Choosing the right kind of tires for your car can without exaggeration literally make the difference between carefree and safe driving or a life-and-death situation. Hence understanding the tire types and adapting them to your weather conditions is imperative:
All-season tires
Feature tread patterns and rubber compounds that make them suitable for “everyday” driving in wet conditions and a wide range of hot and cold temperatures. These tires are engineered to stand up to light snow or lower temperatures as well, which means that drivers can use them year-round.Howeverthe “all season” application comes with inherent limitations. All-season tires are suitable for “the middle” but fall short in extremes on either end of the weather, terrain, and temperature spectrum. In other words, for really hot, cold, or off-road stations you will need specialized rubber;
Summer tires
Are primarily designed for high-performance vehicles and provide optimized dry and wet performance levels in a temperate or hot environment. Summer tires are designed for year round usage, but should not be used during the winter season where temperatures are colder and approach freezing as their performance would be less than optimal. These tires offer great performance cornering, accelerating, and braking, but are only at their best when temperatures are positive. Because of their sticky rubber compound, summer tires wear down faster than all-season tires, resulting in much shorter tread life;
Winter tires
Are specifically designed to offer optimal levels of traction on ice, snow, and slush in addition to wet and dry road surfaces, in severe cold weather conditions. Severe cold weather conditions are defined to occur when ambient temperatures are consistently below freezing and/or there is substantial winter precipitation. Winter tires are not intended for year round usage. All winter tires exhibit the Mountain Snow Flake marking indicating suitability for winter application. Winter tires have special tread patterns that help them “bite” into the snow, providing better traction than all-season tires, and making them the only solution for regions with heavy snowfall and winter conditions;
All terrain tires
Are off-road tires designed to offer excellent grip in mud, dirt, and rocks. They can be driven on the road, but the compromise would be a louder ride noise than most other tires, along with less treadwear due to their unique tread design, and often increased fuel consumption. They usually have heavy-duty tread patterns that provide maximum grip on loose surfaces and have strong sidewalls to stand up to shocks and impacts. Off-road tires are advisable in trucks and SUV applications spending a considerable amount of time driving off-pavement.