spec me some snow chains in prep for the winter

[taximike]

I couldn't be bothered buying snow tires or chains, I saw the bad weather coming and just bought a Jeep, drove it for 2/3 months in the snow and ice, and sold if for twice what I bought it for without doing anything to it come the end of the poor weather Much nicer than messing around in a standard car in the snow.

Yeah I remember in March Audi Quattros were going for a MASSIVE premium!! British public too retarded to realise that tyres are what make the difference not AWD. Most of the reason the jeep was good in the snow was because it probably had offroad (i.e. M+S) tyres!

 

[Moeks]

Really I suppose it depends weather it costs you more to buy the tyres or be off work ...or whatever it is you need to do.

What overlag said is true of many cars, you can manage it's just tricky and requires some forethought, with a rwd car though ...you aren't even going to get that far ...in my experience a lot of the time you just can't move on the slightest incline, unless you can hit it with some momentum and then you'll go up sideways, I have done this ...actually driven up a snowy hill in my 330CI a few years ago looking out of the side-window ...it was kind of fun to do that although I was only going about 6mph and I had very little controll at all ...I could not straighten the car up, it was all I could do to keep using the throttle in such a way that I didn't spin completely.

If you don't have any momentum and you hit some sort of an incline, you probably aren't going anywhere at all, you'll just sit there spinning your wheels.

Contrary to popular belief though I think autos are perhaps a bit easier in the snow than manuals, because you can shift manually so that's not an issue anyway, but one thing you can do with an auto that you can't with a manual is the old rocking technique to get out of a rut or something, by switching from D to R repeatedly and causing the car to try to move backwards and forwards ...which sets up enough momentum to get out of a small rut quite often ..saves you getting the old carpet and the grit out. This doesn't really help much though when you can't really go anywhere, even driving down a very slushy road you'll be struggling to stop the back stepping out ...yet if you go too slowly you'll probably get stuck again. It's a PITA.

 

[Sin_Chase]

I coped in Jersey (HELLLO HILLS) in the S2000 on RE050s and did not consider chains once. They would have been pretty naff anyway as most of our issues were sheet ice, not snow.

I was a BIT too adventurous and tried to get out of the valley on one of the steeper hills, got about 100yds and promptly slid backwards down it. Took another, less steep route and was fine.

I imagine half of your issue is not knowing how to correctly drive in friction compromised conditions. What approach are you taking in attempting to get up the hill?

 

[Moeks]

Well now the major problem I have is actually all the other traffic around me and parked cars etc ...I could take rather greater liberties if they weren't there. Simply gaining traction at all is a problem, last time I was running on Pirelli P6000s.

My technique depends on the road, I do it by feel ...typically anything more than the very tiniest touch of the throttle when in D will start stepping the back out ...or spin the wheels, I've been somewhat successful just letting the torque converter and engine compression haul me along in D ...but this isn't enough for a steeper hill.

Going down inclines I of course manually shift into the lowest gear I can select, which is 2nd in the Jag (you can select 1st in a BMW though) and try and make the most of engine breaking, although driving in 2nd down a hill is still too fast often in such conditions, but using the foot brake is rarely a good idea.

I have no set approach, it really depends on what's around me and what the road feels like. I don't just sit there booting it and digging a hole. Basically my approach really revolves around absolutely minimal throttle inputs and as little use of the foot break as possible ...to try and keep everything as straight and under control as I can. I have tried going backwards before when possible so the car is being pulled rather than pushed, although lack of any real weight over the back wheels limits the effectiveness of this ...and it's usually not possible anyway due to the conditions around me not allowing for such manoeuvres.

Cars parked at the sides of the roads are a big issue, I can sometimes manage some hills by applying more power with the DSC off and letting the wheels spin but controlling it enough to allow me to go up the hill sideways, like I mentioned with the BMW ....but if there are parked cars or the road is narrow or there is other stuff around to hit ...this is too risk ...and there usually is.

 

[Captain_Slick]

Twice as costly half as often is no more expensive.

The right tyre (for there are not just two tyres in the world) will suit our cold wet roads from December to March and help greatly if it does snow.

As Fox pointed out, the temperatures we get here (or where I and most people in the UK live anyway) aren't low enough to make buying winter tyres worthwhile over just using summer/all weather ones.

If you live in Scotland/Canada/Norway/etc, great go for it.

 

[Captain_Slick]

Two sets of tyres last twice as long as one set though. There are extra costs, but they are minimal:
Based on 10k/pa in an E46 in my case these are my extra costs:
Storage - this is free for me
Extra fuel - this is MINIMAL, I never noticed it at all in my audi, but potentially ~1% perhaps an extra £10 pa (only half your mileage pa is on the winter tyres remember)
Rim depreciation - I bought some second hand BMW rims on ebay for £100. If I keep the car another 3 years, I expect to sell those rims for maybe £50. Extra £16.66 pa
Tyres cost ~30% more per set - assuming I can make two sets of tyres last 3 years, that's pretty easy. Summers: £80x4=300, winters: £100x4=400. so £33.44 pa extra over just using two sets of summers.

So in total, I think having winter tyres will cost me about £60 per year extra. To be honest - I think that is worth it for the extra grip you get when its cold/wet and the fact you know if it snows you don't need to worry at all. That's for premium tyres, V rated, 205/55/16. If you have a Golf or something on 195/65/R15 and you only want H rated, your annual cost will probably be about half what mine is.

You do realise that you're likely to use them for 4 days a year, if at all? So that's £500 for 4 or so days. That was my point. You'd be better off jetting off to the med.

