehow, we all manage to avoid walking around naked, yet we’re utterly incapable of remembering to check the air in our tires from time to time.

Not to worry, because Goodyear has us covered. The tire manufacturer is developing a line of – and I’m not making this up – self-monitoring, self-inflating tires. The concept is simple enough: sensors inside the tire detect a value below the tire’s optimal inflation pressure, and then trigger a compressor, also located inside the tire, until the correct pressure is reached. There’s no word on when such tires will hit the market, or how much they’ll cost, but Goodyear says they’re well along in the development phase, thanks to a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Vehicle Technology.

Really? Have we sunk to the point where we NEED self-inflating tires, and have the disposable income to pay for them? What about the engineering problems this idea introduces, such as greater unsprung weight and tire balancing problems? What happens when the compressor fails? How long will will such a tire last and how will it handle the type of wheel-devouring potholes found in the Northeast?

Sometimes, there is such a thing as “too much technology,” and a self-inflating tire is a prime example.

Source: Left Lane News

More than any other part on your automobile, your vehicles tires provide you with safety, braking, foul weather performance and confidence, yet they are almost always the most neglected part on a vehicle. For some reason people don’t think about tires. They neglect tire pressures, wear and age, items that all contribute to keeping you safe and sound. Branick Industries provides nitrogen tire inflation systems to companies all over the world. This safety video shows us the effects of how an over inflated tire, on any vehicle can not only cause harm to an individual, but in some cases, death. By utilizing a slow motion Phantom camera, the team at Branick is now able to show us just how dangerous an improperly mounted and inflated tire can be. They’ve also gone as far as to show us that by utilizing a tire inflation cage, the risks of injury can be greatly reduced.

Source: Streetfire.net

I always find it amusing that one of the most important pieces of equipment on an automobile is also one of the most neglected. I speak of course about your tires, and it amazes me how little attention people actually pay to them. Understand that your cars tires are the only connection that you, as a driver have to the road. They give you feedback on road conditions, ride quality and are instrumental when it comes to a cars handling and breaking performance. Yet for some reason the majority of people will go for the cheapest tire available just to save a buck, however they’ll spend thousands of dollars on things like stereo systems and rims. It’s a bit frightening actually. I recently swapped out the tires on my 2006 Dodge Magnum SRT8 and was so impressed with their wet weather performance that I just felt the need to write about it.

The Dodge Magnum is a 4,000 lb. performance oriented vehicle. Its big, with a long wheelbase and possesses decent handling and breaking characteristics. The tires that came with the car were Goodyear F1 Super Car tires and truth be told, I wasn’t overly impressed with them. Yes they were grippy, but I only managed to get about 15k out of them and since I live in the northeast, they were useless when the weather went south. Since the Magnum’s stock wheels are big 20-inchers, my tire choice was limited, however after doing my due diligence I decided to go with Continental’s new ExtremeContact DWS. Going in I knew that the side walls weren’t going to be as stiff as the F1′s they were replacing, but I wasn’t tracking the car, so honestly, that didn’t concern me. What did impress me was the fact that they received a great wet weather performance rating as well as good marks for handling and breaking. Continental classifies the ExtremeContact DWS (Dry, Wet & Snow) as:

“Ultra High Performance All-Season radial developed for drivers of sports cars, sports coupes, performance sedans and sport trucks. The ExtremeContact DWS is designed to satisfy their year-round driving needs by blending dry and wet road performance with light snow and slush traction.”

I found out about their wet weather performance levels on Saturday evening when I drove through 2 hours of torrential downpours. This is the first tire that I’ve driven on that truly dissipates water while keeping the car firmly planted on the road. There was no hydro-planing or side to side movement, and cruising at speeds of 60-65 mph was an absolute breeze. Dry weather performance is impressive as well. Granted the turn in on the ExtremeContact DWS’s may be little slower then some max performance summer tires, but honestly, the difference is marginal. The tires come with a 540AA tread-wear rating and a “Y” speed rating, which means their good for 186 mph. So, if you’re in the market for a new set of skins for your vehicle, and you’re looking for a fabulous all-season tire that offers outstanding performance, foul weather capabilities, ride quality and value for dollar, look no further then the Continental ExtremeContact DWS.

Source: TireRack.com

This movie officially goes under the classification of “WTF”… Believe it or not but “Rubber” is the story of Robert, the discarded tire that inexplicably comes to life and goes on a homicidal rampage through the desert. For some reason Robert woke up very pissed off and in doing so realized that he possessed the power to literally make peoples heads explode. Sounds intriguing right? Anyway, in his travels he ends up meeting this chick who he kinda’ digs and in the process kills everything in his path to get close to her. At least I think that’s what it’s about, but it may not be, so don’t get all pissy if I’m wrong. Regardless, I’m totally in shock that someone actually made this concept into a full length feature film, but more to the point, I must absolutely go see it when it comes out. Make sure to click through to view the trailer – peace.

