Moving to a winter climate question?

There are no such things as "summer tires." Not anymore anyway. I'm an old guy so I know a lot about this kind of thing. I grew up when all cars had bias ply tires and there was no such thing as an all season tire. Only racers and sports cars has radial tires. Radial is just the way the carcass of the tire is constructed. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the tread. But when radial tires came in, tire makers started fooling around with more sophisticated tread designs. The tread is what grips the road. In those days those of us who lived in the northern climates would take the "summer tires" off our Studebakers, Hudsons, Nashs, Desotos, etc. in the autumn and put on our snow tires.

Nobody makes bias ply tires anymore. They went out with the Studebakers, Nashes, Desotos, etc.*

These bias ply snow tires had a course, deep, aggressive tread and they made a lot of noise when you drove down the road, RWRWRWRWRWRWRWRW!

Today 99.9% of street tires (as opposed to off road tires) are "all season radials." These have a compromise tread that works equally well and equally badly in snow, rain and on dry roads.

The best tires for dry roads have no tread whatsoever - "slicks" - it's what is used on race cars. They are illegal to use in most places on public roads. You only need tread in wet, snow or mud conditions.

You can still get snow tires, radial snow tires, but you have to special order them. Nokian is the only company which makes them. They are Norwegian and from what I am told, it snows in Norway.

I drove rear wheel drive card for decades. I drove one through three feet of unplowed snow in Adirondack Mountains once and couldn't figure out why we were still moving. Then I remembered that our trunk was stuffed full of all kinds of crap. We were college kids going home for Christmas break.

Later, driving a 1970, V-8 rear wheel drive Firebird, I put a 175 pound lead weight in the trunk every winter and I got plenty of traction. Front drive cars have the engine for weight on the drive wheels. They do not go through snow or ice any better then rear drive cars if the rear drive cars have lots of weight in the trunk.

Your tires may simply be worn out.

Perhaps get some better tires - 4 of them. Getting only two means that there will be potentially dangerous problems if you have to panic stop. I just bought a set of General Altimax RT tires and they have great traction in the rain and decent traction in the snow.

But (have I lost you yet?) there are very few tires that have good traction on ice. Ice is very slippery and no tread in the world will grip it because it can't "bite" or penetrate the surface. The only tires with traction on ice are studded snow tires or tire chains. The studs are metal and stick out of the rubber tread. They really make serious noise on dry roads.

*Bias ply tires are still made in very limited quantities and can still be purchased from classic and antique car parts vendors for restoration purposes.

It sounds to me like everyone is being nice and blaming the equipment. What I see is a Californian who hasn't got a clue about ice and snow driving. Someone who knows ice understands that you can not stop on an uphill and then get started again.

You must have a clear and dry place to get the required traction or the mass of the vehicle will not create the inertia through friction required to defeat gravity and continue in motion. (search a guy named "Sir Isaac Newton". he explained it quite well!)

If you absolutely have to climb a hill, it is done with NO stopping. If at all possible, you use an alternate route that bypasses the worst hills and follows the flattest ground available.

I used to drive year round in the areas of severe ice and snow north of Boston and into New Hampshire in my 2WD pickup truck with normal street radial tires.

I haven't owned snow tires since radials came out as a radial with a couple of pounds of air let out gives better traction than the old bias ply snow tires ever did unless they were studded. Studded snows are now illegal in many areas once the bare pavement shows through the snow, which means you may be required to swap tire sets every few days or be in violation of the laws! If it is bad enough to need chains, or studs, it is bad enough to stay where you are until the roads are made passable.

You need all wheel drive

The worn, thin tread tires on your car that MAY have been acceptable to use in California are NOT adequate for winter conditions in Ohio. Go buy some good quality All-Weather tires for your car.

Hi cars are not designed to deal with such conditions normally anyway. we have the same issues her in the united kingdom so yes tires play a certain role intros and a 4x4 would be a much better option to. so time to getting you head around what you need to be driving when the going gets tough.

1 - yes winter tires will get a bit more grip. Don't know if it will be enough to get up that hill, but they do help.

2 - rear wheel drive is slightly worse in snow because most of the engine weight is over the front wheels, but you are driving from the rear wheels which have less weight and traction. Again, I don't know if a FWD car would have got up that hill either.

But if a road is actually iced up badly, you probably need snow chains, which you fit around the tires for extra grip. If you can't get some place with snow chains on, then you probably shouldn't be driving in those conditions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_chains

1. ya, you need "Mud & Snow" tires.

2. nothing much will help if the road conditions are slippery ice covered with snow. not even tire chains will let you go uphill in that -- or downhill safely.


by the way, driving in snow/ice/slush is NOT something you learned to do in CA. take it easy out there. you'll be fine next winter, though