On Wed, 6 Nov 1996, James Babcock wrote:
> I understand that good snow tires would need to be tall for adequate
> clearance, but why narrow?
And Bill Countie responded:
>In order to get through the snow to the
>pavement, you have to drive through it not over it. The narrow tires
>push the snow away.
This is true, but there is even more interesting stuff going on. You'll
notice that the latest and most highly rated snow tires have lots of
little grooves and some big ones instead of just big lugs like in the
old days. What's going on is that the tire packs the snow underneath it
into these little grooves, then uses the little ridges of snow just
created for traction! Then, when the tire comes back around out of the
snow, it is designed to toss the little ridges of snow out of the little
grooves to ready them for the next pass through the snow! The narrow
tire is desirable to increase the psi on the snow in order to pack it
better, making a stronger little ridge to drive against. So bottom
line, even when you don't bite through the snow, the narrower tire
helps. I'm not making this up - I read about it. I think the concept
is pretty cool.
- Paul
SchellinPM@corning.com
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