THE TRACTION GENERATING POTENTIAL OF SNOW TIRES VS. REGULAR TREAD TIRES ON ICE, SNOW, WET, AND DRY SURFACES

The use of snow tires vs. regular tread tires on different surfaces is often debated. The use of radials in place of snow tires is allowed by certain jurisdictions. This paper lets the reader make an informed choice on what tires to place on his car for a given environmental condition. The tractive performance of snow tread tires vs. regular tread tires has been measured in acceleration, braking, and cornering on a variety of surface conditions including ice, snow, wet, and dry concrete using an instrumented vehicle and the Mobile Tire Traction Dynamometer. Test results indicate that snow treads are superior to regular treads on snow and ice. On wet concrete there is no difference in tractive performance but on dry surfaces snow treads generate lower tractive forces than regular treads. Finally snow tires generally perform better than regular tread tires designated as snow tires.