Studded tires on asphalt

Many car owners delay the moment of changing their tires for a reason. In their opinion, the sooner you install, say, studded tires, the higher the risk of an accident on dry asphalt. This is logical, but not quite so.

First of all, it's worth starting with the fact that with any tire change, handling inevitably changes. Tires provide a contact patch with the road, and different tires do this in different ways. But at the same time, it's not worth assuming that studded tires are significantly worse than non-studded ones. Many will be surprised, but studded tires are even better than non-studded ones. This can be easily checked by opening any tire test where both studded and non-studded tires are compared. Tests of this kind are conducted annually by the company Test World.

For example, you can take a comparison of two tires in the same conditions Nokian Hakkapeliitta 10 and Nokian Hakkapeliitta R3. The braking distance from 80 km/h showed the following results:

Nokian Hakkapeliitta 10 — 31.4 m

Nokian Hakkapeliitta R3 — 31.6 m

As can be seen from the results, the studded tire not only does not concede to its non-studded namesake but even slightly surpasses it.

Conclusion: when changing tires, handling will indeed change. You should adapt your driving style immediately when changing tires. But the risk of getting into a dangerous situation on summer tires at near-zero temperatures is much higher.

Change your tires in a timely manner. Replacement should be carried out at an average daily temperature of +5°C.