32 psi? 16 psi? or 10 psi? Best tire pressure for winter traction.
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- čas přidán 5. 09. 2024
- Many comments in a previous video suggested that lowering tire pressure would improve winter traction. Today, we put this to the test by attempting to climb a steep snow covered hill with snow tires at 32, 16, and 10 psi.
The results may surprise you!
Different vehicles, different tires, or different trail conditions may yield different results. I would like to conduct this test again, with different variables and see if the results stay the same.
high, professional certified tire technician here.… the reason loosing air in snow tires doesn’t work is because they are engineered to work most effectively at 80 percent of their maximum allowed fill volume. The only people thinking about loosing air in their winters would most likely be people who go mudding, the reason this also makes the most sense, when you loose air in your winter tire(s) you’re creating a bubble in the center ground patch, that patch is designed to grab, bite, pull on snow. Hope y’all understand
Greetings from Finland, home of Hakkapeliitta. Simple explanation for this; winter tires traction is based on snow to snow contact, not rubber to snow contact. If you take bare tire without rim and push it, you can see how grooves narrows even closes. This same happens when you lower tire pressure. On clear ice situation is different.
Unfortunately, those that thought lower tire pressure would help in low friction situations don't understand how unit loading works. Low pressure works in sand because it causes more of the tread to contact the ground, reducing the unit loading and preventing the tire from sinking into the sand.
In snow and ice you want HIGHER unit loading to increase the tractive effort. It's the same reason we add weight in the winter over the drive wheels.
Physics for the win!
It's good for deep snow . I run 18psi and I really can tell the difference.
I agree with you on the driving on ice theory With good syping soft winter tires. BUT
snow is a whole different animal and floatation wins simply becouse you want to stay on top as much as you can to pack the snow underneath the tire. Case in point. A few years ago my son and I were on a weekend winter camping trip in the sheyanne national grasslands I arrived early we both have identical vehicles 2dr Rubicons, I aired down my 35x12.50 to 15psi and mind you I broke the trail to the site.
An hour later my son gives me a call telling me he is stuck at the trail head, he did not air down his tires and buried his jeep to the frame an hour and a half later with aired down tires we were both at camp.
You have to take into consideration the give of the tires and the give of the snow. If there is no flex in the walls of the tires with higher tire pressure the snow will give way before the snow. If the tire flex's some the snow will not be the one doing all of the giving away, maintaining a better static friction coefficient. Just like in drag racing. Drag racers have low tire pressure like a balloon so the tire walls flex. If the tire pressure was increased to a greater amount, the tires would just spin, whether you warm them up or not. Kind of the opposite of your explanation of loading, but you may understand the physics behind that better than me.😀
I know the high school physics logic sounds great on paper. But unfortunately, in the real world, things are more complicated. That's the difference between education and experience. There are many different types of "low friction situations" and low tire pressure is better for some, and worse for others. Ice it'll be worse. However, deep mud, and rocky slopes, you're definitely going to see benefits of low tire pressure.
What if I lower the pressure (increasing contact) and adding extra weight to the car 🚗 ???
Well, most people confuse traction with floatation. When driving in deep snow we reduce tire pressure to get better floatation, not traction. As we lower the tire pressure, the tire footprint gets longer. Take for example snow tracks. Snow tracks are that long so they don't sink in the snow, not to provide better traction. Hope that helps.
This argument contradicts what was seen in this experiment, it is not a question of concepts, it is a matter of advancing in the snow.
@@enriquilloMTB Well that's pretty much the story of youtube, a bunch of videos, comments contradicting each other. In my experience, most all weather, all season, winter tires work best on manufacturer's recommended psi. Lowering tire pressure in those tires will make them slip since they're not designed to work in that psi. In comparison, most all terrain and mud terrain tires will get better traction in lower psi, and they are disigned to do so too. A 10 ply all terrain tire would get better traction in lower psi since it can flex more. However, it all depends on the conditions. For example, my setup works better in lower psi if you have compacted frozen snow, but if you have frozen water psi won't make any difference, tires will slip either way. Anyway, if you're into offroading, winter driving, I would suggest testing it yourself and deciding what works best for your setup.
