![]() Putting the winter tires at the rear yielded stubborn understeer, which is way more predictable than the alternative. But that lap came with a wallop of oversteer, the kind of rear-end looseness that would catch most drivers out and toss them right into the ditch. Not only was the grip-in-front car easier to steer and brake, it was also 3.2 seconds quicker around the little circuit at Test World. Conclusion: Putting the winter tires on the front wheels was a lot more fun. To confirm or bust this bias, we mixed two sets of Michelin tires, winter and all-season, and ran a few laps of the snowcross with the all-seasons in front and the winters on the back, then vice versa. If you must for reasons of cost, though, the conventional wisdom is that you want the best shoes (or the least worn) in the rear no matter if you have a front-, rear-, or four-wheel-drive vehicle. No one recommends you install just two winter tires. TOM SALT, TEST WORLD Your Best Foot Backward Our mule was one of Test World’s Ford Focuses fitted with 225/45R-17 rubber. We also partnered with our hosts for the subjective evaluation conducted on the indoor snowcross circuit and measured in lap times. As with past tire tests, we deferred to experienced drivers, this time supplied by Test World, for the objective acceleration and braking on snow and ice. Also, a control tire laps periodically to normalize results if the track becomes faster or slower.įor this test we wanted to determine the best-performing studless snow-and-ice tire. Between each tire session, a maintenance crew resurfaces the snow to keep conditions as constant as possible. Because “Indoor 2 subjective handling test” is a mouthful, we’ll just call it the “snowcross” test. Get a corner wrong or slide too much and you’ll hit a strategically placed snowdrift, there to catch the car before the Armco does. Its top speed of 45 mph on snow feels like triple digits in the dry. From the air, it looks like a giant hollow Jelly Belly. On our test day, the inside thermometer read -11, as in degrees Celsius, or 12 degrees Fahrenheit. Both buildings have cooling circuits in the floor and chilled forced-air ductwork. Indoor 2 contains a 0.2-mile, 30-foot-wide squiggly handling circuit. The Indoor 1 building is a 525-foot-by-52-foot pole barn of packed snow that includes a lane of Zamboni-maintained ice. We headed up to the refrigerated covered complex in late summer, as we wanted this story to appear in time for you to take advantage of its findings for the winter soon to be upon us. In early spring, Test World stockpiles snow, filling its two buildings with about two feet of packed, natural white stuff, enough to last the entire indoor-testing season. ![]() During winter months it operates like any other automotive proving grounds, but with frozen canals and snow-packed fields standing in for the concrete and asphalt you find at more-temperate venues. Once the prerequisites for an update are met, NHTSA begins the updating process.The Test World Mellatracks proving grounds is a facility that offers year-round testing on natural snow, as opposed to the man-made stuff. Does an objective test procedure exist for the update?.Does the update have the potential to improve safety?.Do vehicle designs exist for the update?.Does the update address a significant safety need?.NHTSA uses four prerequisites when considering updates to the program. NHTSA prioritizes updates that have the greatest safety impact. Yes, NHTSA is constantly evaluating its New Car Assessment Program for updates.
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