Winter tyres advice. Only on drive wheels??

Firestar_3x said:
For my future summer usage i'm going to fit Eagle F1's to the front axel and cross-plys to the rear.

Should be ok since it's FWD.
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Lol, :D

This misses the point. You can drive much harder and faster in better weather so why would you gimp your car when you want to be able to drive fast. If you drove at regular speeds and did not push the car on b-roads etc you won’t experience any problems unless you have guaranteed ditch finders.

In snow, winter/snow tyres help but still require you to drive appropriate to the conditions i.e. carefully which can alleviate most of the issues of driving on snow anyway.
 
Scrutinize said:
If you don’t get lift off over steer with your current tyres then you won’t with just having snows on the drive wheels. If you are getting lift of over steer driving in snow, you are not driving correctly for the conditions. I drove last year in the snow with budgets all round on a FWD car with no issues. The problem comes when people do not drive correctly for the conditions irrespective of tyres.

It is a bit of a moot point since most people drive like tools in the snow either way and probably exceed the capabilities of snow tyres anyway. All that will happen is they get snow tyres and think they can drive at normal speeds again.
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You could well end up with liftoff oversteer or oversteer in general, the tendency of a car on snow with 4 matching tyres will be to do a 4 wheel drive slide, by changing the tyres you change the dynamics.

By fitting snow tyres to the front of a car and summer tyres to the rear you are changing how the car will react on any given surface.

The car will become much more oversteer prone, likewise if on a RWD car you fitted snow tyres to the drive wheels and summers on the front you will suffer from HUGE amounts of understeer.
 
Firestar_3x said:
You could well end up with liftoff oversteer or oversteer in general, the tendency of a car on snow with 4 matching tyres will be to do a 4 wheel drive slide, by changing the tyres you change the dynamics.

By fitting snow tyres to the front of a car and summer tyres to the rear you are changing how the car will react on any given surface.

The car will become much more oversteer prone, likewise if on a RWD car you fitted snow tyres to the drive wheels and summers on the front you will suffer from HUGE amounts of understeer.
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I am not saying it won't happen. My point is if it is happening then you are driving too fast for the conditions anyway. Winter tyres are not a license to drive faster in snow. You can drive quite happily in the snow with budgets without any of the handling problems providing you drive sensibly. Winter tyres just aid grip and handling over regular tyres but still need people to drive appropriately.

The problem comes where people (especially white van men) don’t change their driving habits when driving in snow and still continue on like there is no snow. Equally most people don;t understand how a car will handle in snow and sheet ice, irrespective of tyres.
 
Indeed, however the problem comes when you don't take into account the extra grip is only on the front axel, since 90% of the motoring public are morons they will simply use the extra grip afforded by the newly fitted snow tyres and be much more likely to end up backwards through a hedge.

If they had 4 summer tyres on they either wouldn't be able to move / drive the car, or if they can move feel they have no grip due to understeer, any idiot can correct a small amount of understeer for which a car with 4 summers in the snow will naturally do, oversteer in a fwd car is much harder to sort out and counterintuitive for a moron motorist.
 
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Scrutinize said:
I am not saying it won't happen. My point is if it is happening then you are driving too fast for the conditions anyway. Winter tyres are not a license to drive faster in snow. You can drive quite happily in the snow with budgets without any of the handling problems providing you drive sensibly. Winter tyres just aid grip and handling over regular tyres but still need people to drive appropriately.

The problem comes where people (especially white van men) don’t change their driving habits when driving in snow and still continue on like there is no snow. Equally most people don;t understand how a car will handle in snow and sheet ice, irrespective of tyres.
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Sorry, you're wrong. By putting more grip at the front you make the back even more likely to break free, it's the same as mixing directional and asym tyres front to back. Introducing more grip to the front will cause the rear to become completely unstable because your front wheels can corner faster than the rears and the rears will just break away and you'll introduce mass oversteer. Your confidence will be in the front, grippier tyres. If you have to continue to drive sensibly with snow tyres on the front to avoid your rear tyres misbehaving, it kind of defeats the object of snow tyres.

It's all, or nothing.
 
Scrutinize said:
Since driving sensibly in snow / sleet / ice rules out most of the driving population in snow conditions then fit 4.
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Lucero said:
Sorry, you're wrong. By putting more grip at the front you make the back even more likely to break free, it's the same as mixing directional and asym tyres front to back. Introducing more grip to the front will cause the rear to become completely unstable because your front wheels can corner faster than the rears and the rears will just break away and you'll introduce mass oversteer. Your confidence will be in the front, grippier tyres. If you have to continue to drive sensibly with snow tyres on the front to avoid your rear tyres misbehaving, it kind of defeats the object of snow tyres.

