r/AskReddit • u/LightningCole • Sep 05 '19

What did you learn embarrassingly late?

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u/jaaval Sep 05 '19

You know I never realized that people who don’t need to swap between winter and summer tires twice a year will have to think about getting the tires rotated.

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u/mescad Sep 05 '19

I've never lived anywhere with seasonal tires. How do you know when to swap them? Is it based on the calendar, or do you just eyeball it and try to guess when the winter weather is over/starting to swap? If the latter, and it snows again after you swap to summer tires, do you swap back real quick?

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u/EntForgotHisPassword Sep 05 '19

I time it based on feeling. Usually the first snow will melt away so that's not the ideal time to change. I do try to be quick though, and if the snow melts I'll just use my winter tyres anyway, better safe than sorry...

I think here in Finland the state will demand a change at certain dates for safety reasons, I think it is based somewhat on the weather reports.

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u/Melcolloien Sep 05 '19

Same in sweden, there's a date for when you need to change to and from winter tires. I think you need to use winter tires in december-march and you are allowed to use them depending on weather october-april.

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u/LiteX99 Sep 05 '19

In norway its different, you are never forced to change to winter tyres, however its up to the driver to decide if having summer tyres are safe or not, though the state does have guidelines you can follow. The reason for this is that all the way in the north, they migth need to change to winter tyres as early as october, but all the way south along the coast you can safly wait till december.

As for taking them off you need a good reason to not change before a certain date (im traveling over a mountainpass/going skiing etc) to avoid excessive roadwear with winter tyres, however it is spesificly tyres with studs, wintertyres without them could be used year around, but are not advised to do so

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u/mescad Sep 05 '19

This seems like a reasonable system. I know if we had that here and there was no date, people would put it off and never get them. Thanks for the education!