Anyone have any experience in using summer tires such as the Kuhmo's ECSTA KH11 in temperatures ranging from 0 to 32F?

I don't have to worry about snow - just the cold temps. I wouldn't be driving in the snow, just in the cold, so are they any problems driving "summer" tires when it's below freezing?

As in, the summer tire compound's freeze up and provide far less grip in cold temperatures than an all season tire....trying to save some money and not buy the Pilot Sport A/S, which I may not need...

Thanks for any input or experiences.

225/50/17 or 225/55/17 - haven't decided.

 

Who said you couldn't get Ultra High Performance All-Season tires cheap?


~limsandy

 

Sorry I don't have any input - I just think this thread is interesting because people probably don't think about this issue often and I'm curious too.

Summer tires reach their "glass transition temperature" at some "cold" temperature that I can't remember (probably because it can vary between tire designs), and their grip goes down. This is an interesting question because I don't remember reading about how bad it actually becomes... I searched around a little bit and ran across this: http://list.miata.net/miata/1996-10/1525.html A little bit of interesting reading. I get the feeling that "real" materials science glass transition is actually the temperature where it gets rock-solid and not just hard, but I've seen people talk about tires this way before.

 

Bman -

thanks for the link - this is exactly the type of information I was hoping for!

 

You're welcome.



So..... anyone here ever actually had their summer tires turn to grease donuts in the winter?