WomanOnWheels.ca

Here are some answers to your winter tire questions

Do you need winter tires if your area doesn't get a lot of snow? How much of a difference does price make? And what's an "all-weather" tire? Find the answers to these and other winter-tire questions in my story at AutoTRADER.ca.

Should you get your alignment checked?

You take your vehicle into the shop, and now they want to check your alignment. Should you agree to it? Find out in my story at AutoTRADER.ca.

How It Works: Checking Tire Pressure

Most of us don't do it, and checking it regularly can save on your fuel bill as well as keep you safer. Find out more in my "How It Works" column at the National Post (Driving.ca).

All-season, winter, all-weather: Do you know your tires?

You know about all-season and winter tires, but now you might have a third choice with all-weather tires. All of them have their pros and cons -- find out more in my story at AutoTrader.

Should you put winter tires on a leased vehicle?

If you lease your vehicle, and might not buy it out at the end of the term, should you put winter tires on it? Check out the pros and cons in my story at AutoTrader.

Do you need winter tires?

You have all-wheel drive, you have high-tech safety features, and it doesn't snow much where you are, so you're good to go without them ... right? Find out why that ain't so in my story at the National Post.

Tires: More than just round and black

Tires tend to be a grudge purchase, but they're the single most important safety feature on your vehicle. Everything else, from stability control to airbags, is there to get your butt out of the fire when your tires lose contact with the asphalt. Continental took me out on wet and dry tracks to find out more -- read about it over at AutoTRADER.

Seeing the future at Movin' On

Want to ride on an electric bus or electric boat, see a wind-powered car, or a tire that can be 3D printed? It's all part of Michelin Movin' On, a three-day summit on mobility that presents all kinds of concepts for getting around -- some of them way out there, and some of them ready to go. It always moved around between global cities, but now it seems to have found its home in Montreal. Find out more in my story at the National Post.

What should you know about buying tires?

No one likes buying tires, but it's a necessity, and there are things you should know if you're going to get the right tire, and at the right price. Find out more in my story over at AutoTRADER.

Run-flat or self-sealing tires? What's best?

Flat tires aren't fun, but there are some options, including run-flat and self-sealing tires. Each has its good and bad points, of course ... find out what they are in my story at AutoTRADER.

Facts and myths about winter tires

Are the priciest ones better? Do you need them with all-wheel drive? Are two winter tires enough on a two-wheel-drive vehicle? And what about "all-weather" tires? Find out about these and more in my story at AutoTRADER.

Flat tires may become a thing of the past ...

Lose the air in your tire, and you're not going anywhere. While tires are better than they've ever been, air loss still happens, and companies like Michelin are working on airless tires such as this new Vision concept tire. Find out more in my story at the National Post.

Tires: What you need to know

For all the safety items that your car may have, the most important ones touch the road: your tires. Everything else is there to get your butt out of the fire once the tires lose their grip. Find out more in my "How It Works" column at the National Post.

You know you need winter tires, but why?

It's all because of what's in the rubber, and what's on the tread. Find out more in my "How It Works" column at the National Post.

Your tires may soon be "talking" to you

Depending on the model you have, your car may warn you if you're drifting out of your lane, following the car ahead too closely, or even if you're too tired to drive. Your tires? They're not so talkative -- at least not right now. Pirelli is working on a "cyber tire" that could also warn a driver of adverse conditions or even help adjust the cruise control. Find out more in my story at Tire News.

Selling sensors in a man's world

Susan Hitchon sells tire pressure monitoring sensors, but it's not always easy for a woman in a male-oriented profession. So not only did she learn all about tires and sensors, she became a tire technician trainer. Find out more in my Cool Auto Jobs column at the Toronto Star.

What does it take to sell a tire?

I have a new column in the Toronto Star that looks at jobs in the auto industry and how they relate to drivers. And since tires are the only thing between the driver and the road, I thought I'd start with Greg Lamothe, director of sales for Kumho Tire in Canada. He has to figure out not just what tires Canadians need, but how many, and for that, he starts two years in advance. Find out more in my story!

What's the future of sustainable mobility?

No one knows for sure, of course, but there are a lot of people working on it, and I met many of them at the Michelin Challenge Bibendum in Chengdu, China recently.

It's a regular meeting-of-the-minds, held in cities around the world, where participants learn about new technologies, drive new advanced vehicles, and discuss the issues and how they might be solved. Find out more in my report over at the Toronto Star.

Winter driving with GT Radials

It's no secret that the right tires make all the difference when you're driving in winter weather. GT Radial sent me to Quebec City to check out its tires; you can read my report on Autos.ca by clicking here.

Why can't tire companies sell safety?

You've got to wonder what the engineers were smoking when they came up with the formula for measuring tire size. They stuck not one but three systems in there. Decipher a P205/55R16 tire and you've got metric (it's 205 millimetres wide), a fraction (the sidewall is 55% of the tread) and Imperial (its diameter is 16 inches). Now there's genius at work. But I digress ...

I took this picture in Colorado last year, where I participated in a driving course to prove the superiority of winter tires in these conditions. (Note: they're winter tires, not snow tires, and they're vastly better than all-seasons even on dry pavement in winter temperatures. But that's a rant for another day.)

One thing I've never been able to figure out is why tire manufacturers have never been able to sell safety the way car manufacturers have done. The automakers have done an incredible job. They've got consumers demanding safety systems when they haven't a clue how they work. Years ago I taught a series of "how your car works" clinics, and without fail, whenever I got to ABS and ESC and airbags, I'd get blank stares from people who'd willingly paid extra (they were all options back then) to get them on their vehicles. That goes to show you the power of that marketing.

But tires? Show me an average car owner who doesn't buy tires primarily on price, and when he does, it's a grudge purchase because his old ones are worn out.

Here's a fact: the only things keeping your vehicle on the road are four rubber contact patches that add up to an area roughly the size of a sheet of typing paper. There isn't a safety feature on your car, from anti-lock brakes to airbags, that isn't there for the purpose of trying to get your butt out of the fire after your tires have lost their grip on the asphalt.

And yet the essential importance of having good-quality, season-specific, well-maintained tires as the very cornerstone of vehicle safety has bypassed almost every motorist on the road.

I just don't get it. Maybe it's the advertising -- save for a couple of ultimately ineffective ads, like the baby riding in a tire, the whole this is where safety starts message doesn't seem to be there. Maybe tires have been around so long that there's no way you can make them new and exciting, the way the fancy auto technology can be. All I know is that when I see a newer Volvo wearing bald tires in the winter, as I did a couple of days ago, the message just isn't getting across. And as long as it doesn't, we're going to be left with cars that have to try to do what their tires simply couldn't.