When to Install Snow Tires
When to put on snow tires
The answer to how you are going to put on the tires answers the title question. If you have your snow tires mounted on wheels, you can vary when you place the snow tires on. If you go to a tire shop and have the snow tires mounted on the permanent wheels on the car, this means installing at a different time. One answer makes temporary installation of snow tires possible and the other does not.
Permanent wheels Installation
If you are going to take the car to a tire shop, wait for the installation, and drive away you want all the possible protection possible. The snow tires should go on as soon the state law allows and remain on the car until the last day the state allows. You might wait a day or two to install or have them taken off a day or two early just so you are not stuck waiting at the tire shop when it is the busiest.
You also do not want to wait until the first snow because you will be waiting with everyone who wondered whether they would really need to install snow tires. If you bought snow tires, you probably know that snow comes to your area. You can gamble that the area will not have snow that year and you do not add wear to the snow tires or use the time waiting for installation, but you will drive on some snow if you wait for the first snowfall. An accident can occur on that snowfall as you wait to fit the time into your schedule to get the car to the tire shop. You might not want to damage the road so you put off installing, but if that is the case mount the tires on their own wheels.
Wheel mounted snow tires
Research completed at Washington State University in the seventies showed the damage that studded snow tires caused to the highways. If you have driven on a highway and felt the effect of a pitted road, you experienced possible damage from studded snow tires. If you are a socially activist person, you might want to mount your snow tires on wheels and change your tires at home when the snow arrives. This means the snow tires would only be on the car when snow was on the ground. This would also have a budget advantage because the wear on the snow tires would be less.
Snow tires make traveling on snow a little safer. You will want the best advantage to meet your social and physical needs.
