Anybody else impressed with winter tyres in the recent snow?

["andy"]

-4 for most the day here and half a foot of snow on any non main road ,

i survived without winters but its certainly not easy and leaves you wondering wether they would have stopped or slowed me down if a kid/cyclist ran out

best thing to do when its like this is try not to drive because its only a matter of time before you get took out by a school run mum doing 50 in a qashqai anyway

How on earth did we all survive 5+ years ago when we all drove on summer tyres all year long.

Thank god the tyre manufacturer marketing departments came along and saved us all from certain death. Its good of them to put peoples safety above profit for once.

Oh wait...

in that case how on did we survive with metal banded wooden wheels or crappy early rubber etc ?

driving is dangerous and at times it only takes a single mistake to cause a potentially lethal accident. winter tyres are something that can give people another chance so i don't get why they continuously get ****ged off. what difference does it make to you ?

have you actually tried winter tyres in winter ? i could maybe understand if they where rubbish but ive never seen or heard a bad review

 

[ZG002]

For all intended purposes they seem to work well, If someone wants to use winter tyres to make their life easier in the snow then why not? They ain't going to solve 3rd world problems but they do what they say on the tin.

 

[Liampope]

Barely disguised anti winter tyre propoganda

Lol - funny we can both read the same article and both think it supports our disagreeing views. You point out the 7m loss in the wet brake test then make a big point of basically saying 'meh'. But 7m out of 40-something is almost 20%. I call that fairly significant. It lost to a Nankang! that's pretty much a linglong.

But OK. We can agree there isn't a world of difference.

The 3% dry laptime and 10% in braking victory for the summer tyre we can agree really is pretty meh. The subjective stuff is, well, subjective. I can honestly say I felt barely any difference in the cold/dry swapping from my summers to my winters, but then my winters are reputed to be very good in the dry and 99.9% of my driving isn't hooning round a test track specifically concentrating on such subjective criteria in order to comment on them. Have you ever actually tried decent winter tyres?

Your conclusion from all that is winter tyres are pointless. Well if thats true for anyone in the UK it's you, but Devon isn't exactly representative of the whole UK!

I'd still disagree though. My conclusion from the same is they are, obviously, a different class in snow/ice, at least as good if not better in cold/wet (most tests/sources/my own and others actual experiences would say better) and a negligable compromise in cold/dry. To me that says why the hell not have a set? I find it hard to believe people who can justify UHP summer tyres couldn't justify a set of spare wheels (which dont have to be a 'downgrade' that 'makes your car look crap' if you dont want them to be) and winters and wouldn't be able to find somewhere to put them??

After that one-time investment I dont see any downside. I dont need them either, even in Norway. I'm in southern Norway where, to be honest, the climate isn't far removed from the UK average. Winter tyres are not specifically required by law either. I (and probably 99.something% of the population) chose them because it has been found they are simply better for a significant period of the year. Even if only marginally most of the time, that's still better.

After my experience here I would still use winters if returned to the UK. I genuinely think we are simply behind most of the rest of europe in legislation, government advice and population mindset. It isn't only more northerly countries that either make them compulsory or people just use them anyway. Denmark, Germany, France ... ... I reckon it wont be long till they are legislated in here too.

 

[Happyhammer7]

Getting some fitted on Friday.

Go me

Still will dodge work if it snows though

 

[Fr0dders]

Go and tell somebody in Canada about how badly it snows here and they'll die laughing at you. Proper winter conditions, for which winter tyres are essential, involve snow which falls in November and finally gets lost again in April. Thaw in January is unheard of.

Your comment reminded me of this video i saw the other day:

Thats the sort of place you need winter tyres

 

[[TW]Fox]

Lol - funny we can both read the same article and both think it supports our disagreeing views. You point out the 7m loss in the wet brake test then make a big point of basically saying 'meh'. But 7m out of 40-something is almost 20%. I call that fairly significant. It lost to a Nankang! that's pretty much a linglong.

What about the other link? You know, the one where the summer tyre was actually the best in the wet according to German firm Auto Bild? You appear to have forgotten that one

Your conclusion from all that is winter tyres are pointless. Well if thats true for anyone in the UK it's you, but Devon isn't exactly representative of the whole UK!

My conclusion is that winter tyres are for countries with a harsh winter climate. Where one of these exists, they are absolutely fantastic and near-essential, which is why some countries with this sort of climate mandate the use in wintry conditions. However it seems in the last few years a fog of myth and secrecy has been created around the performance of these tyres when it isn't snowing in order to broaden the appeal and, presumably, sell more of them.

Before the particularly unusual and harsh winter of 2009 appeared, there were almost no winter tyre threads on the Internet bar the odd person going skiing in the Alps. None. How did everyone manage in 2007? Did we not have a winter? Of course we did - it was a normal winter much like the one we've had so far (Which is about to get its traditional few days of snow to keep everyone happen). But all it took was one two-year period where there was unusual and significant snowfall and the opportunity to flog everyone new tyres was here to stay.