Winter tires work at their optimal psi recommended. It’s winter and cold where I am so when I put air in them, I felt like I was driving a completely different vehicle-and I had traction. The air pressure had gone down to 29, but according to the recommendation, they should be at 35 psi. I went back to the places where I was skidding due to tires not even gripping the ice and I was able to stop right away. It’s important to follow the recommendation listed on the side door sticker. I have Blizzaks btw.
Cool video. I've always aired my tires down during winter, glad to know I can keep my studded winter tired aired all the way up for snow.
You want narrower tires with higher pressure for ice and snow.
You need high PSI on the contact patch for traction. It's opposite of what you would normally do.
Lowering tires pressure lessens the PSI in the contact patch and makes it float rather then cut thru.
The start of your comment was wrong but the end was correct.
You want high pressure on ice / snow pack. But you want low pressure (wider foot, more floatation) for deep snow so you don't sink.
@@gian-lucbrasseur207 That's literally exactly what I said .....when I said snow, I meant hard pack roads, as it pertains to this video. Not off road in fluffy deep powder.
Thanks for proving this. 30 years of snow recovery and working on farms in Montana found that out to be true. We also did lots of testing, wide vs skinny tires and skinny tires won everytime. Then I move to Seattle and found out in wet snow, it's even more important not to air down. Until 2021, all the NFL experts (coaches) never went for it on 4th down until the end of the game. Now every game has multiple 4th down attempts. The huge myth of air down is because it so obviously works in sand, dirt, rock climbing, etc.
you want your tires pushing onto the ice as hard as possible and the only way to do that is keep your tire pressure high to shrink your contact patch on the ice which increases the psi of the part of the tire that’s touching the ice. Deflating your tire would increase the amount of contact your tire has on the ice which means it will spread your vehicles weight out giving less traction on the ice which is why it’s better in soft snow and sand. Allows you to “float” above the terrain. Increasing your tire pressure would make you cut through the sand and sink down getting your stuck. Which is why people can get unstuck when they lower their tire pressure.
Ok. First off You need to be able to tell the difference in what type of snow you are driving on. Loose, tight, wet, dry, compact, ext. there are lots. Combined with the road surface, ice underneath ext. and if you are not used to telling the difference, your just guessing. the tread on snow tired work by " Trapping the snow IN the tread". Rubber has a very hard time sticking to snow, but snow will stick to itself far better. so the soft squishy siping in the tread act like little fingers grabbing the loos snow and holding it in the tread giving you traction. if you have ever rolled a snowball into a bug snowball to build a snowman you know how this works. when driving fast, the snow flings out, and it is the better tire tread design that can recapture this snow on the next turn and regain traction. but dry snow has a hard time sticking to its self, again like trying to make a snowball out of dry snow is hard to do unless you squeeze it really hard to compress it., you need to have a heaver truck to do the same. or higher tire pressures so there is more force . on wet snow. the wet groves in the tire squish out that slush so the tread can contact the road surface and get traction so as to not hydroplane just as most wet traction tires do. By letting the air down, we flex the tire to much and give to big of a contact patch. releasing the trapped snow to soon. this works on DEEP snow with large tires with large tread, like small sand shovel tires turning very slowly. here is were we want the snow to release. "you wouldn't shovel snow and leave the shovel halve full of snow""!!. You can see all of this if you carefully watch the tread of the tires on the video. when the tread is packed with snow he is moving forward, as soon as the snow leaves the tread and the tread is black, he is spinning. On hard ice, the tread cant pick up enough snow, and that is why you can put studs in them, to scratch and claw into the ice. ---- And after all this. Yes Snow chains are a huge improvement on most all types of snow surfaces. P.S. I am no tire guru, just a guy that lives in ND, has driving in LOTS of different snow types with lots of different types of tires and vehicles, and has built LOTS of snowmen.:) hope this is helpful. Tom.
I think with snow tires, it is more about softer rubber, more tire to surface contact and the rubber ability to flex more from the softer compound. More flex allows more and longer contact with the surface.
