Originally Posted By: dougwalkabout
Originally Posted By: Tjin
On the subject of winter tires; what do the Canadians recommend for the maximum age of winter tires?

I don't worry about age, only tread wear. After a certain amount of wear, the fine ice-gripping surfaces wear off. With more wear, the harder rubber substrate of the tire comes to the surface. At that point, I really notice the difference on ice. They are still better than all-season tires, but nothing like new ice/snow tires.


Some say to replace the tires because the rubber compound starts to harden en you lose some of the grip provided by that soft rubber. This is just not something the manufactures actually states. Something everybody here does agree on is to replace winter tires with less than 4mm tread (for winter performance).

Some people want to squeeze the remaining life out of the winter tires by driving from 4mm to 1.6mm (legal limit) in summer. A quick calculation of increased cost in fuel tells me it's cheaper to just toss them and put wear on the summer tires. It also performs poorly in summer...
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