Why the ballyheck do Brits not use winter tyres?
- Thread starter Dr Jack
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Soldato
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Nothing to do with snow - Most British people can't drive for **** in the first place. Putting Winter tyres on would make no difference.
This is the UK - You can have thick snow one side of town and bright warm sunshine on the other.
Which is fine if you have a garage.
What are you supposed to do if you live in a studio flat and can't fit four tyres in your car boot?
Surely that depends entirely on your annual mileage. Say I put winters on the car for 3 months, that saves me a whopping 1200 miles going onto my summer tyres. Given the average wear-rate of the summers being around 15,000 to 20,000 miles before they are getting close to the wear markers (I always change before the markers), then using winter tyres changes nothing, I'll be getting rid of the car before the tyres wear out even if used for 12 months of the year.
Then I have even more hassle than just storing and changing them over, I've got to sell part-used winter tyres (assuming they are a different size to whatever car I get next). Had I bought a set for my A4, they'd have been useless to me now.
Associate
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If this is so much of a concern to people just buy some Michelin CrossClimates and be done with it. They're a superb all year round tyre.
Shawrey
Shawrey
They don't say what temperature they test at. At low temperatures (7 degrees is the usually quoted value) winter tyres are better in the wet.
So if it was made a legality
To go to the shops in the middle of winter with no snow I would have to spend ~£230 on tyres for my ~£1200 fiesta to go to the gym 10 minutes away whilst having little to no increased safety as there is no snow?
To go to the shops in the middle of winter with no snow I would have to spend ~£230 on tyres for my ~£1200 fiesta to go to the gym 10 minutes away whilst having little to no increased safety as there is no snow?
Ah fair enough. I wonder if there are tests at different temps with the same tyres, be interesting to see the differences.
Man of Honour
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Even up here they are not necessary. If you have decent tyres on the car and drive in accordance with the conditions you should have no problems. My cars have all been front wheel drive and I have never had any problems in snow. Most crashes around here in snow tend to be people who have 4x4's who think they are invincible.
Soldato
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The question is did he have summer or winter tyres onWe had our first day of snow yesterday and this happened on the school run. Young lad and lack of experience.
Saying that it is the first day of snow we have had in several years so to splash out on sever hundred pounds of wheels and tyres seems a waste. Driving around in 4th gear and 30mph while keeping the distance seems to work just as well.
. Also from my experience, winters are nice but once its warm again they feel like jelly (10 degrees plus), which we had a few weeks ago. It is one of those things that i cant say either way tho as unless you drive the exact same route with both sets its hard to compare.I have a spare set of 14" wheels which will fit both of my cars, I'd been thinking about putting some winter tyres on them and leaving them down the side of the garage for winter use on whichever car needs them, but I didn't do it in time for this little flurry. 
I would be very interested to see a comparison of e.g. <insert winter tyre here> against something like the Goodyear Eagle F1 AS3, or Michelin PS4S or Continental SC6 (i.e. not a run-of-the-mill budget or mid-range tyre)
Also many of these tests are conducted on cold tyres and the reality is that tyres aren't cold after a few miles. Yes, accidents can and do happen very close to home, but as an example today I've been driving in temperatures that started off at -3 degrees and warmed up to a balmy 0 degrees. After about 3 miles all four tyres were 12 degrees or warmer...
I have a spare set of 14" wheels which will fit both of my cars, I'd been thinking about putting some winter tyres on them and leaving them down the side of the garage for winter use on whichever car needs them, but I didn't do it in time for this little flurry.
exactly why I don't bother
the "oh noes it snowed for one day, lemme fit my winters on... 2hrs later it's dry again"...but otherwise a very mediocre tyre without the true benefits of a UHP tyre or a winter tyre, making them average at everything.
Even less often here in the South West
They forecasted heavy snow for today, Wed and Thu so far looking out my front window I have bright blue skies hardly a cloud in sight and am seriously considering getting the bike out for a spin.
That review fails to mention the temperature that the testing was undertaken at. If it was at 15 degrees or similar, then yes, you would expect the reference summer tyre to outperform the winter tyres, in almost all tests. The wet braking included.
This is how I view it too. I have had summer and winter wheels for pretty much all my cars for the last 8 years. I am lucky enough to have the space to store multiple sets of wheels though. I have 4 sets in storage just now for example.
But as has been pointed out, the winter wear on the winter tyres generally offsets the wear your not doing on the summer tyres. So tyre costs are minimal. And if you buy wheels second hand, they can generally be sold on for roughly the same as they were bought for, thus offsetting the wheel costs.
Sure, there is hassle involved on swapping wheels. But that's twice a year, for 45 mins or so. So hardly something to be overly concerned about.
Until the temperatures rise up to high single figures half way through winter for a week or so (as happens every year) and you need to emergency stop on your winter tyres in the dry. Then there's concern, quite a few metres of it.
The usage case for winter tyres is a bit more complicated than "only need to change them once a year, and then there's no net increase in wear so the cost is the same". If you're really going to get the best out of your multiple sets of tyres it is not as straight forward as switching them out in November and forgetting about them until March, the climate in the UK is simply not suited to that.
Associate
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Isn't that the point... to be a jack of all trades master of none?
How many average Joe type people will be fitting the likes of Michelin PS4S's to a Kia Picanto?! Literally no-one. In this instance the CrossClimates would be a very sensible choice.
Shawrey
You're assuming that the climate in the South West of England somehow is applicable to the rest of the UK there? I can tell you, it's pretty hoofing cold up here in the North East of Scotland right now. And sure, there has been the occasional warm day, but rarely are we talking double figures warm between November and March. Sure, winter tyres are best below 7 degrees, but the few days of winter we are at 9 degrees, well they still aren't terrible. Of course, there are good and bad winter tyres, just as there are good and bad summer tyres. And my good quality winter tyres may well be better at 9 degrees than the utter crap most people seem to put on their cars all year round anyway.
I mean, my Edition 30 was rare for me in that I didn't have winter wheels for that car, but I did have PS4's on it, and it wasn't needed everyday, I have my Alhambra that is wearing winter boots for the days where even the mighty PS4's might have struggled.
I am currently prepping my new wheels for my A4 Avant Quattro, which do actually have winter tyres on them. They were on the wheels when I bought them, and certainly wouldn't personally have put winter tyres on 19" wheels, but I will run them for a month or so before putting on proper summer tyres. I am considering whether to put PS4's on them or not, we will see. But the original 17" wheels might see some cross-climates and go on the Alhambra, while the winter wheels for that car might well go the A4 next winter.