Greetings to you sir.
I really enjoyed reading your detailed comment.
Thank you very much. 🙏
its a little bit hard to understand for me, im not a native. can you little bit explain higher or lower pressures with different type of snow. especially for dedicated winter tires (if it has difference from AT or MT).
i think higher than std pressures will be better except very soft snow for floatation needs.
Thanks for dispelling the myth of lowering tire pressures during winter!
Put on good winter tires, and you should be able to run with the pressures listed on the vehicle door fram sticker
Blizzak tires are INSANELY good! I had a 1987 Buick Grand National as a daily driver, (i can hear all your hearts stopping) we had to push it into the shop. With the Blizzaks on, the car handled like it was on rails! I’ve had these tires on many different vehicles and they NEVER disappointed.
Just don’t use them on dry roads if you can help it.
I have Blizzak too, but the problem is not dry road, the real problem is the temperature roads, you can drive safe dry roads 44F and below, Above that, the tires will run out very quickly.
Simple thesis. Expert experiment. Thanks for the video
cool test. good video. thumbs up. i cant believe how much better 2wd with chains is vs 4wd!
Nice demonstration, finding the point where pressure made the difference. And LOL at all the people NOT on that hill claiming mud tires or a Prius would do better. :D
Very well done and informative.
wow, AMAZING explanation
Thank you so much
as far as i understand this all is to don't deflate a "winter tire" because deflated the little cuts in the tire closes their gap and cant grab into the snow to hold snow on it what they should (snow on snow gives the best traction) deflated you have a bigger footprint yes but without those cuts working so it behaves more like a big summer tire.
Drivers of AT All-Weather Tires deflate them a little bit, because they use the aggressive profile pattern to grab the snow better for more traction...
so on real Winter Tires it is a bad idea to deflate them, on AT Tires it can work
Studded winters would probably help a lot too.
Good test. That hill had to be pretty steep!
Well, Ill be adding chains to my gear. Found myself stuck in some snow last week. Took an hour of winching and traction boards to get out.
The exception, in deep wet slushy snow, low pressure allows the sides to grip.
If the road is covered in snow(packed down) lower your tire pressure by 5-10 psi if your driving in fluffy deep snow lower by 15ish. All of this depends on the car and tires you have. But I feel like that is a general rule of thumb for most of us.
I’m talking about AS tires.
@@billyschannel997 AS Tires ???? you mean All Terrain ?
@@ramiretz that’s what I meant
The only test missing is the one where you air down the 37s or 40s. There has to be a crossover point where being on top of the snow ( big tire ,low pressure) is better than trying to bite through it. (Small tire, high pressure)
What’s strange is he’s using the example of airing down dedicated snow tires that are designed to be run at normal pressure to perform according to specification as a guideline for tires in general. I’ve never heard of anyone airing down snow tires. While this explanation is accurate for snow tires, I’m 90% sure it’s a troll video. Anybody with experience knows not to air down snow tires and that airing down AT’s or MT’s in snow deep enough to necessitate airing down makes a world of difference. Maybe it’s just tough love, as people do learn best from experience. A fool who persists in his folly will soon become wise… lol
@@justinsmith623 I do plan to make a new video with similar vehicles using all
Three types of tires at varying pressures in winter conditions.
Flawed testing. Snow tires are meant to run stock psi.
Done!
Next....
Very interesting I'll probably need to add air to mine.
Snow tires versus ice tires. For ice, spike tires are the best, of course
thanks for your help with me all brothers and subscribers 👍👍👍👍🙏
Yes, narrow tires are much better in the snow/ice.
@Night Hawk Do tell?
I have mud tires on my blazer and it's unstoppable on ice or snow. Never needed chains at all.
Oh yeah, unstoppable... bet your insurance loves u. No stopping you when ur on the streets, just plow through a intersection and total other cars because ur to stupid to put something other than Lugged hockey pucks on 😂😂😂 at least some people listen to professionals and have common sense and if ur to stupid to know why winter tires are best on the street for packed snow.. well.. there’s no point of explaining it.. cuz u definitely won’t understand the logic behind physics
@@AverageReviewsYT this guy done more sliding than I have ever done. I have never had a claim on my insurance, so get your facts right.