Where do you live? The Arctic?

 

[Westyfield2]

You do realise that you're likely to use them for 4 days a year, if at all? So that's £500 for 4 or so days. That was my point. You'd be better off jetting off to the med.

Where do you live? The Arctic?

It's below 7C that Winter tyres beat Summer tyres, so actually anytime between October and April here in the UK .

We're probably gonna stick a set of Pirelli Sottozeros on in November, though I've just seen http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/parts-and-accessories/2010-08/bmw-winter

 

[Lashout_UK]

Contrary to popular belief though I think autos are perhaps a bit easier in the snow than manuals,

Indeed, very much so in fact. You don't have to think about it, you get a guaranteed smooth delivery of power with no sudden shifts or surge - and it also means you can concentrate more on what's going on around you, steering, and braking.

That was one of the things I loved about the Jeep (which had Contiental ContiTracs on it by the way, a mixed tire summer/winter tire designed to give a quiet, car-like ride, not out-and-out 4x4 tires) - you just put it in drive, selected part or full time 4WD depending on how bad it was, and it just got on with it. No grief, no painful trying to judge the amount of traction at the driven wheels, no precariously trying to match the revs, clutch and brakes, just squeeze the pedal gently and off it would go

I even ended up on absolutely lethal sheet ice once - the snow had been thawing and water had run down and pooled across a junction, then frozen again - you couldn't even walk across it and snow had fallen overnight too, obscuring it's presence. I realised something was wrong when the steering went light so just started braking and the Jeep eventually stopped moving - then I just dropped it into low range, into reverse, and just backed clean off it without touching the pedals. Couldn't have done it in anything else

 

[Captain_Slick]

It's below 7C that Winter tyres beat Summer tyres, so actually anytime between October and April here in the UK .

Do they really though? I don't mean in tests conducted in laboratories. On a relatively cold dry December morning that could easily pass for October or March, what is the actual difference between winter tyres and summer tyres? Are people crashing and dying because they're using summer tyres over the (excluding the few days that we get ice/snow obv) winter?

 

[Westyfield2]

Do they really though? I don't mean in tests conducted in laboratories. On a relatively cold dry December morning that could easily pass for October or March, what is the actual difference between winter tyres and summer tyres? Are people crashing and dying because they're using summer tyres over the (excluding the few days that we get ice/snow obv) winter?

I'm not a Tyre nerd, but everything I've read says that when the temperature is below 7C Winter tyres will perform better (stopping distances etc) than summer tyres, even if there's no snow. It's because of both the rubber compound and the tread pattern.

Here's a few relevant links:

http://www.pirelli.co.uk/web/car-suv-van/winter_collection/winter_why/default.page
http://www.tyres-online.co.uk/techinfo/winter.asp
http://www.classicandperformancecar.com/features/theknowledge/214260/winter_tyres.html
http://www.autocar.co.uk/blogs/stil...010/01/13/just-how-good-are-winter-tyres.aspx
http://www.conti-online.com/generat...es/winter_tyres/why_winter/why_winter_en.html
http://www.carpages.co.uk/bmw/bmw-winter-tyres-05-08-10.asp
http://www.tyremen.co.uk/winter-tyre-10-tips.html
http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/safety/winter-tyres-in-the-uk.html
http://www.tirerack.com/winter/tech/

If I remember I'll have a chat with Dad's mate at Avon sometime and see what he reckons.

 

[Captain_Slick]

I just think the differences in anything but extreme weather are blown out of proportion for various reasons.

 

[The Mad Rapper]

I'm not a Tyre nerd, but everything I've read says that when the temperature is below 7C Winter tyres will perform better (stopping distances etc) than summer tyres, even if there's no snow. It's because of both the rubber compound and the tread pattern.

So how does the compound and tread pattern make a difference exactly? I don't really understand how a different compound makes a difference to how well the tyre grips the road. Also, driving in snow/sleet is one thing, but what about the next day when the road has frozen during the night and it's ice central? Are winter tyres still a good option then?

We had a nightmare last winter, we live at the top of a valley and it always snows heavily here. We were snowed in for 3 days, and when we were able to get out in the car my heart was in my mouth. I'd really like to be prepared this year, so if snow tyres are a better option than chains, then we'll just buy four new wheels with the best winter tyre we can get and keep them in the garage until the weather starts to get cold, then pop them on.

 

[[TW]Fox]

The comparisons between winter and summer tyres at above 1c are so flawed as they don't mention which tyres are tested, so we have to conclude its just some average normal tyre. So how much of the difference at between 1-6c wet braking distance would vanish if the summer tyres were leading high performance tyres?

 

[Dave M]

The comparisons between winter and summer tyres at above 1c are so flawed as they don't mention which tyres are tested, so we have to conclude its just some average normal tyre. So how much of the difference at between 1-6c wet braking distance would vanish if the summer tyres were leading high performance tyres?

Yes, they're flawed because there are so many tyres and so many different road conditions it's almost impossible to know which is best, never mind how they'll behave in your size and on your car.

Just like buying any tyre really

For what it's worth having decent premium brand tyres will be a huge advantage whatever the weather. Also ensure you have lots of tread left, important for any wet conditions but critical if there is slush about.

I have gone through worn FK-452s (a joke on snow), Michellin Alpin Primacy (awesome grip on cold wet mornings) and Toyo T1-Rs and the best grip was from the Michellins (as you should expect).

I'd like to have tried Michellin Pilot summer tyres but they don't do them in the size of my 'summer rims'. I suspect they'd be awesome but you just don't know.