{"id":131,"date":"2008-11-24T01:10:49","date_gmt":"2008-11-24T05:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jwardell.com\/mini\/?p=131"},"modified":"2008-11-24T01:10:49","modified_gmt":"2008-11-24T05:10:49","slug":"winter-is-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jwardell.com\/mini\/2008\/11\/24\/winter-is-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter Is Here"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today I performed my biannual ritual of swapping between summer and snow tires. Not an easy job today with bitter temperatures and wind chills as low as 8 degrees, which we&#8217;ve had the last few days.<\/p>\n<p>\nIn previous seasons I would switch much earlier, usually mid to late October. I really pushed it this year as the tread depth on my (still incredible) <a HREF=\"http:\/\/www.nokiantires.com\/\">Nokian<\/a> Hakkapelittas is getting low, and also because my summer BFG SP Sports work well in lower temperatures (as long as the road is dry). The Yokohamas I had previously would basically fall off a traction cliff in temperatures below 50-60 degrees. So I&#8217;ve been very satisfied with the moderately priced BFGs; Excellent dry and wet summer traction, and a wider temperature range.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nAnother addition I added just over a week ago were <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dpbolvw.net\/click-1828117-10459708\" target=\"_blank\">Valeo Ultimate<\/a> wipers. I was tempted for years to get the jointless wipers, but I kept going for the inexpensive blade-only replacements from my dealer&#8217;s parts counter. I am downright shocked at how silent the Valeos are. I&#8217;ve always been annoyed by wipers both visually and sonically and therefore run them at as low a speed as possible. You can&#8217;t even hear these wiping. Contrary to reports I read years ago, they do not lose contact at high speeds either; a small spoiler is molded into the back. We&#8217;ll see if they continue to be as impressive through the winter.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nNot much other news, as my MINI continues to serve well on my long commute. It will reach 80,000 miles in the next week or so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today I performed my biannual ritual of swapping between summer and snow tires. Not an easy job today with bitter temperatures and wind chills as low as 8 degrees, which we&#8217;ve had the last few days. In previous seasons I would switch much earlier, usually mid to late October. I really pushed it this year [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jwardell.com\/mini\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jwardell.com\/mini\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jwardell.com\/mini\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jwardell.com\/mini\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jwardell.com\/mini\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jwardell.com\/mini\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132,"href":"http:\/\/www.jwardell.com\/mini\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions\/132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jwardell.com\/mini\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jwardell.com\/mini\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jwardell.com\/mini\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}