Seacil

Having lived in the past in parts of the country which had snow along with black ice in the winter, I, along with a vast majority of others, chose to install studded winter tires on our DD. Now, or then, I have not run any sports cars in the winter. But, I guess should I ever consider driving my 992 in snowy/icy conditions on a regular basis, I would inquire as to the suitability of studded winter tires. I'm curious as to other thoughts on this.

Joan Alcover

Living at 5,000 feet altitude in the Swiss Alps.

• Winter tyres November 1 to May 1;
• Summer tyres May 1 to November 1;
• Pirelli in both cases.

Have done that on 993 Turbo S (during 20 years) and on 991.2 Turbo S (five years to date).

Michigan 992

Having a bit of experience through work at driving performance tires in cold weather and evaluating cars I would make this suggestion.

Avoid driving performance summer tires in the snow, but don’t be afraid of driving them at 30F. This applies to tires like the Goodyears and Pirellis that come as original fitment on the 992 along with similar Michelins and such. The best suggestion I can give in cold weather is to drop tire pressure to the comfort level. The added heat into the tire makes a big difference in how fast they warm up and available grip when just lightly driving the vehicle.

All of the companies when developing vehicles drive the original spec tires at temperatures well below what is being discussed in this thread.

Note Cup 2’s and track tires are a completely different animal and I wouldn’t take them out in low temperatures on my own car, but I have at work.

Tupper

^ Good advice.

As it’s not my DD I really have the luxury of just keeping the summer tires on and not driving my car when it’s too cold or snowy/wet

But I’m planning to pull my car from the garage this week and bring it home. I still will drive it only sparingly until the weather warms up, but the “never driving it in winter” idea....well.....NO

gohawks23

Exactly, I've owned mine a couple weeks and have had out a few times to play...yesterday just doing some laps in our parking garage...starting Weds it will be warmer and the sun will be out and so will my top down C2S cab...haha!

Gentian21

I've read some things about a danger of small, invisible cracks forming in summer rubber at temperatures under 45 degrees F, and that tires can fail when this occurs. I wonder about that, because in a lot of places in the world, it's 35 degrees in the morning, and 60 in the afternoon, and I would think that manufacturers wouldn't expect you to not drive on those days. I can understand the cracking phenomenon at temperatures of, say, 15 degrees-- but I'm not knowledgeable enough to argue the point. Has anyone seen a definitive analysis of this issue?

Michigan 992

Years back I had a max performance tire of the day abruptly structurally fail at -10F.

Funny thing is we build cars year round and ship them to dealers. If all the doom and gloom was accurate how could cars be delivered to northern dealers during the winter? The main issue now a days is that when it gets cold the dry grip level is so much worse than in moderate temperatures or what winter tires offer that using high performance summer tires at low temperatures makes little sense from a safety or performance standpoint.

Joan Alcover

Summer tyres will "perform to specs" if the outside temperature is 7°C (45°F) or above.
Below that temperature it is highly adviseable to switch to winter tyres.
And the reverse is true; do not drive with winter tyres if the outside temperature is higher than 7°C (45°F)

Now, a "reasonable tolerance" around those temperature points is acceptable.
In case of doubt, the temperature reference should be the temperature of the road, not the temperature of the air.

inastrangeland

[QUOTE=Joan Alcover;17175917]
And the reverse is true; do not drive with winter tyres if the outside temperature is higher than 7°C (45°F)]

This is NOT true. Winter tires take into account the higher temps that occur in winter driving. The wear increases as temps go up but the Alpine 5 comes with a 30K mile wear warranty. I drive all my winter tires all season and they can see temps in the 70s here in Colorado. No issues.

Thinc2

Some pretty strong opinions on this thread. The fact is we all live in different climates and use our cars differently. There are some advantages to AS tires in certain situations:

- Here in the PNW, it (mostly) doesn't get cold enough to justify winter tires, but it's still too cold for summer tires (eg a lot of days that start in the low 30's and end up in 40's and 50's).
- If the car is a daily driver, having tires you know will work reasonably well in many conditions is a plus. It means you can drive the car much more frequently.
- I find the idea of storing and swapping wheels twice a year a real PIA.
- I don't track the car. I rarely hit the limits of the AS tires on the road (on my 991), and when i do, it's pretty fun and highly controllable.

So everyone has a different use case for how what they want out of this car. For some, AS's may very well be a good solution.

Peace

Tupper

Well, it's going to be 37-38 F tomorrow and I'm going to take my 911 on its first drive in a month, on summer tires.

I may drive my car a handful of times all winter, all on clear days where the temp is hopefully close to or above 40 F. I just don't see the point in winter tires if it's not a DD. AS tires probably aren't worth it either if I want to maximize performance.

It just means I can't really have "fun" with my car until Spring.

But then, even with winter tires I wouldn't want to take chances with my car in the winter. The kind of shenanigans I pulled back in fall--way too risky when you're thinking about black ice, etc..

Russian Mafia

......

Tupper

Huh??

Russian Mafia

What didn’t you understand?

Really, I have no idea how that happened.

casaforte9

i am considering using a tire shop Swapping summer tires with winter tires on Porsche oem 20 inch wheels and going back to my summer tires on the same wheels instead of having a separate set of wheels . Is this a matter iof more labor involved in dis-mounting current tires from wheels and remounting weather specific tires ?