Do I need to put snow tires on my hyundai elantra 2013? I don't seem to have much traction on snow covered roads. Can I just put them on the front?
8 Answers
migration_judge_roy answered 11 years ago
the rears ain't doin nothin....of course you want them on the drive wheels~
Front wheel drive needs the snow tires on front......Judge nailed it.
Better get 4 good used snow tires then two new.
Wow....Definitely four tires!!! Whoever tells you 2 has no clue what they are talking about. Try going around a corner at any speed with two all season or summer on the back end, and once you get your vehicle out of the ditch after fishtailing, come back and let us know what you think. Or, you can just look on line for reviews or tests done with 2 and 4 winters...here's one... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7xXDMkVFlE.
It depends on how much you NEED to drive in the snow and how often you expect to. If your 2013 has the OEM Hankook 426's, they are known to be terrible in the snow even when new and don't get better with age. You might be able to get by with an all season radial that's known for better snow traction like the Continental PureContact. If you already have Continental's as some do and are "slip sliding away", then perhaps snows are the better option.
Never buy 2 new tires !!!!!! Always replace 4 of them especially mixing winter/all seasons is extremely dangerous. And Winter tires makes a big difference. Check All weather tires, Nokian WRG3. You don't even need to change them during summer
alfredebush answered 9 years ago
Never, EVER put two snow tires on a car. It will get completely away from you at the first sideways sliding and you'll have no control of the car.
alfredebush answered 9 years ago
Just to follow up - I did not fully read judge's answer before my response above. Judge is totally and completely wrong! NEVER do this or you will be guaranteed to kill yourself and probably others. The point of snow tires IS NOT that they give you traction on the drive wheels. It is completely that they give you LATERAL (i.e., sideways) traction to prevent you from sliding sideways (especially in a turn, or if for example you get a little sideways coming to a stop). If you put tires with good traction on the front (whether you have FWD, RWD, AWD, or 4WD, it does not matter), and you put regular tires (or even worn snow tires) on the rear, you will be in a situation where the rear end will absolutely get loose on you and put you into an uncontrollable spin. I stupidly did this on a FWD car because I wanted better traction on the drive wheels but WITHOUT THINKING. On the mountain roads of Colorado, I went into a completely uncontrollable spin counter-clockwise, taking up both lanes on a 2 lane mountain road with a 500 ft sheer drop on one side. Once I got that corrected back, I started spinning uncontrollably CLOCKWISE this time. Both the clockwise and CCW spins were about 6 full rotations each and I wound up at the edge of the cliff with two wheels just not quite over the edge. That was one of my nine lives and luckily I did not have an oncoming semi or dump truck of rocks coming at me during the spins. Luck123 had the right response above.