First good dumping of snow today in Cumbria

Maybe we can class the tyre tramps as the folks who go buy remoulds of ling longs instead of new ling longs :D
 
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And coming down fairly thick and sticking already
 
We've had multiple RTC's here but not because of the white stuff, nope. Black ice is the culprit. That coupled with drivers not appreciating the conditions they are driving in.

Start of the silly season for me, really. :rolleyes:
 
Everyone from chesterfield putting mad snow pictures on from last night. Think its a joke going round Facebook though as i ain't seen any snow.

Chesterfield/Sheffield had the worse snow downfall last year and my summer tyres on the civic handled the snow fine. Long as you know your limits you should be fine. Winter tyres are just there for the extra cautious not because they are under confident / bad drivers.
 
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andicole0 said:
If there's no significant worsening in 'normal' winter conditions and an improvement in more severe winter weather then for the sake of £40 for some extra wheels it was worth the investment in tyres.

Andi.
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This is how I see it too..

Lets face it, we'll have 3 months of pretty cold weather with the chance of a massive flurry of snow..

If a reasonable set of winter tyres has no downsides to a top end summer set in these conditions, but affords massive increases in grip/safety should it snow, then where is the downside?

What am I missing? It seems people are arguing that it's optimal to stay on Summer tyres, neglecting the fact we do actually get flurries of snow that bring the place to a standstill?
 
They don't have no downside, they have reduced aquaplaning performance and lower dry performance with only marginal wet braking improvements so its not as simple as that. Just a compromise. You must choose what matters to you because its nothing like as clear cut as you claim.

As last year there were only two nights of significant snowfall here the benefits for me personally are outweighed by the disadvantages.
 
[TW]Fox;20722710 said:
As last year there were only two nights of significant snowfall here the benefits for me personally are outweighed by the disadvantages.
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Sensible approach. Some areas of the country last year were simply a nightmare travel wise, for months without any let up whatsoever. Anyone saying "No, you should stick with summer tyres because in the UK we don't get anywhere near enough snowfall to justify changing to winter or snow tyres" has a foolish, inexperienced and naive outlook on driving.

Folks, the bottom line is some people can indeed justify changing tyre types over to cope with their local conditions whereas others really would be wasting their money.
 
There isn't a right and a wrong - it's your money and your choice. I have my own opinions on ditchfinders, uhp tyres and various types of winter tyres but that's all they are, opinions.

Sadly I see very little information coming from these threads, just various strongly held opinions. I can see why some car forums ban tyre and oil threads now :)
 
I have been driving for 8 years, yet I've only heard anyone talking about winter tyres in the UK for the last 2...

Was I blinkered to it all, or is it really only a recent thing?
 
Telescopi said:
Sadly I see very little information coming from these threads, just various strongly held opinions. I can see why some car forums ban tyre and oil threads now :)
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Lots of opinion is based on misinformation and lack of reading, i find lots of peoples views on tyres comical, i've played with some of the ideas they hold and it's simply BS, why save a little bit of money on something thats so important to your safety.
 
[TW]Fox;20722710 said:
They don't have no downside, they have reduced aquaplaning performance and lower dry performance with only marginal wet braking improvements so its not as simple as that. Just a compromise. You must choose what matters to you because its nothing like as clear cut as you claim.

As last year there were only two nights of significant snowfall here the benefits for me personally are outweighed by the disadvantages.
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I wouldn't call 20% marginal.

But it would seem that dry/wet braking seem to almost even out from the figures presented in that article, leaving just Aquaplaning and Snow performance being left.

In my experience, the times I've felt I've been exposed to risk in these two situations, by a country mile it would be snowy conditions that pose the overwhelming threat in the winter months..

Last winter was pretty bad in Gloucestershire, the snow only fell a few nights, but it stayed for a couple of weeks at least, and since I ventured down to plymouth, and saw first hand the conditions in a lot of places there, to just say it had 2 nights of snow, as if it all suddenly disappeared and went back to normal roads the next day is highly inaccurate IMO.

Shame we can't get the stats, but I'd wager the accidents due to aquaplaning vs accidents due to snowy conditions would give us the information we need, I think it would indicate winter tyres being the right choice over the colder 2 or 3 months by some degree, clearly you think the opposite..
 
PMKeates said:
To be honest I suspect we are still at 0 days 'benefit'.

As you can't exactly go roaring away in the snow with winter tyres on, the benefit over summer tyres is where winter tyres enable you to go where/when summer tyres won't. I suspect the snow level in Cumbria at the moment is such that you can still drive on summer tyres. As you have to be equally as cautious, the benefits so far are minimal...
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Using that logic though it is stupid to change your summer tyres before they are down to the canvas. I mean even if you are in the middle of a monsoon then bald tyres will still get the car moving.

I'm keeping an open mind with them and TBH I'm quite happy to hold my hands up and say, yup I wasted my time and money getting winter tyres. I only fitted my "frankly absurd ditchfinders of the snow tyre world" "wan-li equivalent winter tyres" (or as I like to call them, mid range winter tyres ;) ) yesterday and initial impressions on sub 5'C dry and damp roads are... that they feel a bit crap.

They do have about 4 mould risers coming off of every single tread block and these have yet to wear off so I'll see how they are with a couple of hundred miles on them.
 
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