"Performance" winter tyres (Gibbo?)
- Thread starter MikeHiow
- Start date
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Yes true, but beyond the benefits in low temperatures and the wet, I really don't want to end up stranded over here if/when it snows - even if it's just for a few days.
Yes, I've managed fine in the snow before but having a boat separate me from home, everything becomes more of a pain (and expensive) over here. Especially recovery.
It's a small investment, seeing as even say 5mm part worns are going to last me a couple of years.
Yes, I've managed fine in the snow before but having a boat separate me from home, everything becomes more of a pain (and expensive) over here. Especially recovery.
It's a small investment, seeing as even say 5mm part worns are going to last me a couple of years.
I'm interested in this. I've got a thinner spare set of wheels for the MX5. I doubt 8" wide wheels with T1-Rs will be much cop on a lightweight RWD if/when the snow comes and it does get very icy where I am. Wondering if its worth sticking winter tyres on the spare wheels 
Soldato
- Joined
- 11 Dec 2005
- Posts
- 11,364
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- Cheshire
Im being pro active this year. Just bought a snow mobile yo.
What did you try?
How do you find them?
Any noticeable handling differences?
What were they like on the odd warmer day?
What was the wear like?
Thanks in advance
What tyre are you on now? Some Summer tyres are not bad in the kind of snow we get in the UK, especially Southern UK.
I drove the Mustang with 600BHP on Summer tyres in our worse winter we ever had, yes I had lots of slides and nearly getting stuck moments but common sense and mometum got the car through the winter un-damaged.
However to answer your questions:-
1. After a lot of research I went with Michelin Alpin Pilot PA3's, this is a hybrid winter tyre, basically its the best performance winter tyre out there. This means on those humid winter dry days your car will not shred the tyres, wear them quick and will still have sporty handling characteristics. Yes they are softer than a Summer Tyre and the tread blocks have more movement, but less so than any other winter tyre.
2. Yes hugely, because I went from a track focused tyre, the AD08, so I lost turn in sharpness and the ride became a lot softer and quieter. Compared to a regular Summer tyre such as the Vredstein Ultrac Sessenta the Winter tyres was only marginally softer but the Michelin still beat that tyre for feedback. But compared to the track focused AD08 tyres the winter tyre was nowhere near as good in the dry and warmer conditions.
3. I drove on them upto 18c and yes they did get mushier but the car could still be driven at full bore and was still enjoyable, not as much as the AD08's of course. Wear wise they were fine, due to Michelin designing it as a sporty tyre they did not get torn apart, in the 4-5 months I had them on, they had about 2-3mm of wear, so were 6-7mm when sold I think, so they would have lasted approx 3 winters.
4. Wear, see above, for a 400BHP EVO, driven like it was stolen, wear was good.
What you have failed to ask is how they perform in snow, the answer is bloody awsome, not only did I never once have a risk of been stuck in the slightest, the EVO was even able to towe stuck cars out of ice covered car parks which had no traction, thats how good the traction was on ICE/SNOW.
So good infact it was mind boggling.
To put into perspective, on actual snow/ice they were circa 200% better than a summer tyre, easily over 300% better than the AD08's I had.
In the cold the tyre was better in the dry when temperatures went below freezing, tyre manufacturers will tell you 7c is where a winter tyre performs better, I did not find this, my AD08's which are track focused were better on dry cold days too as low as 3c, it was only sub freezing the winter tyre was better in the dry.
However in the wet the AD08's were a handful in temps sub 10c, wheras the Winter tyres were superb.
However a regular Summer tyre will work very well on wet cold days, probably right down to freezing, so it really does depend a lot on which tyre you are currently running as most Summer tyres will get you through winter fine as long as your sensible and use common sense, remember its all about momentum in snow.
For me I wanted to drive my EVO hard all year round and have lots of fun in the snow with power sliding and typically driving like a nutter, the fitting of winter tyres allowed me to do this, even in snow.