. To me that says why the hell not have a set? I find it hard to believe people who can justify UHP summer tyres couldn't justify a set of spare wheels

I wouldn't fit them if you GAVE them to me - I don't want them. I've considered my tyre position and I genuinelly beleive I have the correct tyre fitted for my needs and weather conditions. I don't want to drive up the A38, covered as it often is in standing water, on a 10c january day on any tyres but the ones I've specifically chosen for being adept at that purpose. Looking at the weather in this country over the last 6 months by far the most prevailing condition was almost biblical levels of rain. It was shockingly wet. Not particularly cold, but ultra-wet. Therefore you were many times more likely to find yourself hitting standing water than you were a snowdrift or the one Motorway they'd left as an ice-rink. And nobody can dispute that due to the snow-biased tread pattern a winter tyre is simply NOT as good at aquaplane resistence. The tests you've posted show that.

The further up North you go I'm sure the case changes. It would be a more difficult decision on higher ground, or in Cumbria, or whatever. But in mainland England even when the snow finally does arrive what actually happens when you've got winter tyres is that you are able to negotiate that 0.5 mile drive to the main road much easier (Though given you'd be crawling along at 4mph on the summers its not really a safety thing) whereupon you can then sit for 4 years in the 4 inches of TRAFFIC CHOAS that ensues anyway.

We Brits are obsessed with weather and we dearly wish our weather was less utterly boring as it is now. Just look at the 900 page thread full of people wishing it was snowing and then posting 300 iPhone pics when it does. I'm not entirel convinced our desire for winter tyres isn't part of this subconcious wish we didn't have such a thoroughly boring and uninteresting climate here

 

[Lashout_UK]

Yus

Drove a 750d xDrive up and down a few very snowy and icy mountains too, completely effortless with a set of decent winter tyres on it (and the added traction and stability of the four-wheel-drive system).

Still not going to get winter tyres here though and I'm not convinced about the need for them either. Been just fine for years on conventional tyres, never had any problems - and I live on an ungritted, hilly and twisty country road. No issues even when driving high-performance rear-wheel-drive cars with wide rear tyres.

Mind you, we rarely get enough snow for it to even become an issue. If we got that much snow I'm not sure I'd even bother going out, given that the last time I tried that I ended up coming home - because there had been so many crashes the roads out were blocked and people kept trying to park in my car.

 

[dannyjo22]

Go and tell somebody in Canada about how badly it snows here and they'll die laughing at you. Proper winter conditions, for which winter tyres are essential, involve snow which falls in November and finally gets lost again in April. Thaw in January is unheard of.

That's not really a good comparison from my times in Montreal in the winter. All the times I was there they don't need winter tyres either. Despite having more snow fall overnight than I ever thought possible in the mornings the roads were as clear as spring morning in england. People don't park their cars on the roads during the night and they have the weather to make the investment in all night plowing worthwhile. I would never have needed snow or winter tyres there either, but using your scenario of number of months over +10 why would you. It's hotter than that there for as many months as here.

The roads here with the little snow we have is far worse than anything I encounter in Canada despite snow so heavy I couldn't get into my car and temps so low I thought my fingers were going to fall off

 

[[TW]Fox]

That's not really a good comparison from my times in Montreal in the winter.

Montreal is enormous city, try popping out to Northern Ontario

 

[Cristian]

I'm genuinely surprised at some of the premium tyre snobs on here arguing they are pointless.

So much this. I agree to an extent to that premium tyre as it does indeed make things safer but apparently there is an on/off button for the concern regarding safety.

Before the particularly unusual and harsh winter of 2009 appeared

well how many more of these "unusual" winters do we need in a row to actually start promoting winter tyres and get on with our lives rather than have the whole country come to a halt when we get 2 inches of snow?

on a 10c january day

Apart from 3-4 days when it was closer to 7-8 degrees most of the days in January so far have been under 0 degrees during the evening and morning. And I live in central London, not Scotland.

Yesterday evening when my phone said it's 2 degrees outside I noticed that some special person spit on my bonnet and roof. Upon proceeding to wipe that work of art off with a wet tissue I noticed that both were very much frozen so that "very wet weather" that you mention - guess what's happening with the roads when you combine it with very cold weather?

 

[paradigm]

well how many more of these "unusual" winters do we need in a row to actually start promoting winter tyres and get on with our lives rather than have the whole country come to a halt when we get 2 inches of snow?

Well, seeing as this one has been neither harshly cold, nor particularly snow-filled, I'd say more than we've had (2?).

Not exactly showing a repeating trend is it?

"Wet" on the other hand has been a description which fits in well with this "winter" season.

 

[[TW]Fox]

Sigh. The premium tyre snob thing is irrelevant as I keep explaining. Deciding to buy one brand over another when you need new tyres due to increased performance in normal driving conditions is NOT the same thing as deciding to buy an entirely new set of wheels AND tyres to replace perfectly good tyres on account of increased performance in a very specific set of circumstances during which you are already driving very gingerly or have arranged alternative transport.

