Tire Storage

[grail]

Hey everyone,

Has anyone stored their autocross tires in an unheated shed over the winter? I usually store it in my basement, but my new place has no room for them.. haha.

[Curtis]

Yes. They will suffer.

[Rustfree]

High performance tires (especially race compound, but really any HP tire) will degrade if exposed to freezing temps.  I have first hand experience with this as the original rubber on my ACR began to show cracks after the car was delivered to me via closed, but "unheated" transport in the middle of winter. 

[nishanna]

Attached pictures are what happened to Pirelli summer tires on my old TTRS. The car was parked outside on the dealership lot too long during a Winnipeg winter.

[f0rd]

This is what Cup 2's look like after sitting outside on a dealer lot all winter.

[donrolandofurioso]

@nishanna

Those tires are pretty much exactly 7 years old - what do you expect from them?

Those tires died long before the last winter. Understand that high performance tires are not built to last for a decade. Use them or you lose them, but don't blame time or winters for their degradation.

[FFAttack]

On 3/31/2024 at 9:24 PM, donrolandofurioso said:

@nishanna

Those tires are pretty much exactly 7 years old - what do you expect from them?

Those tires died long before the last winter. Understand that high performance tires are not built to last for a decade. Use them or you lose them, but don't blame time or winters for their degradation.

He did not say they were recent photos….. 

 

The Ford here has or had a Mustang of some sort with Michelin Cup 2r’s on it sitting in the lot when it was -30. I looked at the tires they had all cracked. Thats a costly mistake on a brand new car. 

[mcorrie]

Freezing competition tires ruins them. So what makes a competition tire? I don’t have a definition. The line between Competition Tire and Street tire becomes more blurry as technology progresses, especially with the new 200TW class of tires.

In the buyers guide for high performance tires, if you have a “summer only” tire, that might be an indicator to keep it from freezing.  

How long/duration frozen, and at what temperature causes this problem? No idea. Will -5C for 1 night wreck them? Still no idea…my experience has been “all winter” and only here in Winnipeg, so when it looks like it’s going to be below Zero, bring them in to heated storage.

From my experience, I can tell you that the cracking shown in the pics is a relatively new problem (to me), as cracking doesn’t happen on all comp tires that have been frozen. My first set of hoosiers going back 30 years, were amazing tires, unknowingly, I left them on the car that winter. They were quite different afterwards, traction was terrible. They didn’t squeal anymore, they didn’t leave black rubber marks, they just polished the road and left rubber dust. Fast forward to 4 years ago. My Toyo RR’s also showed no indication they were frozen, (they were near the end of their lifecycle for me) I left them on the car all winter - when warming the car up for a couple laps the following spring, it was clear they were hockey pucks - but no cracking.

Hoosier has a freezing warning on their website (attached), they mention cracking. 
it would make sense for new car dealerships to understand the risk and maybe some do. I know of a new GT mustang that was at the school a couple years ago - 3 or 400kms, brand new, the tires were cracked. 
I don’t order tires until it’s above freezing just to be safe…

[Ron Janzen]

Do you think this would apply to Hankook Ventus RS-4's?  Just had them installed on my Solstice and normally I would just keep them on the car in the unheated storage unit for winter. They are not a full track/race tire, so I'm thinking they would have cold weather resistance.  They are UTQG 200 AA-A.  I also stored my Firestone Indy 500's in unheated unit for the winter.  But they are 340 A-A rated and should be no problem.

[mcorrie]

That’s the $64k question. Right now, I’d like to think you’re ok with the RS-4’s (almost guarantee the Firestone’s are ok…Almost). Maybe one or 2 nights at -4 or -3 when it goes up to +10 during the day, ‘should be good’ and it should - as if there was some kind of sliding scale for R-Compound Frost degradation, so a 200TW RS-4 would be ok for -5 over night a couple times, but a Hoosier A7 or Michelin racing slick will lose, say, 10% tread deflection per 5 deg C temp decrease per 12hr cycle, cumulative - or something to that effect. The chemical composition transition is a huge gray area….all they tell us is “don’t freeze”…and it’s a safe bet that racing tires aren’t put through any cold weather testing.

 The reality is that I have no idea. Testing this characteristic would fun, but the potential number of beneficiaries of this research doesn’t exactly warrant the expense.

However,  as tires are the #1 performance improvement, and one of, if not ‘the’ biggest investment we make in our track day cars; to protect that investment I would play it safe and put the car on jack stands and bring those tires inside while it drops below Zero.

Edited April 5 by mcorrie

[Weebly]

23 hours ago, Ron Janzen said:

Do you think this would apply to Hankook Ventus RS-4's?  Just had them installed on my Solstice and normally I would just keep them on the car in the unheated storage unit for winter. They are not a full track/race tire, so I'm thinking they would have cold weather resistance.  They are UTQG 200 AA-A.  I also stored my Firestone Indy 500's in unheated unit for the winter.  But they are 340 A-A rated and should be no problem.

I've had 3 sets of Hankook Ventus RS-4 and have always removed them before winter and stored in a heated area.

Check out the Hankook Motorsports website:  https://hankookmotorsports.com/

Also, refer to page 5 on the attached Hankook tire guide.  Takes the mystery out of tire track temperatures and storage temperatures.

Brian

Hankook 2021_Tire_Guide.pdf

[nishanna]

On 3/31/2024 at 10:24 PM, donrolandofurioso said:

@nishanna

Those tires are pretty much exactly 7 years old - what do you expect from them?

Those tires died long before the last winter. Understand that high performance tires are not built to last for a decade. Use them or you lose them, but don't blame time or winters for their degradation.

I should have clarified that these pictures were taken when the car & tires were brand new back in 2018. Audi Winnipeg left the car parked outside on their lot for too long during a Winnipeg winter.

[MRS Joe]

Any summer tire, Bridgestone re71r, Dunlop starspecs (of any model), RS3/4, falken azenis etc will suffer from extended periods in the cold. 
the cracking usually only occurs in severe cold (-10 or colder as I’ve seen) and all summer tires fall off/ lose adhesion and become slower after freezing. 
 

ideally a warm basement or at minimum a insulated structure to store them is required to keep them close to 0 or above. 
 

Edited April 12 by MRS Joe