Getting a grip on winter driving

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/11/2013 (3795 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba winters have gone from bringing motorists the challenge of mountainous snow to plow through to bringing wicked sheets of ice to glide over. This change is reflected in the tire options available in the region.

“The cities and Manitoba Highways clear the roads in a fairly timely fashion,” said Chris Dyck, sales and service representative at Kal Tire in Steinbach. “It used to take days for them to get around to clearing the roads. Now, they clean them right quick, but you’ve got hard snow packed underneath.”

The ice left underneath the snow is the surface most people will be driving on 90 percent of the time, said Dyck.

Recognizing the change in surface conditions for Manitoba winters, tire shops are offering winter tires designed to grip icy roads. Studded snow tires used to the rave for winter driving; that has been replaced by ice tires.

“The older snow tires were big, blocky types of tires to claw through the deeper snow,” Dyck explained. “These ice tires, they’re meant to grip that sheer ice. They put a lot of technology into the rubber compounds.”