It's all, or nothing.
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I have already agreed with what you are saying. At appropriate speeds, you shouldn't be carrying enough force into the corner to cause loos anyway. I do agree, if you have more grip on the fronts people may be more inclined to drive too fast and carry to much speed into the corners thus creating a problem that may not have been an issue previously, but this may also depend on the rear tyres performance. Equally, it may mean people can get off the drive where it woudl have been safer for them not to drive. If you can drive at sensible speeds, 2 will be better than 0 but 4 is still the best option.

It would be an interesting test across different cars and tyres though to see at what point loos becomes a problem in snow with winters on the front. My budgets are dire in the dry and wet yet do well in the snow. I will be changing them this week as they have worn enough now to justify it for something better.
 
If you can drive at sensible speeds, 2 will be better than 0 but 4 is still the best option.
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Not really. Two at the front would always cause LOOS irrespective of the rear tyre quality, whereas with none fitted, you'd just have controllable (to a degree) understeer.
 
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Lucero said:
Not really. Two at the front would always cause LOOS irrespective of the rear tyre quality, whereas with none fitted, you'd just have controllable (to a degree) understeer.
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Only if you carrying enough speed into the corner for the rear to break. If you you don't get lift of over steer with normal tryes in snow and you follow the same line and speed with winters on the front, you still won't get it.

However, as you have pointed out, the additional grip may either result in the driver taking a tighter line or the corner faster which may induce it.
 
Scrutinize said:
If you you don't get lift of over steer with normal tryes in snow and you follow the same line and speed with winters on the front, you still won't get it.
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Nope, not saying it will happen but its wrong for you to say it won't, if you put snow tyres on one axle then it will have better grip than normal, but the other axle will have worse grip than normal, the effect is hard to explain but its kinda like the front wheels are better at getting away from the rear ones than with matched tyres (on a RWD car it could be likened to the rear wheels trying to overtake the fronts).
 
Scrutinize said:
If you you don't get lift of over steer with normal tryes in snow and you follow the same line and speed with winters on the front, you still won't get it.
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but that's the point, a FWD car is probably never going to lift off oversteer with normal tyres in the snow, it will understeer. Remember, even lightly applying the brakes approaching the corners is enough for the rears to break away if the fronts have more grip because your ability to brake is governed by the level of grip between the tyre and the road. Where there is more grip at the front (irrespective of how carefully you are driving), there won't be the same level of grip at the back.
 
Lucero said:
but that's the point, a FWD car is probably never going to lift off oversteer with normal tyres in the snow, it will understeer. Remember, even lightly applying the brakes approaching the corners is enough for the rears to break away if the fronts have more grip because your ability to brake is governed by the level of grip between the tyre and the road. Where there is more grip at the front (irrespective of how carefully you are driving), there won't be the same level of grip at the back.
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Yea, I am not disagreeing with you.

I have already said as you can’t account for drivers ability and their understanding of how cars handle under different conditions fit 4.
 
And we're all saying, it doesn't matter how the driver drives, as it will happen irrespective, and because of that, if you are driving carefully, don't fit 2 at all, leave the summer tyres on. Worst case, if something does go wrong, you understeer (easy to correct), not oversteer (death to all).
 
Lucero said:
And we're all saying, it doesn't matter how the driver drives, as it will happen irrespective, and because of that, if you are driving carefully, don't fit 2 at all, leave the summer tyres on. Worst case, if something does go wrong, you understeer (easy to correct), not oversteer (death to all).
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You won't just end up in a lift off over steer situation at the sorts of speeds you should be driving at in snow if lift off oversteer could potentially be a problem though. You are also assuming that winters on the front will offer enough grip to induce the oversteer in the rear. They may not and chances are they won't. In snow, you don't just trollolol off the road at the slightest thing.

Yes if you are driving too fast you may have problems but the options are; with normal tyres try and stop on a bend or steep camber and you may just lock up and keep going straight till you stop or hit something / end up in a hedge; with winters on the front the car may stop better and grip or if you were going too fast then the back end may come out if you have enough turn in or you may just plough off the road; with winters all round you may stop or if you were going to fast anyway you may still plough on off the road.

ubersonic said:
This is what you seem unable to understand, at appropriate speeds 2 increases the chance of control loss when cornering over 0.
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Not at the sorts of speeds you should be driving at in snow.

You should be taking tight corners at 5-10mph in snow if that. If you are doing 30 down a country lane then you are probably going to fast. You should leave a sizable stopping distance in snow to the car infront irrespective of tyres.
 
Dr Who said:
Partial winter tyres is like partial circumcision, you either go the whole way or forget it :)
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LOL :eek::o:D

I'm thinking of getting some snow chains this year because I will be driving at very early times when small roads would not have been cleared so I think I might need them to get onto the main roads safely. Still debating though.
 
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