At what temperature Summer tires unsafe to use

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raaizin

raaizin

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I have the following tires on my 2014 911. I just saw on tireracks webpage not to use them below temp of 40-45 degrees as damage to the tread was possible. I always thought the cutoff was 32 degrees for some reason. I have never had a car with summer tires. I was going to drive the car all winter until it got real messy (snow) this winter .I live in New Jersey and some winters are not that bad. Last year we had nice weather till January.. What are thoughts on this. I really dont drive hard at all, I flow with the traffic and would be especially careful in the cold


http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?...mp;autoModClar=
 
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I am looking for real world experience using these tires at 32-45 degrees
 
Originally Posted By: raaizin
I am looking for real world experience using these tires at 32-45 degrees


So you don't think a company who sells millions and tests thousands of tires has real world experience?

I guess it's the BITOG mentality, we know better than the engineers and other subject matter experts.

I wish you well.
 
My real world experience was a reccomendation from Yokohama that I not even STORE my tires in temperatures below 4°C, or damage to the rubber compound could occur.

I kept them under my stairs in the house during the winter. Why would they say it if it wasn't true?
 
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A 2 year old Porsche 911? You obviously have some money. Buy a set of performance winters. Cheaper then wrecking the car.
 
They won't wear oddly, and if you have have AWD I wouldn't worry about driving on them. My real world experience with Michelin Pilot Sports on my CTS-V in colder weather, above freezing. They are dangerous.
 
I had summer only tires on a WRX I once owned and do have experience driving on summer only tires in Ohio's winter. I've never had tires crack due to cold weather use. Summer tires have less traction than all-season tires tires when it real cold. When it gets real cold, like who knows, 20 degrees and the roads are clear but there is still a salt residue on the roads, summer only tires perform bad. I mean real bad.

I also don't care about your self opinionated safe driving. If someone pulls out in front of you too fast on a cold, dry salty road, you might hit them when you may have stopped sooner if you had the right tires and could have avoided the accident to begin with.

In my experience at 32-45, I had no troubles once they warmed up.
 
You're going to drive a 911 in the winter? No problem.....you'll just notice they will last about 10,000 miles.
 
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If you can afford a new Porsche, you can afford good tires. Get a second set of tires (and wheels; TR offers some good packages)

But even if, for any reason, you can only have one set of tires to use year-round, consider something like the Nokian WRG3 or Vredestein Quatrac 5, if they are available in the sizes you need.

And NJ roads are awful.

Originally Posted By: madRiver
If it's a dry road it won't matter a lot. Any moisture in form of liquid or solid is where it gets dicely below 45F.


Summer tire tread compounds will crack in low temperatures, even on dry roads.
 
Originally Posted By: skyactiv
I had summer only tires on a WRX I once owned and do have experience driving on summer only tires in Ohio's winter. I've never had tires crack due to cold weather use. Summer tires have less traction than all-season tires tires when it real cold. When it gets real cold, like who knows, 20 degrees and the roads are clear but there is still a salt residue on the roads, summer only tires perform bad. I mean real bad.

I also don't care about your self opinionated safe driving. If someone pulls out in front of you too fast on a cold, dry salty road, you might hit them when you may have stopped sooner if you had the right tires and could have avoided the accident to begin with.

In my experience at 32-45, I had no troubles once they warmed up.


Skyactiv,

This is what I am looking for. I never intended to drive in 20 degree weather. I was thinking if it was a 35 degree Dry day it would be ok to take it out of the garage if used with a little caution.
 
Originally Posted By: CKN
Unbelievable........



Thanks for your contribution
 
I take out my car with BFG Comp2 summer tires half a dozen to a dozen times during December to March when roads are dry, clear, and ambient temps are often 28-38 deg F. I've never had any issues with the tires or with handling. I won't go out if temps are under 25 deg F. These are basically maintenance runs where I'm not pushing the car, just easy driving.
 
I've had tire compound cracking occur on my cars with summer performance tires, and on my bikes with high performance tires, just from rolling them out into the driveway, when ambient temperatures were below freezing.

As a result, the cars and bikes now spend the cold winter months on stands.
 
Originally Posted By: raaizin
I have the following tires on my 2014 911. I just saw on tireracks webpage not to use them below temp of 40-45 degrees as damage to the tread was possible. I always thought the cutoff was 32 degrees for some reason. I have never had a car with summer tires. I was going to drive the car all winter until it got real messy (snow) this winter .I live in New Jersey and some winters are not that bad. Last year we had nice weather till January.. What are thoughts on this. I really dont drive hard at all, I flow with the traffic and would be especially careful in the cold


http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?...mp;autoModClar=

If you use your tires below the recommended minimum temp, they'll turn rock-hard and be unsafe to drive on, and they might never be the same when they warm back up.

You can't drive a powerful car slowly enough to make sub-zero temps safe on summer tires. On dry asphalt, you'll probably be okay. But if the road surface is concrete or even slightly damp, you had better pray that it's also dead-straight, dead-level, and dead-empty, or things are going to get pretty exciting.

Don't mess around with this. The manufacturer's cutoff is the cutoff. It's there for a reason. Get yourself a spare set of rims with winter tires. That way you can swap to winter rubber when temps are low, and swap back for the rest of the year.
 
I had the stock Pirelli P-Zero Summer Tires on my Camaro, which were 6 years old, all last winter and I made it through ok. Was it dicey in some situations? Yes. But my tires made it through last winter which had Winter Storm Jonas and some below 0 weather in Jersey plus about 3 months of racing at Englishtown in the spring. I got new Sumitomo All-Seasons in May.

I wouldn't recommend using Summer Tires in the winter if can help it, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to go bad unless you push it.
 
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I've driven a summer tire below the minimum temp, too. Michelin Pilot Sport PS2. And yeah, if I drove slowly enough and was completely on my game, I was okay. But that was in an E36 M3. 240 horsepower, 50/50 weight distribution, and nothing but understeer at the limit. A 2014 911 is a completely different ballgame.

And either way, as I said earlier, the tires were never the same afterward -- exactly as the manufacturer says. That alone should be a deal-breaker. Even if you can't find it in yourself to see a problem with having your grip level reduced to that of a Prius, it should at least give you pause that you're intentionally ruining a set of very expensive tires that you then have to drive on for another season or two.
 
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