By Kimatni Rawlins
If you are venturing out this week after the snowstorm that hit the Northeast corridor, please be cognizant of your tires and vehicle’s powertrain. Tires are the single most important component of a passenger vehicle, SUV, or truck because they are the contact patch between the road and the automobile. The best pairing from my experience goes as follows:
-
- AWD with winter tires
- AWD with all-terrain tires featuring the 3-Peak Mountain Snowflake (3PMSF) symbol, which I have on my Ram 1500 Rebel, BF Goodrich KO3s to be exact.
- AWD with all-weather tires made specifically for snow, such as the Michelin CrossClimate2s on our Audi Q8 quattro AWD.
FWD will be the next option, but will most likely require winter tires for optimal performance. The worst scenario is a RWD vehicle with standard all-seasons or even summer tires, which I have seen people try to get away with while spinning, slipping, or crashing.
When it comes to pickup trucks, I prefer all-terrain traction to conquer any type of road condition or environment from rock climbing to snow trekking. That’s where the new KO3s come into play and saved the day. My Ram, along with 4WD, had no qualms plunging through and over large piles of snow accumulation.
“Consumers were happy with the All-Terrain T/A KO2 tire in the snow, so the All-Terrain T/A KO3 tire raises the bar a little. The KO3 tire’s new tread pattern design and new tread compound provide better snow traction than the KO2. In designing KO3 and other tires, we design to go above and beyond the 3PMSF testing threshold. Snow testing has many variables, but we saw snow performance improvement vs. KO2 every time we tested.” Brandon Sturgis, BFGoodrich Off-Road Product Manager.
Also, make sure your rubber is not bald. Replace immediately, and please don’t go cheap. You have to pay to play for a tire engineered with specialized tread that adapts to the conditions at hand while providing incredible stopping distance and impressive traction to run through that snow like Arctic wolves.
Be safe people!