@@AverageReviewsYT “if ur to stupid”…wow.
@@tonyjackson8640 lol what a old comment.
You're on Crack. Mudders turn into what we can in Canada call "hockey pucks" and perform as such.
Theres a reason why it's law to have a snowflake rated tire up here.
Very good 👍
This might be misleading, since those are not AT tires but winter tires. Will AT tires improve on 10 psi on snow?
Yes. I have no idea why anyone would air down snow tires to begin with, as they are specifically designed with a tread pattern and contact patch at the recommended pressure to perform. This video is an example of misusing snow tires and the same principles do not apply to AT’s and MT’s. Keep in mind that airing down makes your footprint larger to prevent sinking in the snow. It isn’t always necessary. Think about snow shoes. One doesn’t necessarily need snow shoes to walk in snow, but when it’s deep and you want help staying on top, they absolutely help. Tracks are even better. They distribute the weight even more. Check out Mattracks.
ATs will perform even worse. The rubber is too hard.
@@justinsmith623 that’s what I was thinking. I feel like most people don’t want to switch to snow tires and want to work with what they’ve got.
No... The Rubicon , the Mojave and the Cherokee Trailhawk have a locking differential. Gladiator Mojave and Cherokee Trailhawk have only rear lockers.
Where did you get the chains from? Link?
thats why I drive a 6000 lb suburban.... Jeeps are cute,,,, Barbie has one
Yes but my Jeep would NEVER do this (keep spinning on one side ) ... BLD will kick in... And then yeah I have the rear locker if that doesn't work.
This must be pre 2005 Wrangler
I need tire chains ⛓ definitely 😊
What was the clicking sound?
I believe the cv joint on the front driveshaft has seen better days.
👍
should have tried 50 psi
I don’t disagree!
How’s he not gripping? My Prius with winter tires would easily just drive and grip fine
It’s more extreme of an incline than it appears.
@@jacuzzibusguy I literally drive up timberline road on a volcano with an 11 percent incline…
I think there’s some camera trickery afoot.
ahhhh you have a mechanical clicking sound consistent, shouldnt be making that sound
It’s a jeep. Something always broken!
It was the CV joint on the front driveshaft.
I chew through one of those about every other year. I blame the big tires.
@@jacuzzibusguy ugggg wonder if you can upgrade to better material or larger within pocket expense range?
Lowering tire pressure 100% improves traction. I'm talking about all seasons. Which is everyone. 100% yes lower your tire pressure during a storm\ on normal tires. False impression here. Or you could just waste your money on winter tires. Your choice. Test it yourself, you will 100% see an improvement.
the only time money spent on winter tyres is wasted, is if you’re never using them in temperatures below 7ºc.
Waste? Winter tires? Yeah okay. Meanwhile my winter tire Prius is going 60 mph up a snowy volcano in Oregon passing countless jeeps and trucks who have all seasons
@@PhaseSkater ignore him, he’s talking out his A$$, clearly 🙃
You're wrong. Thanks. From Canada.
@@evictioncarpentry2628 Actually he’s not that wrong. Airing down your all seasons does help them become more pliable and flexible.
You totally wrong and your video even showed it. Deleting video video showed you spinning your tires away until you put chains on then you drove up the hill without going on without any issue you didn't show anything about your lockers engaged at 32 psi.
I think I understand what you are trying to say. Which is in the video I posted a year ago, the Jeep, even wirh 32 psi, didn’t have enough traction to climb. That’s true! The snow/ice conditions were worse when I filmed that video. In this latest video, it was very cold, down in the single digits, and the snow provided relatively good traction.
The test I wanted to do involved climbing the hill at idle and seeing how far the Jeep could travel with various tire pressure, but this snow provided enough traction that the Jeep could successfully climb this hill with at any tire pressure as long as I didn’t stop.
So I made it more difficult by stopping on the hill. Trying to get moving proved too difficult a challenge for any combination other than fully locked with high pressure.