Tyres: All season tyres, do we have them in the UK?

merlin · 4 Nov 2011 at 14:12

I've put some all season Conti's on the wife's car yesterday.

Gibbo · 4 Nov 2011 at 14:19

Scrutinize said:
As pointed out, just get some Vredestein QUATRAC if you need this sort of tyre, they seem to come up best value overall. Why go through all the hassle of sourcing or even contemplating the DWSs?

If you have snow then nothing will beat snow chains and some decent Michelin or Contis for the rest of the time. Heck snow chains will work as well on budgets.

In the UK we either have snow deep enough to warrant snow chains and for the few days per year you may need them, it is worth the effort to pop them on as and when, or slush/ice to simply warrant careful driving.

In 225/16/55 they are £140ish, am sorry but thats daylight robbery.

The DWS from Conti is $99 each as such I just don't deem the Quatrac good value at £140, it seems a very inflated price.

Gibbo · 4 Nov 2011 at 14:19

merlin said:
I've put some all season Conti's on the wife's car yesterday.

Which model designation are those pal?

Scrutinize · 4 Nov 2011 at 14:21

Gibbo said:
In 225/16/55 they are £140ish, am sorry but thats daylight robbery.

The DWS from Conti is $99 each as such I just don't deem the Quatrac good value at £140, it seems a very inflated price.

How much will it cost you in shipping, duty and tax though for 4 tyres?

Django x2 · 4 Nov 2011 at 14:22

Scrutinize said:
you can still transverse the road or not becomes a moot point

You mean "traverse" surely. Why would you want to go across it, as opposed to along it

/Pedant

merlin · 4 Nov 2011 at 14:26

Gibbo said:
Which model designation are those pal?

Unfortunately I haven't a clue as I've not seen the car yet, I just know they are Continentals. Her car isn't a performance car - it's just a 3,000 mile a year run-about but we live on top of a hill so the frost & snow is a pita. All our neighbours use all weathers to get up the hill in the snow so we know they'll do the job. Cos her car doesn't cover many miles we'll leave them on.

Could have gone for winters but then we'd have to take them off - rather run all seaons and leave them on.

Gibbo · 4 Nov 2011 at 14:37

merlin said:
Unfortunately I haven't a clue as I've not seen the car yet, I just know they are Continentals. Her car isn't a performance car - it's just a 3,000 mile a year run-about but we live on top of a hill so the frost & snow is a pita. All our neighbours use all weathers to get up the hill in the snow so we know they'll do the job. Cos her car doesn't cover many miles we'll leave them on.

Could have gone for winters but then we'd have to take them off - rather run all seaons and leave them on.

Sounds perfect, please try and find out for us if you can.

Dandle · 4 Nov 2011 at 14:53

Conti don't offer the DWS because it isn't designed for our climate, it is probably only made in the US factories. Same reason we don't get the Viking contact winter tyre designed for northern Europe.

[TW]Fox · 4 Nov 2011 at 15:08

What is continentals all season product called here? Do they offer one?

Dandle · 4 Nov 2011 at 15:26

[TW]Fox;20482347 said:
What is continentals all season product called here? Do they offer one?

I really don't know if they have such a thing here. I think the concept of an all season tyre is quite an old one now. Winter tyres used to have terrible life in warmer weather. That isn't the case these days so I guess they would push winters designed for our climate rather than all seasons these days.

Gibbo · 4 Nov 2011 at 15:48

Dandle said:
I really don't know if they have such a thing here. I think the concept of an all season tyre is quite an old one now. Winter tyres used to have terrible life in warmer weather. That isn't the case these days so I guess they would push winters designed for our climate rather than all seasons these days.

The Winter tyres designed for our climate are still too soft.

The Michelin Pilot PA3's I used on the EVO are regarded as the best sporty winter tyre out there and yes they were excellent and would be OK all year round, though I do feel in over 20c heat on a summers day they would get rather soft and thats the Michelin.

The other winter tyres on sale in the UK I'd definetely not want to use all year round, too soft, poor performance in dry/warm weather and poor wear rates.

So I disagree that the winter tyres on sale here are a viable option for all year round.

Dandle · 4 Nov 2011 at 16:01

We have TS830s now on one of the cars and they are a lot softer than the TS810S i used before. That said They arent a viable option for a sporty driver but for a normal driver they are as good as many of the standard tyres available.

Vince · 4 Nov 2011 at 16:01

What would the conti premium contact be classed as? the website descries them as:

"The ContiPremiumContact 2 has a unique 3D tread groove which gives it optimal braking performance on both wet and dry surfaces, excellent protection against aquaplaning, precise handling and unbeatable driving stability."

Clearly they arn't performance tyres, so mid range all weather tyres?

Dandle · 4 Nov 2011 at 16:05

VinceB1 said:
What would the conti premium contact be classed as? the website descries them as:

"The ContiPremiumContact 2 has a unique 3D tread groove which gives it optimal braking performance on both wet and dry surfaces, excellent protection against aquaplaning, precise handling and unbeatable driving stability."

Clearly they arn't performance tyres, so mid range all weather tyres?

Standard summer tyres.

Alibaba99 · 4 Nov 2011 at 16:54

Some interesting results in last months Evo which looked at winter & all season tyres, with a summer tyre in for comparison.

The best winter tyres weren't that much worse than the all season tyres in 'summer' performance but a long way ahead in 'winter' performance.

merlin · 4 Nov 2011 at 20:23

Gibbo said:
Sounds perfect, please try and find out for us if you can.

Hi,

Unfortunately the dealers have put the wrong tyres on - it's now sporting Eco contacts which are not what I asked for.

Not quite sure where we go from here but I have email proof I asked them for all seasons so they're going to have to sort this mess out at their cost.

Will let you know what we end up with ASAP.

[TW]Fox · 4 Nov 2011 at 20:25

To be honest EcoContacts are a pretty decent entry level tyre anyway so I wouldn't be too dissapointed with them especially in light of the fact virtually nobody offers true 'All Season' tyres in this country anyway.

Probably where the confusion came from, most people would (Technically wrongly, obviously) consider them 'all season' as they are suitable for use through all British seasons.

merlin · 4 Nov 2011 at 20:31

[TW]Fox;20485021 said:
To be honest EcoContacts are a pretty decent entry level tyre anyway so I wouldn't be too dissapointed with them especially in light of the fact virtually nobody offers true 'All Season' tyres in this country anyway.

Probably where the confusion came from, most people would (Technically wrongly, obviously) consider them 'all season' as they are suitable for use through all British seasons.

About to take the car out and see how they feel as it's greasy here at the moment. My concern though is that they're pants in the snow, which kind of defeats the object.....

[TW]Fox · 4 Nov 2011 at 20:34

A small hatch on narrow EcoContacts will be less crap in the snow than virtually any other non winter tyre equipped car out there. You might well find its just about good enough despite not being intended for or designed for those conditions.

Bit hard to test that until its too late, mind

Overlag · 5 Nov 2011 at 01:17

Gibbo said:
Its got 243BHP I believe and is indeed 6.9s as its a manual.

Auto's are same BHP but 8.0s and the AUTO tends to self destruct every 60,000 miles.

Yeh sorry about that, i was replying to fox in the 205/40/17 thread about the FiestaST tyres, and also replying here, got my threads mixed up.