32 psi? 16 psi? or 10 psi? Best tire pressure for winter traction. 

high, professional certified tire technician here.… the reason loosing air in snow tires doesn’t work is because they are engineered to work most effectively at 80 percent of their maximum allowed fill volume. The only people thinking about loosing air in their winters would most likely be people who go mudding, the reason this also makes the most sense, when you loose air in your winter tire(s) you’re creating a bubble in the center ground patch, that patch is designed to grab, bite, pull on snow. Hope y’all understand

Greetings from Finland, home of Hakkapeliitta. Simple explanation for this; winter tires traction is based on snow to snow contact, not rubber to snow contact. If you take bare tire without rim and push it, you can see how grooves narrows even closes. This same happens when you lower tire pressure. On clear ice situation is different.

Unfortunately, those that thought lower tire pressure would help in low friction situations don't understand how unit loading works. Low pressure works in sand because it causes more of the tread to contact the ground, reducing the unit loading and preventing the tire from sinking into the sand. In snow and ice you want HIGHER unit loading to increase the tractive effort. It's the same reason we add weight in the winter over the drive wheels. Physics for the win!

Cool video. I've always aired my tires down during winter, glad to know I can keep my studded winter tired aired all the way up for snow.

Simple thesis. Expert experiment. Thanks for the video

Very well done and informative.

wow, AMAZING explanation Thank you so much

Well, most people confuse traction with floatation. When driving in deep snow we reduce tire pressure to get better floatation, not traction. As we lower the tire pressure, the tire footprint gets longer. Take for example snow tracks. Snow tracks are that long so they don't sink in the snow, not to provide better traction. Hope that helps.

Winter tires work at their optimal psi recommended. It’s winter and cold where I am so when I put air in them, I felt like I was driving a completely different vehicle-and I had traction. The air pressure had gone down to 29, but according to the recommendation, they should be at 35 psi. I went back to the places where I was skidding due to tires not even gripping the ice and I was able to stop right away. It’s important to follow the recommendation listed on the side door sticker. I have Blizzaks btw.

cool test. good video. thumbs up. i cant believe how much better 2wd with chains is vs 4wd!

Ok. First off You need to be able to tell the difference in what type of snow you are driving on. Loose, tight, wet, dry, compact, ext. there are lots. Combined with the road surface, ice underneath ext. and if you are not used to telling the difference, your just guessing. the tread on snow tired work by " Trapping the snow IN the tread". Rubber has a very hard time sticking to snow, but snow will stick to itself far better. so the soft squishy siping in the tread act like little fingers grabbing the loos snow and holding it in the tread giving you traction. if you have ever rolled a snowball into a bug snowball to build a snowman you know how this works. when driving fast, the snow flings out, and it is the better tire tread design that can recapture this snow on the next turn and regain traction. but dry snow has a hard time sticking to its self, again like trying to make a snowball out of dry snow is hard to do unless you squeeze it really hard to compress it., you need to have a heaver truck to do the same. or higher tire pressures so there is more force . on wet snow. the wet groves in the tire squish out that slush so the tread can contact the road surface and get traction so as to not hydroplane just as most wet traction tires do. By letting the air down, we flex the tire to much and give to big of a contact patch. releasing the trapped snow to soon. this works on DEEP snow with large tires with large tread, like small sand shovel tires turning very slowly. here is were we want the snow to release. "you wouldn't shovel snow and leave the shovel halve full of snow""!!. You can see all of this if you carefully watch the tread of the tires on the video. when the tread is packed with snow he is moving forward, as soon as the snow leaves the tread and the tread is black, he is spinning. On hard ice, the tread cant pick up enough snow, and that is why you can put studs in them, to scratch and claw into the ice. ---- And after all this. Yes Snow chains are a huge improvement on most all types of snow surfaces. P.S. I am no tire guru, just a guy that lives in ND, has driving in LOTS of different snow types with lots of different types of tires and vehicles, and has built LOTS of snowmen.:) hope this is helpful. Tom.

Thanks for dispelling the myth of lowering tire pressures during winter! Put on good winter tires, and you should be able to run with the pressures listed on the vehicle door fram sticker

Thanks for proving this. 30 years of snow recovery and working on farms in Montana found that out to be true. We also did lots of testing, wide vs skinny tires and skinny tires won everytime. Then I move to Seattle and found out in wet snow, it's even more important not to air down. Until 2021, all the NFL experts (coaches) never went for it on 4th down until the end of the game. Now every game has multiple 4th down attempts. The huge myth of air down is because it so obviously works in sand, dirt, rock climbing, etc.