How many unusual winters will we have? Well they seem to have stopped -it's mid January and only now are we forecast the first real disruptive snowfall of the winter. And it's forecast for 2-3 days? The rest of the time its been positively mild, I don't really give a stuff about London as I neither live there nor drive there but where I am 10c has been the average daytime temperature for *weeks* not days. Even this morning I didn't even need to de-ice my car before driving off. Yet you all think I'm wrong in not choosing to fit winter tyres? I maintain that I have fitted the most appropriate tyres to my car for the conditions I drive in.

The 'very wet' weather I mentioned previously has finished so pretending it caused ice is a bit silly - it occurred for almost a month last year and caused widespread flooding. None of it froze, it caused flooding not ice rinks! Infact on a purely objective measure you'd have probably got more days actual use out of a canoe this winter than a set of winter tyres. You were more likely to encounter standing water on a dark motorway this year than ice or snow, yet if you had your winter tyres would have been noticeably worse than UHP tyres.

The only area where there is no dispute over the benefit of these tyres is snow and ice. In other areas, ie the wet, its highly debatable. Even in this thread we've seen two professional cold weather tyre tests both coming out with different views - one, which I've linked to, specifically said the summer tyre offered greater performance in the cold and wet. But lets brush that under the carpet eh.

So the only non-arguable point is that they are very useful in snow. And I maintain that:

a) We don't get enough snow b) When we do you could have a land rover on the worlds best Snow Tyres you are still going to sit in 4 hours of traffic chaos to get home, so what difference does it really make for those few days a year?

But not that any of this matters. There are a few days of Snowmaggedon!23128 coming tomorrow which will be all the purchase justification those convinced they benefit from these tyres the rest of year will need so the bandwagon rolls slowly on.

If I was experience noticeable performance issues with my tyres I would change them, simple as. I've done it before when I have been unhappy with a tyre and I wouldn't hesitate to do it again. But I've not - except on the odd occasion when the first mile is icy in which case I'm hardly doing 40mph -experienced this. So why would I rush out and buy these tyres? Add to this the fact it's almost impossible to get a balance view from users. There was a chap on PH once - got 4 of them for his car and found them to be a reduction in performance over his UHP tyres. But he got flamed so badly by the evangelists I think he stopped posting his experiences.

 

[Skeeter]

well how many more of these "unusual" winters do we need in a row to actually start promoting winter tyres and get on with our lives rather than have the whole country come to a halt when we get 2 inches of snow?

From what I can remember, we haven't had any 'unusual' winters.

We have had a snowy few days twice. Hardly a sweeping seasonal change that requires a total rethink on tyre buying and running winter tyres for 4 months 'just in case'.

2 days of snow does not correlate to a trend of harsh winters.

I also highly doubt that fitting winter tyres to everyone's car is going to magically cure traffic chaos every time a few mms of the white stuff settles on our roads.

 

[Housey]

I never stopped, I never ground to a halt, I never had winter styres. I did however have 4WD so perhaps everyone should buy two sets of drivetrain, just in case?

I don't 'have' to be anywhere so if it's crappy outside I work from home and make other arrangements but winter tyres, outside of a few days a year that we have snow are a waste of time in my book. The debate is are they justified for the few days, the rest of the discussion is moot because a good set of quality tyres will work fine in wet, dry and cold no matter what an Evo tyre test tells me, for they always have. So many people trying to justify their decsions here it seems to me. Did those people crash before?

I can understand Tax Evader sticking them on his CSL, he's not very good going straight in the dry so needs help but the rest of you are having a laugh. If you need to get unstuck 4 or 5 days a year then fine, if you dont or if its not a biggy then you are sadly sucking up the hype.

 

[MooMoo444]

Should promote slowing down in bad conditions, not advocating equipment that lets you go faster

 

[Housey]

Should promote slowing down in bad conditions, not advocating equipment that lets you go faster

Though in jest wise words.

 

[Housey]

If it snows as expected tomorrow I shall look at it from my home office window and leave my F10 on the drive. No point trying to move the bloody thing without winter tyres, but also no point spunking 1000 quid to allow me to drive 4 or 5 days a year when really I dont need to.

 

[Westyfield2]

Out of interest of those that have gone for winter tyres, either this year or previously, what do you do with regards to wheels?

The two most common suggestions in this thread are to have a second set of alloys, or have a set of steels for the winter tyres.

We've done the third, which I don't think I've seen mentioned! Put the winter tyres on the normal wheels (in the normal size 235/55/19) and had the dealer store the summer tyres. Dealer will then swap the tyres over in March, and then November again, etc.
Only one set of alloys (those that came factory fitted) and not having to store yet another set of tyres in our garage sounds far better to me!

 

[ZG002]

What do the Dealers get out of that option?

 

[Westyfield2]

What do the Dealers get out of that option?

They supplied and fitted said winter tyres.