not generally the case, snow and ice tyres have sieps designed to retain some snow/ice to add adhesion on ice/snow. the opposite is true for "summer" tyres, which will have large groves for removing water from under the tyre to let the rubber hit the road.
cold weather tyre thoughts
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not generally the case, snow and ice tyres have sieps designed to retain some snow/ice to add adhesion on ice/snow. the opposite is true for "summer" tyres, which will have large groves for removing water from under the tyre to let the rubber hit the road.
You need to do a bit of research. Summer tyres generally offer better wet weather performance than winter tyres, including aquaplaning, braking and handling.
Just an FYI but mytyres.com supply pre-fitted sets of steel wheels with winter tyres that you could chuck on in the really cold weather.
They can work out cheaper then paying to swap tyres each year but be they do take a few days to arrive as they come from a warehouse in Europe.
They can work out cheaper then paying to swap tyres each year but be they do take a few days to arrive as they come from a warehouse in Europe.
Awesome post, based entirely on what? Anecdotal evidence? Your own thought process? Certainly not on actual testing data, where EVERY test I have seen has shown winter tyres to perform better than summer tyres in the cold and wet.
Why not actually look up some data on it rather than just typing out nonsense?
This test shows both the difference when on snow, which will presumably only be a few days a year for you assuming you work mostly in Glasgow city. But also in the wet, in temperatures around 5 degrees, which could be every other winter day in Glasgow. Decide for yourself.
For the miles you do, and your car being your source of income, I'd personally be sticking on a set of the Conti's, like Fox suggested (albeit I suspect with a hint of tongue in cheek). I had Conti's on my 335d a few years ago when we had a decent winter, and they were great. I currently run Dunlop 3D's on the 530d, and ran 4D's on my old passat. I am only marginally north of you, but I find them valuable to me. Of course, I would drop a size on dedicated winter wheels personally (despite my ALhambras recent swap to winter tyres coming with a jump in size from 16" to 18"). But then I wont burn through them in one season, so it saves me around £120 a season for swapping tyres on wheels twice.
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largest available is 17"
ended up ordering a set of uniroyal rainsport3s. thinking being a cracking wet weather tyre which will be perfect for 99% of winter conditions. watch out for a rinse and repeat in January
Rainsports are cheap and decent imo.
Unfortunately you may find they wear out faster, so yea, new set in January
Hi there
In full agreement with Fox a good wet performance summer tyre is absolutely fine in the winter and the best wet handling Summer tyres are:
Uniroyal Rainsport 3 (very much a wet tyre, good/average in dry)
Goodyear F1AS2, though F1AS3 is now out in USA, so could be in UK soon?
Advan V105 (Got these on the M3, coping very well in cold/wet)
Michelin Pilot Super Sport (very good wear and good in the wet, if available in your size they might last you longer)
If you go winter tyre, go with something like Fox suggest, you need ONLY a winter tyre, NOT a snow tyre, so avoid Blizzak series and look more at Continental and Michelin Winter tyre offerings. Bear in mind a Winter tyre will only show improved grip over the above good wet/summer tyres once temperatures are freezing and below, they are of course softer so wear faster and are vastly superior should we get any of the white fluffy stuff on the road. Otherwise the F1AS2 is a good bet as a very good all year round tyre as were the PS3 you previously had on the car.
In full agreement with Fox a good wet performance summer tyre is absolutely fine in the winter and the best wet handling Summer tyres are:
Uniroyal Rainsport 3 (very much a wet tyre, good/average in dry)
Goodyear F1AS2, though F1AS3 is now out in USA, so could be in UK soon?
Advan V105 (Got these on the M3, coping very well in cold/wet)
Michelin Pilot Super Sport (very good wear and good in the wet, if available in your size they might last you longer)
If you go winter tyre, go with something like Fox suggest, you need ONLY a winter tyre, NOT a snow tyre, so avoid Blizzak series and look more at Continental and Michelin Winter tyre offerings. Bear in mind a Winter tyre will only show improved grip over the above good wet/summer tyres once temperatures are freezing and below, they are of course softer so wear faster and are vastly superior should we get any of the white fluffy stuff on the road. Otherwise the F1AS2 is a good bet as a very good all year round tyre as were the PS3 you previously had on the car.
