How to ride summer tires during spring frosts

A typical spring situation: winter tires are already in the garage, the car has just been put on summer tires, and then bam - a sharp cold snap.

A cold front in spring, as a rule, immediately brings a whole bunch of unpleasant weather phenomena: rain turning into sleet, ice and other winter “joys”, which you didn’t expect to return soon. And the rubber is already summer on the car, tanning in the cold, turning into real “skates” on icy asphalt. And what is there to do? Do not change your shoes back to “winter”, so that in a few days, when the wave of cold subsides, you will again stand in line for tire fitting! The best advice in such a situation is simply not to drive a car until it gets warmer and the temperature outside the window does not cross into the plus zone again.

So it is true, but there are a lot of situations in life when you like it or not, but you have to go by car, you can’t get by with public transport. In such conditions, you will have to remember the skills of winter driving, but with a serious adjustment for ugly slippery tires. First of all, you will have to forget about high speeds - only slowly and sadly. We keep the distance to the car in front as large as possible. When approaching an intersection or a turn, we begin to slow down much in advance, because at any moment there may be a puddle under the wheel that has turned into ice, which can catastrophically lengthen the braking distance.

Of course, all maneuvers, whether it be rebuilding, turning, accelerating or braking, should be extremely smooth and unhurried. The pedals should not be pressed, but literally “stroked” so as not to provoke a skid. On a car with a manual “box”, it makes sense to drive in high gear, and the “automatic” selector should be moved to the “L” position or, if you drive older models, set it to the “3” mark, limiting the box’s ability to “climb” above the third transmission. Well, strictly observe traffic rules, including all established speed limits.

If the frost caught, for example, in the country or in a country house, then you should take a bag of sand or salt with you on the road. Yes, and it does not hurt to critically evaluate the condition of the towing cable lying in the trunk. After all, before you get to a route that is more or less cleared and treated with reagents, you will have to overcome kilometers of secondary rural roads with their numerous ups and downs covered with fresh ice.