Using summer tyres all year round

I have just binned my 18" alloys for 16" on my Focus and put 205/55/16 Uniroyal Rainsport 5s on - If the forcast says it's gonna snow for a week I will put 16" steels on with snow tyres. Keep them in inspection pit in garage.
I have only used them in anger for one day in all time I have had them -The drive home from birthday do was in 3" of virgin snow and it was like driving on wet roads -It went round corners without carrying straight on - braked fine and pulled away fine - If you need them and have them on they are a godsend.
Good video above :)
 
jpaul said:
edit: I was forgetting one reason I might change
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It's funny you should say that. I've had to bin several pairs / sets of tyres with plenty of tread left over the years due to excessive cracking.

Bridgestones - Rears (Octavia)
Continentals - Full Set (Polo)
Bridgestones - Full Set (Grande Punto)
Goodyear - Full Set (these were old though on my MX5 which did next to no mileage)

These also went very hard, had next to no traction in the damp and had horrendous road noise.

Just had an advisory for the Continentals on the wifes car cracking and I'm keeping a very close eye on the cracking Bridgestones on the back of my company car.

Over the years I've also run Avon, Falken, Hankook, Kumho, Dunlop and budgets I'd never even heard of... none of which showed any signs of cracking. Still keep going back to "premium" brands now though :confused:

I do remember a freezing cold day in a car park in Wymondham where there is a slight incline to get out. I could see there were some shenanigans going on but didn't think too much of it until I saw a Merc CLK sliding backwards at a 45 degree angle. I went to drive out the car park and a woman bangs on my window. "HAS THAT GOT FOUR WHEEL DRIVE" er... no. "WELL, YOU'RE STUCK THEN!" I was in fact in a independent garages courtesy car which was running some no brand Chinese rubber. Drove straight out without issue.

Same car park later that evening when I got my car back on its Bridgestone Potenza's, flipping nightmare. I ended up finally getting it out by slipping the clutch at idle in second.
 
cuke2u said:
Used to snow in November where I lived on the Pennines and often cut off the village, usually it presented no problem the next day, guess we were tougher in Yorkshire.
There is a hill near where I live, close to the school where I once worked. It snowed one morning and everyone was trying to get up this hill, called Castle Hill by the way, and no-one could, my partner even got her low powered Fiesta stuck. I went up it just fine in my A4 2.0ltfsi front wheel drive Audi, in fact I drove past those walking who'd got their cars stuck. Parked up and went and drove the Fiesta back up also. The teachers all used to ask me to drive their cars up to the top of the hill where the school was when it snowed. Perhaps there is a art, I dunno, perhaps if you grow up without any aids then you just get used to it and get on.
Having driven cars with broken power steering, no brakes, clutch as my time as a mechanic makes you more intuitive.
These day it seem the winter tyre zealots are out to get you.
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Not Cottingham by any chance?
 
cuke2u said:
Used to snow in November where I lived on the Pennines and often cut off the village, usually it presented no problem the next day, guess we were tougher in Yorkshire.
There is a hill near where I live, close to the school where I once worked. It snowed one morning and everyone was trying to get up this hill, called Castle Hill by the way, and no-one could, my partner even got her low powered Fiesta stuck. I went up it just fine in my A4 2.0ltfsi front wheel drive Audi, in fact I drove past those walking who'd got their cars stuck. Parked up and went and drove the Fiesta back up also. The teachers all used to ask me to drive their cars up to the top of the hill where the school was when it snowed. Perhaps there is a art, I dunno, perhaps if you grow up without any aids then you just get used to it and get on.
Having driven cars with broken power steering, no brakes, clutch as my time as a mechanic makes you more intuitive.
These day it seem the winter tyre zealots are out to get you.
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There is something of an art to it - one of my brothers can drive just about anything anywhere in the snow and I seem at least above average at it myself.
 
To reiterate some of the comments on here, you can get away with summer tyres all year round depending on:

- the climate where you drive typically, the likelihood of poor driving conditions and their severity
- how often the roads you drive on are treated and populated
- the drivetrain of the car (AWD, FWD or RWD)
- the type of the car
- the make, size, pattern, tread depth and age of the summer tyre
- the skill and experience of the driver to some degree

When I lived in Wiltshire I ran summer tyres all year long and it was fine apart from two winters where I couldn't even get the car back on the drive. Rear wheel drive on 275/30/R20 summers are just snow-polishers. Back then it was fine as I could just park the car up and work from home. Now that I live in the Scottish Highlands and don't have the option of WFH and now have a 30 mile commute to work, my outlook has changed. Last February I had to abandon my car the final mile from home as I couldn't get up the untreated hill. I've since replaced the 20"s for 18" all season Cross Climate 2s because I don't want to take the risk of getting stuck as the likelihood and severity has increased greatly. I'll swap back to my 20" summer tyres when the weather changes.

