It’s getting to that time of year again that many car enthusiasts dread….winter.  Ok, it’s not winter quite yet, but it’s time to start preparing for it. That means before we know it our summer wheel and tire setup will need to go into storage and the winter wheels and dedicate snow tires will be mounted on our cars.

I live and grew up in Minnesota where temps are consistently below freezing, snow falls often and in large quantities and you don’t see living plants for 6 months straight. Pretty depressing. (Why do I live here again?) Needless to say it’s critical to have a proper winter wheel setup with a good set of snow tires.

I’ve become pretty passionate about a good winter wheel and tire setup. In 1996 I woke up one morning to a fresh coat of snow on the ground – nothing uncommon during a Minnesota winter. I got ready for school like any other day by taking a shower and then checking the NBA box scores in the newspaper over a bowl of Cap’n Crunch.  (BTW, when was the last time you looked at a box score in the newspaper?!?)

It was time to head to school and my sister and I set off in her blue Toyota Tercel. On our way we were approaching a stoplight that just turned yellow on its way to red on a four lane road with no median. The road we were on had a slight decline and the second my sister touched the brakes the car immediately started to spin. Before we knew it we had done a 180 so the front of the car was pointed in the wrong direction on the road. The spin continued another 180 degrees to complete a full 360. We came to a stop before the stoplight with a huge sigh of relief. Whoa!

We were lucky. Very lucky. It could have been much worse. There weren’t any other cars on the road near us, no curbs were hit, we didn’t slide through the intersection and didn’t slide into the ditch.  I think that’s were my passion for a good winter wheel and tire setup started.

Since I graduated from college I’ve been running two sets of wheels. One for summer and one for winter. This is a no-brainer to me. Here’s how I see it: you can run all-season tires year round (which really should be called no-season tires) and have sub par grip in snow and icey conditions and questionable traction on dry tarmac in the summer. Why wouldn’t you want to have superior grip in the winter and the summer? You’re going to drive the same amount of miles per year so all you’re doing is splitting the tire wear between your summer and winter setup. Yes, you do have to make an upfront purchase of getting an extra set of wheels, but if you’re on a budget you can easily find a used set on Craigslist or a car enthusiast forum.  But if you’re like me having to run a winter wheel and tire setup for almost half of the year, you probably want something that looks nice! That’s one of the reasons why I created the iShopWheels software – so others can see what a different set of wheels will look like on their car.

I owned a 2001.5 Audi A4 Quattro  5 speed with a dedicated summer and winter setup. I got an excellent deal on a set of winter wheels that I couldn’t pass up and paired them with a set of Nokian tires. But the only problem is that I didn’t love the way it looked on my car. And since I ran them for upwards of 6 months out of the year I always looked at them and wished I had something different. That being said, it was the best car, truck or SUV I’ve ever driven in snow and ice hands down. Thank you Quattro for all the fun we had!

Even though it was fun to play around in the winter – safely of course, I couldn’t wait to put my summer setup on not only because it was spring, but because I loved the way my summer setup looked.

If you don’t already have a dedicated winter setup I highly recommend it.  

Winter is coming.