I found the Nokian All season I had to really good this is the newer model. https://www.nokiantyres.com/all-weather-tyres/nokian-weatherproof/
They do them in 225 but dont know if you would get away with that size. Failing that I would be getting some of these. https://www.nokiantyres.com/winter-tyres/nokian-hakkapeliitta-r2/ fuel saving especially for a taxi.
Nokian are a damn good tyre manufacturer and popular in proper snowy climates.
They do them in 225 but dont know if you would get away with that size. Failing that I would be getting some of these. https://www.nokiantyres.com/winter-tyres/nokian-hakkapeliitta-r2/ fuel saving especially for a taxi.
Nokian are a damn good tyre manufacturer and popular in proper snowy climates.
It's right there at nearing end of that video I posted. They took it off the snow, and tested them in the wet at 5 degrees where the winter tyres performed much better than the summer tyres. Did you even watch the video, or were you just trying to be smart with a play on my own words?
I even came across a video where they were tested in wet conditions but above the 7 degrees at which the winter tyres start to lose their effectiveness. The winters still handled the wet slalom better than the summer tyres, although the wet braking was a little worse. I'll find that one later for you.
7 degrees or below is generally the accepted temperature for winter tyres. And it could easily be that for most of the winter oop here in Scotland.
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
If you work in a tyre marketing department, yea.
For bonus pooints throw in some data comparing your latest super ultra performance winter tyre against a generic and unnamed 'summer tyre' to prove that at 6c the world ends.
For some reason the video doesn't work (for me anyway). Do you have a link?
It doesn't work for me either.
Which summer tyre, specifically, did they use?
I bet it's either a midrange summer tyre (Who cares how they perform? I don't buy them) or a 'summer tyre' of unknown type. Great.
I'll tip my hat if they used a SportContact 5P or an Eagle F1 Assymetric 2. But I bet they didn't.
The biggest problem with all this is how whenever these tests come out all summer tyres suddenly become 'summer tyre' and they compare all manner of winter tyres against 'a summer tyre', often not even revealing what it is, completely ignoring the fact that even in the dry when it's 25c outside there can still be MASSIVE differences between two particular summer tyres!
I am not anti winter tyre - infact my GF's car has a set and I've toyed with the idea of a set for mine (For use on European winter trips). In the right conditions they are exceptionally good. However the right conditions are snowy winters, the '7c' thing is obfuscation aimed at broadening the appeal of winter tyres into a market which arguably doesn't need them, outliers in Cumbria and the Highlands aside.
In a typical British winter you are compromising your tyre performance - not increasing it - by opting for winter tyres as your annual Christmas shopping trip is more likely to be at 8c in the rain than -3c in the snow.
If there isn't snow, the winter tyres are inferior to UHP tyres (And as I only fit UHP tyres I'm only interested in comparisons against UHP tyres). A typical British winter is wet and the best tyres in the wet are UHP tyres.
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Ok its an older review, but real world experiences throughout a winter and into spring using two cars, one car going from Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-D2 to the Goodyear Ultragrip 7+, the second family car going from Bridgestone Turanza ER300 to Continental TS 830P, and a third less used car staying on un-named summer tyres trhoughout.
http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/Article/Winter-Tyres-Real-World-Experiences.htm
The final conclusion;
In one word - yes! At 3 degrees C and below the winter tyres gave a definite improvement in cold, frosty, damp and greasy conditions. And in general wet and dry (cold) running, the sipes produced extra bite, giving me the same sort of level of performance that my high performance summers did, but in cold and sub-zero temperatures. And that was all BEFORE any snow and ice - proving that winter tyres really should be considered as "cold weather" tyres, and not just for the snow.
http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/Article/Winter-Tyres-Real-World-Experiences.htm
The final conclusion;
In one word - yes! At 3 degrees C and below the winter tyres gave a definite improvement in cold, frosty, damp and greasy conditions. And in general wet and dry (cold) running, the sipes produced extra bite, giving me the same sort of level of performance that my high performance summers did, but in cold and sub-zero temperatures. And that was all BEFORE any snow and ice - proving that winter tyres really should be considered as "cold weather" tyres, and not just for the snow.
Again it further highlights the issue I made.
