Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The snow is almost here, and people are rushing last-minute to get their winter tires on their vehicles for the upcoming season.
Craig Bloomfield of Dunn Tire says that while winter tire appointments had been fairly slow, demand has picked up significantly over the past week.
"It seems like everyone waits till last minute to get tires because it's one of those things where you don't really plan for it. And when the snow comes, it's like, boom. That kind of bell goes off in your head, like, hey, I need some tires. So we're having a significant amount of people coming in and calling for winter tires," stated Bloomfield in an interview with WBEN.
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Bloomfield explains that there's three main types of tires to consider when deciding on a new set for the winter: all-season, winter, and all-weather.
"All-season tire does pretty well in all on all four seasons. But there's a distinct difference between all-season and all-weather. Let's look at a hockey puck. A normal all-season tire gets hard, like a hockey puck. That rubber gets really hard. So what happens is that hockey puck slides across the ice. That's exactly what a tire does when it gets super cold. An all-season tire hardens up like a hockey puck. An all-weather tire is much more pliable. It's got the three-peak mountain snowflake symbol on the sidewalks, which represents that under 35 degrees the tire stays soft and pliable, and the all-weather tire has more siping per tread block, which means that it's going to grab the road a lot better," stated Bloomfield.
Jay Galligan with West Herr says most people will choose to buy all-season tires instead of a winter set, which is generally fine to drive in when there's snow on the ground, but it's important to know when to replace them.
"The tread is the one thing that I would ask everyone to take a look at today, and it's a very easy look. If you take a look at the tread in your tires, the tread sticks all the way up from the rubber your new tires, and in between those treads there's little channels. In those little channels, there's wear bars that sit in there, just above where the channel goes through. If that's right below your tread, it's time to replace your tire," stated Galligan in an interview with WBEN.
Galligan says there's another method that might be easier for some people to tell if their tires are starting to bald.
"It's called the Lincoln test, which is a penny test, where you can flip the penny over and put it right inside the tread. If Lincoln's head is not showing, you're good. If it starts to show it's time to really have us take a look and see if those tires need to be replaced," stated Galligan.