Two winter tyres better than no winter tyres?

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Until you have to make an emergency stop on snow or ice, with winters on the front, the car will swap ends and spin as the rears will have zero grip. With winters on the rear, the car will simply plough straight ahead as the rears will never be able to stop it alone. The ESP will not work either as ESP requires the tyres to have some grip or it is useless. Having winters on only 2 wheels is for the mentally deranged!

Russ

Never had a problem in all the years doing this :thumb:
 
That’s what I was hoping for as there is no explanation I can find, or demonstration where it shows how a front wheel drive car handles with rear winters on.
I think this is because no one would think of doing that in the first place.

What purpose would winter tyres serve on the rear wheels of a FWD car?

The rear wheels are neither steering not driven. If anything, it will make it impossible to start off in the snow, with the front wheels slipping witn poor grip, while the rear wheels firmly dig their heels in...

So not sure how a FWD car will behave with winter tyres on the rear - but then what would you be trying to achieve bu doing this anyway?
 
I think this is because no one would think of doing that in the first place.

What purpose would winter tyres serve on the rear wheels of a FWD car?

So not sure how a FWD car will behave with winter tyres on the rear - but then what would you be trying to achieve bu doing this anyway?
The result is - Not going anywhere hence safe.
 
Having 2 winter tyres on your drive wheels are def better than having none, every year i put a pair on my drive wheels, it helps me get going in the snow as my drive comes out at the bottom of a hill and without them i would never get up it, but the problem comes when folk get over confident and try and drive too fast and lose traction on the none winter tyres. As long as you drive slowly and very carefully you will be fine
Having only 2 winter tyres on drive wheels is better than having none but only on slush. In snowy winter conditions like on the continent 2&2 wont help much.
I wouldn’t dare to cross the channel in winter without all 4 winter tyres and when going on skiing + wheel chains.
 
The result is - Not going anywhere hence safe.
Yes, but why would you want to go into the expense of doing that in the first place? At best it would not be less safe than 4 summer tyres. But it is unlikely to be any better or safer....
 
Never had a problem in all the years doing this :thumb:

You probably won't have a problem either, until someone walks onto the road in front of you and you cannot stop safely. Rather you than me.

Russ
 
I’m with you on just having 2 as opposed to 4. If I’d just bought 2 when the winter tyre fad started I’d only have to contend with a small pile of tyres sitting in my garage doing nothing. Only used them once 4 winters ago!!!


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I’m with you on just having 2 as opposed to 4. If I’d just bought 2 when the winter tyre fad started I’d only have to contend with a small pile of tyres sitting in my garage doing nothing. Only used them once 4 winters ago!!!


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If you live up north, you might want to consider the Michelin Crossclimate.

If you live down south, you will be fine with summer tyres all year round, on the premise that you can avoud travelling on the odd day when it is actually snowing or icey (3-4 days a year).

As for cold weather... down south we get -5 degrees at most, and even this is quite rare.
 
Ask anyone who has to regularly use their car to get from A to B in seriously wintry conditions- no matter what -- they will tell you their primary concern will always be ---TRACTION This would dictate that ,handling problems or not, if limited to two winter tyres they are going on the driven wheels. Two winter tyres on the rear of an automatic RWD Mercedes will transform it from a fishtailing nightmare going nowhere into a vehicle manageable with care. Of course 4 tyres would be better but 2 on the rear are better than none assuming you must use the car. The best advice advice I received about driving in snow and ice, however your car is shod, is to anticipate and drive as if you have no brakes- because quite frequently --you wont. ;)
 
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Ask anyone who has to regularly use their car to get from A to B in seriously wintry conditions- no matter what -- they will tell you their primary concern will always be ---TRACTION This would dictate that ,handling problems or not, if limited to two winter tyres they are going on the driven wheels. Two winter tyres on the rear of an automatic RWD Mercedes will transform it from a fishtailing nightmare going nowhere into a vehicle manageable with care. Of course 4 tyres would be better but 2 on the rear are better than none assuming you must use the car. The best advice advice I received about driving in snow and ice, however your car is shod, is to anticipate and drive as if you have no brakes- because quite frequently --you wont. ;)

That was exactly the point i was trying to make, you did put it much more eloquently than i could have
 
I think insurance companies would take a very dim view of only having two winter tyres on. It really is a daft idea and is not to be recommended.
 
Those videos are completely pointless. No comparison is made to having 4 summer tyres or having rear winters on a front wheel drive car. I wonder why?

Is a front wheel drive car more likely to understeer with grippier rears? This is the main question to be asking. If it doesn’t then you gain a massive benefit reducing oversteer, something easily done with 4 summers while braking round a bend.
 
I think insurance companies would take a very dim view of only having two winter tyres on. It really is a daft idea and is not to be recommended.

This is what I hear...opinions.
 
Those videos are completely pointless. No comparison is made to having 4 summer tyres or having rear winters on a front wheel drive car.

It's the first part of the second video? Passat with rear winters.
 
...which shows that it doesn't perform as well as 4 winter tyres (we all knew that). If they had sent round the Passat with 4 summer tyres then the video would have been worth watching. Maybe the 4 summer tyres fared worse still, maybe some oversteer? Maybe the summers were so bad that the difference between the 4 winters and 2 winters didnt look so bad and therefore would have hurt their sales...who knows.
 
It also shows the level of understeer experienced by the mismatch. Short of being spoonfed by a video it seems the explanations of the physics behind why are wasted.
 
I think insurance companies would take a very dim view of only having two winter tyres on. It really is a daft idea and is not to be recommended.
You're not legally required to use them, so it would just be an excuse to get out of paying.
 

While this is great for showing us what we already know about handling characteristics depending on whether better or worse tyres are placed to the from or rear, it does not offer any insight, that I could see, that relates to the original question.
The main question is whether putting better rear tyres on exacerbates the negative influences of worse front tyres. This is not addressed in any of the videos or on Oponeo. In fact it does highlight the benefits of having improved grip at the rear but does not suggest this causes any detriment to the fronts. In other words driving would be safer having winter tyres on the rear and summers on the front than just keeping all 4 summers as oversteer would be reduced.
 
Anyone with a rear wheel drive Mercedes on winter tyres which can out accelerate and outbrake a BMW X3 4x4 in 6" of snow knows their value. As the Scandanavians say, "winter tyres first, 4 wheel drive second", and they see more snow & ice than most.

Russ
 

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