The TS830P is as close to a performance winter as you can get, the Turenza is a middle of the road midrange tyre. The Eagle F1-GSD2 is so old it was replaced before half of us even had cars. I was fitting GS-D3 to my Mondeo 11 years ago and at the time it was a HUGE leap in performance over the D2. Shock as replacing ancient and/or average tyres with really good ones results in increased performance.
And despite this only once it got to 3c did a difference begin to become apparent - and it's not as if they spent every drive thinking they'd crash until they fitted the wonder-tyres.
I drove to Germany and back last year on a frankly average summer tyres - the OEM fit Goodyear Excellence. Not once on that journey did I ever have anything other than confidence in the tyres, there were no problems and no grip issues despite sustained temperatures of around 0 degrees (and below for some points, too, during the day. ie, harsher than it usually is here). However luckily whilst we were there and not in need of the car it snowed - during which the Excellence tyres would have been both useless *and* illegal.
And given that all that 'review' is is one persons thoughts, it's no less valid than my experience last winter, which still backs up my view that 'snow = winter tyres'.
There is a lot of purchase justification syndrome with winter tyres. It would be very easy for me to say that with the Goodyear Ultragrip 8's fitted the Mini is better in the winter than with it's factory Potenza RE050A's. But I can't say that, becuase I've not found it to be the case. They make almost no difference - except this one time we went up on Dartmoor in the snow and they were amazing. Theres that snow again...
They really are absolutely brilliant in the snow - I've gone out of my way to experience them in the snow and have been very impressed, I also rented a 3 Series in Germany and took it to Switzerland last February - again, breathtakingly good in the snow, noisy and crap when the road was dry... from what I understand most German's can't wait to get the damn things off come Spring!
The TS830P is as close to a performance winter as you can get, the Turenza is a middle of the road midrange tyre. The Eagle F1-GSD2 is so old it was replaced before half of us even had cars. I was fitting GS-D3 to my Mondeo 11 years ago and at the time it was a HUGE leap in performance over the D2. Shock as replacing ancient and/or average tyres with really good ones results in increased performance.
And despite this only once it got to 3c did a difference begin to become apparent - and it's not as if they spent every drive thinking they'd crash until they fitted the wonder-tyres.
I drove to Germany and back last year on a frankly average summer tyres - the OEM fit Goodyear Excellence. Not once on that journey did I ever have anything other than confidence in the tyres, there were no problems and no grip issues despite sustained temperatures of around 0 degrees (and below for some points, too, during the day. ie, harsher than it usually is here). However luckily whilst we were there and not in need of the car it snowed - during which the Excellence tyres would have been both useless *and* illegal.
And given that all that 'review' is is one persons thoughts, it's no less valid than my experience last winter, which still backs up my view that 'snow = winter tyres'.
There is a lot of purchase justification syndrome with winter tyres. It would be very easy for me to say that with the Goodyear Ultragrip 8's fitted the Mini is better in the winter than with it's factory Potenza RE050A's. But I can't say that, becuase I've not found it to be the case. They make almost no difference - except this one time we went up on Dartmoor in the snow and they were amazing. Theres that snow again...
They really are absolutely brilliant in the snow - I've gone out of my way to experience them in the snow and have been very impressed, I also rented a 3 Series in Germany and took it to Switzerland last February - again, breathtakingly good in the snow, noisy and crap when the road was dry... from what I understand most German's can't wait to get the damn things off come Spring!
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[TW]Fox;28886810 said:
Continental Summers vs Continental Winters. Although I cannot make out the actual models from the tread on it's own, and it doesn't actually mention them. Although I'm not convinced Continental make an overly "weak" tyres anyway.
I've fixed the link. But here it is...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elP_34ltdWI
[TW]Fox;28887785 said:
For you.
I suspect the majority of the motoring public wouldn't specifically go out to buy the ultra high performance tyre, rather a good tyre from a well respected tyre manufacturer, that probably supplies the OE tyre for the car anyway.
In which case the story is entirely correct.
I get your point earlier about the "purchase justification" though. I justify it, even for the "few" days a year it might be needed (I'm counting 3 this season already), because it costs nothing essentially. Sure, there is a bit of outlay at the start, but overall costs are nothing, for me.
This wouldn't be true if I were buying new wheels, or swapping tyres at the start and end of each season. But running a second set of second hand wheels, in a smaller size, with winter rubber costs nothing overall. So for costing nothing, if they make any improvement in safety at all, then why wouldn't you?