In the end it's up to the driver to make the assessment of the factors and act appropriately.
 
The TRUTH About Winter, All Season and Summer Tires ❄ Tested at 0c, 2c, 6c, 10c, 15c - YouTube

I found this tyre test extremely informative when it came out, I was previously running summer/winter setup but following this have moved to summer/all season (Michelin cross climate+). That said I am only changing sets because we have a performance car, otherwise I would just use the all season option year round (and in fact I did on our previous 1.8 Civic - cross climate+ tyres again and they were excellent).

The recently released cross climate 2 are better all round than the cross climate+ even. I would just run those personally but again it really depends on where you live, what type of car and how important it is for you to be mobile in poor conditions.
 
I feel this warrants an upload on my old M3 on summers:D.

https://youtu.be/gdF3W1GOUQo

This felt much worse when I was driving.
embed
 
hawker1986 said:
The recently released cross climate 2 are better all round than the cross climate+ even. I would just run those personally but again it really depends on where you live, what type of car and how important it is for you to be mobile in poor conditions.
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Even on 1.8 civic, problem is, it seems a bit of a gamble in terms of suddenly finding either the motorway/nsl road noise, or, summer handling were significantly degraded with CC2's ?
 
cuke2u said:
Used to snow in November where I lived on the Pennines and often cut off the village, usually it presented no problem the next day, guess we were tougher in Yorkshire.
There is a hill near where I live, close to the school where I once worked. It snowed one morning and everyone was trying to get up this hill, called Castle Hill by the way, and no-one could, my partner even got her low powered Fiesta stuck. I went up it just fine in my A4 2.0ltfsi front wheel drive Audi, in fact I drove past those walking who'd got their cars stuck. Parked up and went and drove the Fiesta back up also. The teachers all used to ask me to drive their cars up to the top of the hill where the school was when it snowed. Perhaps there is a art, I dunno, perhaps if you grow up without any aids then you just get used to it and get on.
Having driven cars with broken power steering, no brakes, clutch as my time as a mechanic makes you more intuitive.
These day it seem the winter tyre zealots are out to get you.
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Most of the people I have seen around here getting into problems are either revving the hell out of the engine which only succeeds in spinning the wheels or 4x4 drivers who think they are indestructible and end up in a ditch because they drive too fast for the conditions thinking that because they have a 4x4 they can't get stuck. It's no wonder this country comes to a halt with a small amount of snow.
 
Greebo said:
old cars with tram tyres were much better in the snow than modern low profile tyres, certainly. Ive seen a citreon 2cv overtake modern cars like Bmws and Audis who couldnt get up icy, snowy slops and the 2cv made it no problems.
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Very true, I had a 2CV on test and a friend was in a 911 Turbo dropping it back at another customers, following me on a streaming wet M56. He flashed me several times and when we got to the Hale turn off I pulled over and asked what was up. He claimed he'd been in an aquaplaning situation several times and was getting the old damp palms feeling. At no time had I gone over seventy, if indeed the crate could have done so. One of the few times I felt happy driving a technically totally incorrect FWD car, especially a French one. Sometimes tall profile narrow tyres are just what the doctor ordered ;) What's the margin on car tyres these days?
 
Chris Wilson said:
Very true, I had a 2CV on test and a friend was in a 911 Turbo dropping it back at another customers, following me on a streaming wet M56. He flashed me several times and when we got to the Hale turn off I pulled over and asked what was up. He claimed he'd been in an aquaplaning situation several times and was getting the old damp palms feeling. At no time had I gone over seventy, if indeed the crate could have done so. One of the few times I felt happy driving a technically totally incorrect FWD car, especially a French one. Sometimes tall profile narrow tyres are just what the doctor ordered ;) What's the margin on car tyres these days?
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Having had a 911 turbo, not sure it ever awuaplanmed, also figured that even though the rear tyres were a foot wide (each), that the engine weight helped shift the water.
 
Snow tyres make a massive difference... in the snow. I had a set for the GT86 and could cruise over snowy patches where others were getting stuck. AWD alone won't help all that much on snow without the proper tyres either so don't rely on that.

But in most of the UK it's just cold and wet so good "summer" tyres (summer tyres are actually wet tyres in this part of the world) are enough.
 
FlapR said:
Winter tyres are a complete waste of money unless you live in the countryside.
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I'm happy to have a second set for the winter. The i3's 5J eco tyres have minimal grip at the best of times, so actually being able to drive properly thanks to winter tyres in the cold months makes a massive difference.
 
For most people in the UK having a second set of winter tyres is overkill.

I'd only consider them if you live in an area with a high likelihood of snow AND you have a job/personal reasons that mean you're likely to need to drive regardless of conditions.

I've never run anything other than summer tyres in 30+ years of driving and have never had an issue. You just need to slow right down as they don't have the grip of winter tyres.
 
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