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200tw tires and temperatures dropping

akiraproject24

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#1
Curious when to take these off. Here in PA temps are getting down in the mid 40's overnight. I dont want to damage these things as I put maybe an easy 1000 miles on em this year. Will be storing for the winter with OEM wheels and tires.
 


Capri to ST

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#2
This is a timely post, and something I have thought about. I'm in North Carolina, and it just doesn't make sense for me here to get winter tires, so I run summer tires all year round. The few times it snows I just stay off the road, and when it gets below the mid-forties I don't push them, I drive gently.
I have wondered about damaging the tires from driving them in cold weather, but so far it hasn't happened. I ran the OEM Bridgestone Potenza RE050As (140TW) for a couple of winters, and did the same with the Firestone Firehawk Indy 500s (340TW) which I have now. This included driving them very infrequently in temperatures down into the 30s, and there were some nights when they sat in the unheated garage when temperatures went down into the 20s or even lower on a very few rare occasions. I know that theoretically you're not supposed to do this, but as I said I have not had any issues so far.
 


M-Sport fan

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#3
I always had mine off of the car when the overnight temps dropped to the high 30s, and the daytime ambient did not crack the low 50s.

Some, including on here, will use them daily (I am NOT talking about late fall open track days/etc.!) below those temps, but I personally will not.
 


M-Sport fan

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#4
This is a timely post, and something I have thought about. I'm in North Carolina, and it just doesn't make sense for me here to get winter tires, so I run summer tires all year round. The few times it snows I just stay off the road, and when it gets below the mid-forties I don't push them, I drive gently.
I have wondered about damaging the tires from driving them in cold weather, but so far it hasn't happened. I ran the OEM Bridgestone Potenza RE050As for a couple of winters, and did the same with the Firestone Firehawk Indy 500s which I have now. This included driving them very infrequently in temperatures down into the 30s, and there were some nights when they sat in the unheated garage when temperatures went down into the 20s or even lower on a very few rare occasions. I know that theoretically you're not supposed to do this, but as I said I have not had any issues so far.
There is a BIG difference in compounding (and subsequently their propensity to freeze and 'crystallize') between the 200 tread wear stickies, and even the 140 tread wear rated factory summer Potenzas (even as sticky as all claim them to be), let alone any of the summer 'street' 300+ tread wear rated donuts. [wink]
 


Capri to ST

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#5
There is a BIG difference in compounding (and subsequently their propensity to freeze and 'crystallize') between the 200 tread wear stickies, and even the 140 tread wear rated factory summer Potenzas (even as sticky as all claim them to be), let alone any of the summer 'street' 300+ tread wear rated donuts. [wink]
That's good to know, thanks.I'm going to be needing new tires soon, and that's one reason I am probably avoiding the two Extreme category tires available in OEM sizes for our car, the Falken RT660 and the Yokohama A052, I just don't know if they would make it through even our relatively mild North Carolina winters. It's also why I have been looking for the OEM Bridgestone Potenzas, even though at this point they are kind of like Bigfoot, reputed to exist but not ever actually seen.
 


Ford ST

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#6
Read what the actual manufacturer says about the tire.
My personal opinion if you live in zone 7B or higher you are not really going to have a problem with temperatures. If you live in zone 6B and under you really shouldn't be keeping summer tires on your car.

https://m.tirerack.com/tires/descri...utoYear=2017&autoModel=Fiesta+ST&autoModClar=


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Jabbit

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#7
I drove this AM on my re71r, was about 50 out. Lower than that, the car stays in a heated garage. My other cars cover winter duty. Once snow falls, I jack up the Fiesta and leave it on jack stands or quickjack, just to keep the tires from sitting in the same spot for months.
 


