Tire Pressure and Snow

[JCL]

Originally Posted by giodog2000

He doesn't need to do that. He is comparing different tire pressure with the SAME tire. Apples with apples.

He is relying on a traditional rule of thumb that says narrower is better. If he has a tire that drives primarily from the shoulder, with a square edge, he is likely right.

If he had a modern high performance winter tire that was not designed to drive primarily from the shoulder blocks, increasing the pressure would not make sense.

Two designs of winter tires shown, to illustrate the point. The mud and snow tire is the same technology I used to use on my Volvo, forty years ago. Narrow, cuts in, drives primarily from the shoulder. The centre blocks packed up on the first rotation. The Dunlop M3, by comparison, has round shoulders with no blocks there to cut in. The blocks across the tread are designed to eject packed snow. It would not make sense to overinflate these tires. And my Wintersport M3s significantly outperformed traditional designs, allowing a 535 rwd to go up hills that my X couldn't with lesser mud and snow tires.