Winter tyres. Discuss.

[thinfourth]

Winter tyres are great we have them on both my ford slocus and Helens Honda and i couldn't be more impressed by them.

Would i want them to be mandatory.

No chance it would end up as a horrendous set of laws that are completely ineffective at dealing with the problem and would probably end up with a total ban on tyres such as AO-48r etc. The more our leaders get involved with anything the worse it becomes.

[Rich H]

I could hear the tutting as I flew past the 20mph brigade this morning at 40 in lane 2
Trouble is the icy/snow is rough as fook so I had to cut in after 1/2 mile as my fillings were rattling!

[BigD]

I could hear the tutting as I flew past the 20mph brigade this morning at 40 in lane 2
Trouble is the icy/snow is rough as fook so I had to cut in after 1/2 mile as my fillings were rattling!

I know exactly what you mean. The winter tyres are awesome in this very cold weather as there is very little wheelspin or sliding when accelerating or going round roundabouts. They make a huge difference.

[mckeann]

my tyres FINALLY arrived, albeit i went to the depot to pick them up. Getting them fitted tomorrow, cant come soon enough, my sportKA struggled to get up the main road in bo'ness this morning, and it was basically black, just a hint of slushy ice


Will give a full review of what just front winter tyres on a FWD car are like tomorrow.

[Mike Scib]

Priced some winter tyres today.....

http://ssl.delti.com/cgi-bin/rshop.pl?d ... htweiter=1

my tyres FINALLY arrived, albeit i went to the depot to pick them up. Getting them fitted tomorrow, cant come soon enough, my sportKA struggled to get up the main road in bo'ness this morning, and it was basically black, just a hint of slushy ice


Will give a full review of what just front winter tyres on a FWD car are like tomorrow.

We were up in Aviemore last weekend and noticed most the taxi's only using winter tyres on the driven wheels.

[Mikie711]

Mine arrived today. Vredstein Wintertrac 4's. Getting them fitted tomorrow so we will see what sort of difference these make.

[kerryxeg]

We were up in Aviemore last weekend and noticed most the taxi's only using winter tyres on the driven wheels.[/quote]


I think that would attract the interest of insurance companies if you had an accident, certainly not a good idea unless your at knockhill doing the skid pan training.



Reg Manditory winter tyres - different countries have taken different approaches. Some have gone with a middle of the road option of requiring appropriate tyres. So basically if it's snowing, and you only have A048 tyres then you shouldn't use it. The difficulty with this option is enforcement - it snowed during the day and you've still got to get it home etc.

10-15 years ago when we had bad winters, it was pretty common to have winter tyres - maybe a couple of bad winters and nature will take it's course.

Kerry

[Mr Momo]

Just did the Xmas pressie round trip from Aberdeen to Aviemore in Darth, with the Pirelli SottoZeros winter tyres on the fronts only. All I can say is "superb".

There was a stretch of black ice from north of Inverurie to Huntly, but other than that, it was the usual covering of snow on the roads. If your steering is sensitive enough, you can feel the difference in the car's handling on black ice* at low speeds and you can adjust your speed/acceleration/braking.

Windscreen washers froze by Glens of Foundland (I think I previously only put in a 50/50 mix in for -9degC), so I stopped, cleaned screen, then just stayed back from traffic. Only had to stop once more at Dulnain Bridge as the low sun was right in my face (the whole line of traffic that I had caught up with was driving at 10-20 mph for a mile or two south of Cromdale. It was only -13 overnight . Decided to stay overnight, so went to the pub with my sister.

Refilled the screen wash with neat washerfluid and took half and hour to defrost the pipe to get the stuff through to the screen (coming through neat blue ), then drove back at lunchtime. So impressed with the tyres, especially over the Dufftown - Huntly stretch, which had a mix of patchy snow top 1-2 inches soft snow coverage in places. Followed a plough for about 5 miles doing a great job of clearing the side of the carraigeway and gritting, before I got bored driving at 20-30 and overtook. Aberdeen was sitting at 0degC, so car has now fully defrosted .

Oh yeh - first time I've seen over 40mpg

(*this is not true black ice)

[Mikie711]

Have just got back after having had the RRS serviced and the tyres changed to the Wintertrac 4's. The RRS now stops as well as it goes which is what it struggled with on normal tyres. Bit hard to tell about stability at speed because they managed to fcuk up my steering when they changed out some ball joints and tie rods. Couldn't believe they thought it was OK with the steering wheel 30deg out at the straight ahead.
Anyway, feels a lot more planted in corners and you can feel the grip much better. Does move about a bit on the tread block when the road isn't covered with snow but on the plus side they are quite a bit less noisy than the Pirelli's they replaced.

[neil]

Well my steel wheels with Nokian winter tyres arrived last night so I put them on the Passat today and I'm very impressed. It's gone from being next to useless, to quite happily pulling up anything.

[Mr Momo]

Neil - did you get them (wheels/tyre combo) from MyTyres ?

[neil]

Yes they were from mytyres. Took a while to come though - ordered on Nov 29th and only appeared last night but I guess that was to be expected given the weather and that they ship from Germany

[Doc883]

Short Autocar comparison video of a BMW X3 with winter tyres v one with summer tyres if you needed any more convincing
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-video/bmw- ... ter-tyres/

[SAJ]

Short Autocar comparison video of a BMW X3 with winter tyres v one with summer tyres if you needed any more convincing
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-video/bmw- ... ter-tyres/

Good video

[Doc883]

I know we are staring summer in the face but what better time to start research on tyres for this winter
I was at my local tyre dealer and they have the Bridgestone A001 Weather Control tyre which is purported to be everything to everyman and an all year round tyre:
http://www.mytyres.co.uk/RDNews517.html
"Bridgestone has designed the A001 Weather Control tyre for specific European regions with moderate climates and mild, wet winters. With its “all weather” silica compound, special water evacuation blocks and high edge density, the A001 provides a dynamic driving experience with safe grip and confident handling in all conditions, even when winter strikes unexpectedly"

Probably a great compromise if you were looking to change tyres but wanted to avoid the hassle and expense of winter tyres and a 2nd set of wheels knowing fine well that we probably wont have any snow this winter