I remember back in high school that if you had a car and wanted to make it look faster you’d simply slap on some white lettered tires and wallah – instant horsepower! White lettered tires back then were the equivalent of what big wings on imports are today. Sure they look good (well sometimes), but at the end of the day they end up doing less then nothing in terms of performance. I have to admit though that they do look good on certain vehicles. Muscle cars for example, with stock rally or steel wheels look great with the white lettered writing facing outward. Take this beauty of a Plymouth Road Runner for example… we’ve got stock 15-inch rally wheels and a great looking set of BF Goodrich Radial T/A’s. The entire combination just screams VINTAGE while enhancing the entire look of the car.

However put those same tires on a car that’s say, 40 years newer and for some reason they just don’t seem to work as well. Obviously it’s all personal preference, but in my opinion if you’re going for that stock look on stock wheels, then it has to be letters out. Anything else must be reserved for black walls only. That’s my opinion, but what do you guys think?

NASA probably isn’t sending anyone to hoon around on the moon anytime soon, but that didn’t stop the space agency from developing a new set of tires for the moon buggy. Each tire is made from wire mesh and has 800 springs to absorb impact. They do not go flat, even over the gnarliest moon rocks. They also weigh less than the last generation of moon tires, which is a big deal when you’re shooting stuff into space. The tires will likely end up on rover-type robots, but one can always hope an enterprising privateer will build another moon buggy for our enjoyment.

Source: Gizmodo

According to NASA researcher Vivake Asani of the tires:

“[These tires do not have a] single point failure mode. What that means is that a hard impact that might cause a pneumatic tire to puncture and deflate would only damage one of the 800 load bearing springs. Along with having this ultra-redundant characteristic, the tire has a combination of overall stiffness yet flexibility that allows off-road vehicles to travel fast over rough terrain with relatively little motion being transferred to the vehicle.”

The tire was tested out last year on NASA’s Lunar Electric Rover test vehicle and put through its paces at the “Rock Yard” at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. It passed the test with flying colors.

Goodyear made the original tires for the Apollo moon buggy back in the ’70s. The tires were made from a steel mesh and featured titanium chevrons for traction. The whole wheel/tire combo weighed only 12 pounds.

Three of the four original fully-functional moon buggies are still on the moon, resting in sublime lunar piece. Buggies made for testing are on display at Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington, the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C., the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas and the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Reproduction moon buggies can be found at several other museums in the U.S.

Now that winter is upon us, and most of the US is dealing with cold, snow or some mixture of both, here are two videos that prove the merits of winter tires over their all-season or summer-only counterparts. If you live where the white stuff falls on a regular basis, you really do need to invest in a good set of winter tires, as these videos dramatically demonstrate. If the winter tires help you avoid a single accident, you’ve recovered the cost of buying them.

As for brands, I’ve always like Dunlop’s winter tires and have found their Wintersport M3s to be the best winter tires on the market. Not only do they excel in snow and ice, but they also suck less than other winter tires when the roads are clear and dry. You won’t be using them to autocross with, but they provide more grip and less tread squirm than any Bridgestone I’ve ever driven on. If you’re shopping for winter tires for a non-sporting ride, the Bridgestone Blizzak is also a decent choice.

Some will debate the merits of studded snows over the new generation of studless winter tires, and here’s my take: if you drive on hardpack snow and ice for the bulk of the winter, then shop for studded (or studable) tire; if you spend most of your winter driving on dry roads, then why deal with the noise and the hassle of studded snows?

Here in the Northeast we get our fair share of snow and ice during the winter months. To be honest it totally sucks, but unfortunately we have no power against Mother Nature. Some days she’s good to us and others she’s just down right pissed off. When she’s feeling crampy, us North Easterner’s know that it’s best to simply stay inside and let her take care of business. There’s always a few poor bastards though that caught out in the cold and when that happens all bets are off. Driving in snow is generally not too difficult as long as you have either 4WD or AWD, or a car with a good set of snow tires. Ice though, that’s another story entirely. Take the above video for example. The road has a light layer of snow covering an otherwise icy surface. In conditions like this it makes no difference what tires you’re running, as nothing is going to stop on ice. If you encounter this type of surface, it’s best to simply park your vehicle (preferably away from traffic), lock that sucker up and come back to get it later. I mean you don’t have to, but then you may wind up like these guys.

Hat tip to SuzyBruisy.