Capri to ST

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#9
Read what the actual manufacturer says about the tire.
My personal opinion if you live in zone 7B or higher you are not really going to have a problem with temperatures. If you live in zone 6B and under you really shouldn't be keeping summer tires on your car.

https://m.tirerack.com/tires/descri...utoYear=2017&autoModel=Fiesta+ST&autoModClar=


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That's a helpful perspective, thanks. What tires are you running in the winter? We both live in the Piedmont of North Carolina, which looks like Zone 7B when I look it up.
 


Ford ST

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That's a helpful perspective, thanks. What tires are you running in the winter? We both live in the Piedmont of North Carolina, which looks like Zone 7B when I look it up.
7B correct, Falken RT660. To be fair though I have other cars to drive. Soon I will be leaving for work at 5:30 in the morning, and my job rarely closes due to weather. If this was my only car I would have an extra set of tires, and I would be using an all weather tire during the cold months.





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#11
Damaging the tire aside, some of these aggressive tires basically turn into plastic when its cold outside.

I had a set of 60 treadwear Advans on my toyota yaris after an autocross and left them on for a few days after. One night after work it was 29 degrees outside and damn near uncontrollable. I came around a very very mild corner at the speed limit on my way home from work and spun out. I ended up hitting 2 garbage cans, a fence, sign-post, and broke a power pole in half and landed in a tree. Car was absolutely obliterated, but it kept me safe and did it's job.

Ever since then when it comes to aggressive sticky tires and cold weather, I don't mess around anymore.
 


SteveS

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#12
In general, you're going to find that sticky summer tires like these aren't going to be so sticky below about 40 degrees, and that damage may occur below 20 degrees. I'm in Missouri and what I've done is switch to snows when we are going to have temperatures well below 30 degrees at night. This has turned out to be some time in mid to late November the last couple of years. I am able to put the summers back on in early to mid April.
 


M-Sport fan

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#14
Damaging the tire aside, some of these aggressive tires basically turn into plastic when its cold outside.

I had a set of 60 treadwear Advans on my toyota yaris after an autocross and left them on for a few days after. One night after work it was 29 degrees outside and damn near uncontrollable. I came around a very very mild corner at the speed limit on my way home from work and spun out. I ended up hitting 2 garbage cans, a fence, sign-post, and broke a power pole in half and landed in a tree. Car was absolutely obliterated, but it kept me safe and did it's job.

Ever since then when it comes to aggressive sticky tires and cold weather, I don't mess around anymore.
^^^THIS! [thumb]
 


Ford ST

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#15
My car lives In the garage it is not heated, but it does stay warmer than the outside. I have driven the car multiple times with temperatures in the twenties absolutely no issues. Don't be stupid and as someone else said build some heat in the tires.

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#16
I will take my 660s off by the end of the month to keep warm. There is this stuff that the circle track guys use that helps keep your tires sticky while they wait for next season called "track claw" I use a sponge roller and paint the tread. I'm going to try and bring some life back to my snows with some of that stuff, Im not sure if it will help with that though.
 


M-Sport fan

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#17
^^^Yeah, that stuff is like the VHT/PJ1 "Track Bite", or Pro Blend's "Hot Lap" treatment.

Most likely will not work on hard compound winter tires, but let us know if it does. [thumb]
 


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#18
Got my RT660s bagged & stowed in the basement this past weekend, as it regularly gets below freezing in my garage in the winter.

More on topic, the one time I drove them in the high 30s, they had very little grip, and no amount of street / highway driving put enough heat in them to make a difference.
 


CSM

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#19
I've got a friend who is a chemical engineer and a tire compounder for a major tire manufacturer.

Basically the TLDR is: do not drive on 200TW below ~40F. They're not designed for those temps (the compound isn't designed to flex at those lower temps) and it could accelerate wear / lead to chunking. If tires are store at extremely low temperatures (like, well below freezing, 0-20F) for long periods of time months, etc, it could result in irreversible damage to the compound since the molecular structure at that point won't fully re-align to its original state at optimal temps (but this is extremely tire dependent based on compound)
 


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