Winter tires

Another well thought out post from fox there. Winter tyres won't stop you getting stuck in the snow, they won't make you a better driver, and they won't make a RWD drive car suddenly like a WRC car with full Finland setup.
If people learned how to drive properly the wouldn't need "winter tyres"
Lets face it, most people on here are interested in cars, and i'd like to believe are better than average drivers because of that (i believe the two are linked) So any of us that get things a bit wrong in wintery conditions, chances are we were mucking about a bit or going a bit faster than we should have.

Just to add to the mix here, have you noticed how most cheap linglong tyres are rated Mud/Snow or "all weather tyres"? Looking at some treadpaterns I do believe that those cheapo ditchfinders may give slightly more grip in snow compared with some high end tread patters.
 
realscot said:
Just to add to the mix here, have you noticed how most cheap linglong tyres are rated Mud/Snow or "all weather tyres"? Looking at some treadpaterns I do believe that those cheapo ditchfinders may give slightly more grip in snow compared with some high end tread patters.
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I heard this is because the testing regieme for approval on M/S tyres is lower than summer tyres, therefore its easier to get a tyre to market..
 
[TW]Fox;19845401 said:
Of course they do - every tyre they sell is the best tyre ever. Pirelli think the P6000 is amazing, for example. Linglong are convinced the tyres they make are the best.
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Yeah but they reckon if you only use one set of tyres in the UK then Winter-contact's are better than Sport-contacts and Premium-contacts, and I thought they were pretty good, /shrug
 
[TW]Fox;19845006 said:
If I lived in Aberdeen I might have a different opinion, but as long as I live in the South of England, I won't. There is far too much bandwagoning on the internet these days.
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And thats just it in a nutshell! There really is a large difference from the north of scotland to the south of England. I think that people see winter tyres as a wierd sort of status symbol. "Look at me, I can afford 2 sets of tyres, aren't I posh!"

Its decidedly odd! Even in the North East, we get so little snow, we did get a lot the past couple of years, but it vanished rather quickly. Even in the cold, my car is just fine. Its fine up until -5, lower than that, I have not used it in, it just rarely gets that cold. Yes, some parts of the roads can by skitey. But then I drive knowing this, like you say, you drive according to the conditions. The people who generally have the accidents, are the ones who are not. (I say generally because of 1 road coming out of my estate which is very very steep, visibility on the main 30 mph road is zero due to a house on the corner, and ice makes it very dangerous, it nearly caught me out, despite being overtaken by a frozen tortoise at the time!).
 
I love the diagrams on the Conti site.

'Summer tyre'

Which 'summer tyre? Because even in the Conti range the stopping distance between a Contisport Contact 5P will be light years ahead of that on an EcoContact 3!


Maybe a WinterContact is better all round than an EcoContact. But I couldnt care less as I don't fit EcoContacts to my car (I've driven a 530d on Eco Contacts, it was DSC-tastic, so it wouldnt be hard for a winter tyre to be better than that summer tyre in some circumstances!).

Why do they never tell you which summer tyre? The only time I've ever seen a summer tyre actually named it's been some crappy mid range tyre.
 
Having read the whole page the blurb from continental is that winter tyres are better any time it goes below 7 degrees and in the wet, and if you only have one set of tyres get winter ones. Hmm, think I may go for a pair of winter contacts next time I buy tyres as im in Wales so its wet here more than dry ^^
 
As above really, if you live in cumbria or the highlands or some where, it may be worth getting some steel rims with winter tyres fitted, so you can swap em over.

Otherwise I would just go for some good all rounders, as dedicated winter tyres are not exactly great generally speaking.
 
ubersonic said:
Having read the whole page the blurb from continental is that winter tyres are better any time it goes below 7 degrees and in the wet, and if you only have one set of tyres get winter ones. Hmm, think I may go for a pair of winter contacts next time I buy tyres as im in Wales so its wet here more than dry ^^
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I have absolutely no stats or evidence to back it up - and I never will because they never test them or publish them - but I bet if you drove two identical Mercedes C Class cars at 70mph in the wet when the temperature was 6c, one fitted with SportContact 5P and one fitted with whatever the best winter tyre is, the SportContact one would pull up quicker.

Quite why they wont test this I don't know.

Why is it when selling summer tyres they are all very different and some are much better than others, yet when plugging winter tyres suddenly all summer tyres are the same and morph into one...

It would be so easy for them to head down to the dedicated Contidrome testing facility on a cold January morning and show us the numbers behind the performance differentials between the winter range and the high performance wet weather range. Yet nobody does this? Does nobody wonder why? They fall over themselves to bring out tests showing that some summer tyres are far better than others and all tyres are far from equal... yet all summer tyres are the same when its time to flog winter tyres to people for whom extreme driving is sitting on the M25 in the rain when it's wet and cold outside..

In one of the Autocar tyre tests - at the Contidrome - a number of years back, the difference in stopping distance between the winning tyre (Which was an Eagle F1 GS-D3 i think) and the losing tyre (Some sort of high end Dunlop?) in the wet at 70mph was a staggering 2 car lengths. This is a huge differential - yet are we to beleive that if it was 7.5c outside both cars would pull up in exactly the same distance, and that this distance would be embarrased by a winter tyre?

Snake oil. Unless you get proper winters or spend a lot of time driving in sub zero conditions or on ice and slush. My opinion, and thats all it will ever be - my opinion - is that if its just wet outside, a high performance normal tyre with particular wet weather ability is the best thing to be on. Shame nobody will ever produce the figures to either prove me wrong or prove me right.

It's how I've always chosen my tyres - which one offers the best wet weather performance - and its how I will until something more credible than the internet telling me I need multiple sets of tyres for the harsh winters we face here in the UK - comes along.
 
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fadetoblack said:
2 same spec BMW 1 on winter tyres 1 on summer tyres


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Which summer tyres? P6000's? Wan Li? Federal? EcoContacts? SportContacts? Pilot Super Sports?

You could get the same results by running one car with Michelin Energy and one with Michelin Super Sports yet both are summer tyres?

It seems the key in the test to the better performance is that the rubber is softer. Hmm, where have we heard about softer rubber before... Oh yea, performance tyres the general public dont fit but most of us here do fit that last 10k tops but are soft...

I dont expect people to agree with me but surely you can see where I am coming from. Why is it always 'summer tyres' in these tests not 'A Continental ContiSport Contact 5P was pitched against...'.
 
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[TW]Fox;19845634 said:
Which summer tyres? P6000's? Wan Li? Federal? EcoContacts? SportContacts? Pilot Super Sports?

You could get the same results by running one car with Michelin Energy and one with Michelin Super Sports yet both are summer tyres?

It seems the key in the test to the better performance is that the rubber is softer. Hmm, where have we heard about softer rubber before... Oh yea, performance tyres the general public dont fit but most of us here do fit that last 10k tops but are soft...

I dont expect people to agree with me but surely you can see where I am coming from. Why is it always 'summer tyres' in these tests not 'A Continental ContiSport Contact 5P was pitched against...'.
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In some ways I do agree but I do put winter tyres on from October till April;)

Do you think it will ever be law over here to be made to fit them??
 
[TW]Fox;19845490 said:
Good points
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My statement you quoted was meant to be tongue in cheek, I don't have much intention of running winter tyres all year :P

According to the tests at tyrereviews.co.uk (dunno how accurate their tests are) the stopping distance of the Winter Contact TS 830 compared to the Sport Contact 2's was better in the wet but worse in the dry, sadly they didn't test the SC2's in the snow so can't make a comparison there, either way it sucks that there aren't any in depth comparisons available, would be interesting to know wither it is just snake oil.
 
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