For those of you who run summer tires. When do you change over to winters. I've been running UHP All Seasons on the GTI not because I want to use them in the snow (I have winters) but becuase I'm concerened about temperature drops in the fall making summers hard as rocks and slippery. I deally I prefer to run my winter tires from say Remberance Day until Mid April.
I regularly run my summer tires in freezing or slightly below freezing temperatures in the spring and fall, and find that they stick just fine on cold pavement. I'm just guessing, but I would think the softer rubber on a performance summer tire would actually have more grip than the harder rubber used on a less performance oriented all-season.
Of course, that's only on bare, dry pavement. If it's below freezing and there's any moisture on the road, a summer tire becomes plain dangerous.
I usually put the winters on by the end of October and leave them on until late April. I used to switch back and forth between summers and winters during the shoulder months as the weather dictated, but it's too much of a hassle for me to bother with anymore.
My winter tires (Conti ExtremeWinterContact) aren't too horrible on bare pavement, so I can live with putting them on a bit early and taking them off a bit late. The GTI is such a nice car to drive that I wouldn't want to sacrifice any performance for the rest of year by running all-seasons.
