Tyre Test, Winter v Summer v 4WD

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I've been driving in all the worst weather and not got stuck becasue my summer tyres can't hack it (they're bad, but not useless).

All the delays I've had are either log jammed roads due to lorries and inexperienced car drivers blocking the roundabouts and junctions. Having winter tyres woundn't have helped me in those delays.

I'm sure winter tyres are great but they are also, too a greater extent, a howling waste of money, imho. Cue angry 'ive spent £5000 on winter tyres so they must be worth it' points of view.

Now all season tyres make much more sense....

The issue isn't primarily one of getting stuck, it is stopping and steering; clearly however traction is hugely better. I've just replaced my worn set of Vredestein SnowTrac 2. They were down to 3.5-4mm. The traction on them was still fine I towed a loaded car trailer up a hill on an unmade driveway to a farm with them without any bother at all 2 weeks ago. However you could just feel the front end sliding sideways when turning on snow. Having had them on from new I knew they were past their best so I replaced them.

As to being a "howling waste" of money I beg to differ. I looked back at when I bought them; I bought the original set at the end of 2004. I then replaced two of them in 2007 as they were getting low (low being 4mm on a winter tyre). Since November 2004 the car has done 163000 miles. I put 4 new tyres on the car the other day and kept the 2 2007 tyres as spares.

The mileage the car does is fairly even through the year and it generally runs on winter tyres from sometime in November to the end of March. I've therefore worn 4 tyres out completely in approximately 67K miles and the other two are at 5.5-6mm I don't think that is bad going on a heavy RWD car. The car is much heavier on its drive axle tyres than on the fronts. In reality that means the fronts have lasted 60K miles, the rears are doing about 30K. I tend to never rotate tyres. They're marked where they come from on the car and remain there for life. These tyres have been everywhere, from Norway at -20 to being hammered on a German autobahn at 120mph. On one occasion I subjected them to a 40 odd degree temperature differential in the space of three days by driving from Oslo to Lisbon with one hotel stop.

Interesting last March I put two new Pirelli P6000 on the back axle and when I took them off the other day they were remarkably low. Not illegal but probably at 3mm or so. They've done 18K miles or so.
 
I take it all back. I'm going to spend money I don't need to on tyres designed for Norway and everytime the temp guage says 7 C I'll sit there with a smug grin as I trundle into work while all the other drivers ...errr... also trundle into work?!?! with no problems.

It snows for for how many days? The main roads through leeds were covered for hours, not days... isn't this just a panic response?
 
I take it all back. I'm going to spend money I don't need to on tyres designed for Norway and everytime the temp guage says 7 C I'll sit there with a smug grin as I trundle into work while all the other drivers ...errr... also trundle into work?!?! with no problems.

It snows for for how many days? The main roads through leeds were covered for hours, not days... isn't this just a panic response?

I think it's quite possible to make a case for not buying winter tyres based on an accurate understanding of the characteristics of winter tyres and individual driving patterns.

This displays somewhat limited understanding of the attributes of a winter tyre and thus makes a flawed case.
 
It strikes me you'll never get some people to agree with the fitting of winter tyres. I suppose it ultimately depends where you live and whether you get paid if you have days off or not. I'm self employed and live 2 miles down a country lane, having 2 days off last time it snowed cost me a lot. If I had to have a few days off a year because of snow I would lose more than the cost of a set of tyres. I bought a Mercedes W212 because I wanted to drive a comfortable car, so that puts a winter hack out of the running. I do not like 4 wheel drives personally so they're out too. Consequently I have ordered 4 smaller rims and winter tyres so that I can continue to drive the car I want to drive not sit spinning my wheels on the hill outside my digs.
As for those proclaiming just take a day off it doesn't matter, obviously you've never run your own company. Tell that to your boss next time it snows & you sit at home expecting to be paid, you wouldn't get a damn penny if you worked for me:devil:
 
It snows for for how many days? The main roads through leeds were covered for hours, not days... isn't this just a panic response?

So winter tyres are just for when it snows now?
The ones who speak out against winter tyres appear to be the same ones who have never owned a set and no nothing of their capabilities.

Russ
 
Because you'll get 1 weeks use out of them doing ehat they're supposed to do, then 4 months of wearing out surpless to requirements tyres. Factor in cost of fitting tyres, find a fitter, biiking appointments, and/or find an extra set of tyres.

Just take the day off!

As I say, each to their own. All season is what I'd go for when mine wear out. having said that the rears last forever, its the fron ts that take a hammering.

I take it all back. I'm going to spend money I don't need to on tyres designed for Norway and everytime the temp guage says 7 C I'll sit there with a smug grin as I trundle into work while all the other drivers ...errr... also trundle into work?!?! with no problems.

It snows for for how many days? The main roads through leeds were covered for hours, not days... isn't this just a panic response?

philepo, is your car front wheel drive by any chance?

As your fronts take a hammering and your rears last forever it seems likely.

If yours is a manual too, then it's a completely different proposition in the snow compared to what the majority of owners have on this forum: rear wheel drive automatic.

If you've not experienced it you'd swear it was a fib.

Picture this: Completely level ground. In Drive with both feet off the pedals. Engine ticking over. Car doesn't move. Open door and look back at wheels - they're steadily spinning.