Nice demonstration, finding the point where pressure made the difference. And LOL at all the people NOT on that hill claiming mud tires or a Prius would do better. :D

you want your tires pushing onto the ice as hard as possible and the only way to do that is keep your tire pressure high to shrink your contact patch on the ice which increases the psi of the part of the tire that’s touching the ice. Deflating your tire would increase the amount of contact your tire has on the ice which means it will spread your vehicles weight out giving less traction on the ice which is why it’s better in soft snow and sand. Allows you to “float” above the terrain. Increasing your tire pressure would make you cut through the sand and sink down getting your stuck. Which is why people can get unstuck when they lower their tire pressure.

Good test. That hill had to be pretty steep!

Very good 👍

You want narrower tires with higher pressure for ice and snow. You need high PSI on the contact patch for traction. It's opposite of what you would normally do. Lowering tires pressure lessens the PSI in the contact patch and makes it float rather then cut thru.

Well, Ill be adding chains to my gear. Found myself stuck in some snow last week. Took an hour of winching and traction boards to get out.

as far as i understand this all is to don't deflate a "winter tire" because deflated the little cuts in the tire closes their gap and cant grab into the snow to hold snow on it what they should (snow on snow gives the best traction) deflated you have a bigger footprint yes but without those cuts working so it behaves more like a big summer tire. Drivers of AT All-Weather Tires deflate them a little bit, because they use the aggressive profile pattern to grab the snow better for more traction... so on real Winter Tires it is a bad idea to deflate them, on AT Tires it can work

Blizzak tires are INSANELY good! I had a 1987 Buick Grand National as a daily driver, (i can hear all your hearts stopping) we had to push it into the shop. With the Blizzaks on, the car handled like it was on rails! I’ve had these tires on many different vehicles and they NEVER disappointed. Just don’t use them on dry roads if you can help it.

The exception, in deep wet slushy snow, low pressure allows the sides to grip.

Studded winters would probably help a lot too.

Very interesting I'll probably need to add air to mine.

thanks for your help with me all brothers and subscribers 👍👍👍👍🙏

Flawed testing. Snow tires are meant to run stock psi.

Snow tires versus ice tires. For ice, spike tires are the best, of course

The only test missing is the one where you air down the 37s or 40s. There has to be a crossover point where being on top of the snow ( big tire ,low pressure) is better than trying to bite through it. (Small tire, high pressure)

If the road is covered in snow(packed down) lower your tire pressure by 5-10 psi if your driving in fluffy deep snow lower by 15ish. All of this depends on the car and tires you have. But I feel like that is a general rule of thumb for most of us.

Where did you get the chains from? Link?

This might be misleading, since those are not AT tires but winter tires. Will AT tires improve on 10 psi on snow?

Yes, narrow tires are much better in the snow/ice.

thats why I drive a 6000 lb suburban.... Jeeps are cute,,,, Barbie has one

No... The Rubicon , the Mojave and the Cherokee Trailhawk have a locking differential. Gladiator Mojave and Cherokee Trailhawk have only rear lockers.

I have mud tires on my blazer and it's unstoppable on ice or snow. Never needed chains at all.

I need tire chains ⛓ definitely 😊

👍

Yes but my Jeep would NEVER do this (keep spinning on one side ) ... BLD will kick in... And then yeah I have the rear locker if that doesn't work. This must be pre 2005 Wrangler

What was the clicking sound?

How’s he not gripping? My Prius with winter tires would easily just drive and grip fine

should have tried 50 psi

ahhhh you have a mechanical clicking sound consistent, shouldnt be making that sound

Lowering tire pressure 100% improves traction. I'm talking about all seasons. Which is everyone. 100% yes lower your tire pressure during a storm\ on normal tires. False impression here. Or you could just waste your money on winter tires. Your choice. Test it yourself, you will 100% see an improvement.

You totally wrong and your video even showed it. Deleting video video showed you spinning your tires away until you put chains on then you drove up the hill without going on without any issue you didn't show anything about your lockers engaged at 32 psi.