In that scenario, you need winter tyres. When it happened to me last year, I made sure I had winter tyres on ready for the snow this.
 
I take it all back. I'm going to spend money I don't need to on tyres designed for Norway and everytime the temp guage says 7 C I'll sit there with a smug grin as I trundle into work while all the other drivers ...errr... also trundle into work?!?! with no problems.

It snows for for how many days? The main roads through leeds were covered for hours, not days... isn't this just a panic response?

Its not even Winter yet so I wouldn't be counting my chickens just yet.
 
I take it all back. I'm going to spend money I don't need to on tyres designed for Norway and everytime the temp guage says 7 C I'll sit there with a smug grin as I trundle into work while all the other drivers ...errr... also trundle into work?!?! with no problems.

It snows for for how many days? The main roads through leeds were covered for hours, not days... isn't this just a panic response?

My mum lives in Drighlington 5 miles or so from Leeds. Her car didn't leave the garage for nearly 2 weeks. She is retired though and doesn't NEED to get anywhere as the freezer is always stocked. It's fine in this country as long as you live near a major city/town the council will always focus their efforts there. However if you live a bit further out then it's a case of "tough t*tties yes we know you pay your council tax but we don't have the resources we need the money for our overinflated pensions" IMHO LOL:crazy:
 
It strikes me you'll never get some people to agree with the fitting of winter tyres. I suppose it ultimately depends where you live and whether you get paid if you have days off or not. I'm self employed and live 2 miles down a country lane, having 2 days off last time it snowed cost me a lot.:devil:

Fair do's.

It snows a fair bit in Leeds but the main roads hardly ever get covered completely.

If you live where it snows and stays on the main roads, or need to get out from the sticks, they make sense.

Arguing they are good becasue it's cold in winter, seems odd to me. Is there a mass tyre manufacturer cover up about substandard normal tyres being used below 7 deg C?
 
My mum lives in Drighlington 5 miles or so from Leeds. Her car didn't leave the garage for nearly 2 weeks. She is retired though and doesn't NEED to get anywhere as the freezer is always stocked. It's fine in this country as long as you live near a major city/town the council will always focus their efforts there. However if you live a bit further out then it's a case of "tough t*tties yes we know you pay your council tax but we don't have the resources we need the money for our overinflated pensions" IMHO LOL:crazy:

That makes sense - yes, I agree!

I'm just saying I haven't been stuck once. I live on a nearly level side road that had a foot of snow. My car is a W202 auto with newish uniroyal so called rain tyres on it. It did slither around but once on the main road it's just lorries and the odd low profiled beemer/audi drivers that clog things up
 
That makes sense - yes, I agree!

I'm just saying I haven't been stuck once. I live on a nearly level side road that had a foot of snow. My car is a W202 auto with newish uniroyal so called rain tyres on it. It did slither around but once on the main road it's just lorries and the odd low profiled beemer/audi drivers that clog things up

I live 2 miles up country lanes, consequently after being pulled out of a snow bank once:doh: by a tractor, I stayed at home for 2 days. Being self employed that cost me! Big time:(
I had been OK until a tractor went by with a snow plough on the front turned the hill outside into toboggan run normally seen in the Alps with some lunatic in lycra on a tea tray hurtling down it :D
 
Arguing they are good becasue it's cold in winter, seems odd to me. Is there a mass tyre manufacturer cover up about substandard normal tyres being used below 7 deg C?

No, the tyre companies have been selling people *summer* tyres for years but there is huge amount of ignorance amongst the general populous and most major tyre depots alike in the UK.

Fitting winter tyres makes such a huge difference in the level of grip available on cold wet slippery surfaces (not necessarily snowy ones) that I see it as being no different to making the choice of purchasing replacement tyres should they be worn or purchasing premium branded tyres over that of nasty cheap ditchfinders from the far east.

If you consider yours and your passengers safety to be paramount then winter tyres should be given serious thought. Dismissing them because the relative scarcity of snow where you live misses the point of winter tyres entirely.

Without trying them out for first hand though I can see that it would be tempting to dismiss the idea as something concocted by the tyre companies in order to turn a fast buck. Having tried them however, I've put them on every car I've owned since.
 
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Heard a good definition / rationale..

Would you wear your summer flip flops in the snow?

In other words you change your footwear to match the conditions and therefore you should do the same for your car....
 
Arguing they are good becasue it's cold in winter, seems odd to me. Is there a mass tyre manufacturer cover up about substandard normal tyres being used below 7 deg C?

I bought a new car in the mid nineties (Porsche) and in the front of the manual was a huge boxed "WARNING! This car has been fitted with summer tyres, if the conditions fall below 7C you must fit winter tyres".

These warnings disappeared over subsequent purchases - and I wonder if it was to do with the car retailers in the UK rather than the tyre manufacturers. We had mild winters in the 90's, and retailers don't want to burden the buyer with the idea that their car has some kind of "useless" tyre fitted to it.
 
Although I'm sitting in 30C sun most days at the moment, I did have the courtesy to have a set of 15" genuine MB steel wheels (~£35 each) with 2056515 Goodyear Ultragrip 7+ fitted to my dad's S210 :)
I'm told that with them fitted, the weather is of no consequence to journey decisions, which I suppose is the whole point of cold weather tyres..
 

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