Winter tyres. Discuss.

[tut]

Snow socks are on Groupon at present, has anybody tried them on the odd occasion to get out of stuckness?

tut

[kerryxeg]

Snow socks are on Groupon at present, has anybody tried them on the odd occasion to get out of stuckness?

tut

I've not tried them, but I did pull someone back onto the road last year who had them fitted to the fron tyres of a Fiesta. What a joke, 4 bald tyres, 2 snow socks and about 3 inches of snow - just as well it was me that pulled him out not the police. This guy went off in front of me doing less than 30mph, just drove straight on fully locked up at the first snowy corner he'd come to. They worked well enough to get him out of the drive ie from stationary, steering was a different issue. I don't know what the recommended speed usage is, but I'd suggest they are purely to get you moving then take them off if you want to go over 10mph.

[woody]

Sorry if this has been covered, haven't paid much attention to this thread, but the prospect of running a RWD car with 245 section tyres on the back end as winter approaces has got me thinking.

Do you need to/is it reccomended to drop a width i.e.225 instead of the 245's when using winter tyres? I remember my 306 having a similar drop in the hand book, but could find nothing for the 3?

TBH, my biggest issue will be getting the car out of our road, the Village and M/A77 beyond are always gritted well... the road to our street can be a day or two behind if the snow's particuarly bad, might just leave the car in the village if it comes to it.

My understanding is yes, drop a width if you can. Theoretically depends on manuf "recommendations" (which if you can't get for a UK edition of a car, you WILL get via the alpine version of the handbook eg for Switzerland, France, Germany). However the physics are that a smaller contact patch exerts proportionally more force on a given area and this is important when friction is being compromised by water or snow. This is why rally cars cover snow stages on almost comically thin tyres.

But as per above, not on all cyls right now so this could be entirely bollox but it's the logic I'd follow if doing "the winters thing" this year.

Campbell

That's what I thought TBH...maybe I should give some of my rallying friends a call, used to buy used once 15" Pirelli rally tyres at £10 each .

[campbell]

That's what I thought TBH...maybe I should give some of my rallying friends a call, used to buy used once 15" Pirelli rally tyres at £10 each .

Pikey!!

[woody]

That's what I thought TBH...maybe I should give some of my rallying friends a call, used to buy used once 15" Pirelli rally tyres at £10 each .

Pikey!!

For my 205 rally/grasstest car I should have added.

[kerryxeg]

Sorry if this has been covered, haven't paid much attention to this thread, but the prospect of running a RWD car with 245 section tyres on the back end as winter approaces has got me thinking.

Do you need to/is it reccomended to drop a width i.e.225 instead of the 245's when using winter tyres? I remember my 306 having a similar drop in the hand book, but could find nothing for the 3?

TBH, my biggest issue will be getting the car out of our road, the Village and M/A77 beyond are always gritted well... the road to our street can be a day or two behind if the snow's particuarly bad, might just leave the car in the village if it comes to it.

My understanding is yes, drop a width if you can. Theoretically depends on manuf "recommendations" (which if you can't get for a UK edition of a car, you WILL get via the alpine version of the handbook eg for Switzerland, France, Germany). However the physics are that a smaller contact patch exerts proportionally more force on a given area and this is important when friction is being compromised by water or snow. This is why rally cars cover snow stages on almost comically thin tyres.

But as per above, not on all cyls right now so this could be entirely bollox but it's the logic I'd follow if doing "the winters thing" this year.




Campbell

That's what I thought TBH...maybe I should give some of my rallying friends a call, used to buy used once 15" Pirelli rally tyres at £10 each .

I think it depends - I got some tyres sorted for a mates BMW and changed them from 255 to 225, Vred winter tracs - great tyres and will still work well for normal road use, the 225 width is still going to give very similar characteristics. However if you had 225 and went down to 185 or 195, they would work better in snow (more pressure on the contact patch), but you would notice a big drop in normal driving especially if pressing on. So I put 205 tyres on my old mans car - he never goes above 50, and stick to 235 on mine to keep the day to day driving as normal as possible.

I think the load rating is important even with Snow tyres, so it's worth checking that you are buying the right spec load rating for the car.

[KevD]

Do we really need 17" tyres on cars with 110bhp?

I think it's driven by weight increases, driven by "safety features", etc, rather than pure power-to-weight.

Are you just thinking S1 to S2 change there?! S2 being fat so they gave it 16/17s ? :-p

[campbell]

Do we really need 17" tyres on cars with 110bhp?

I think it's driven by weight increases, driven by "safety features", etc, rather than pure power-to-weight.

Are you just thinking S1 to S2 change there?! S2 being fat so they gave it 16/17s ? :-p

Nope I was mixing my metaphors, see above.

PS - Don't start the S1-S2 thang here, pur-lease!!! [for ref the early S2 was barely any heavier than late S1, as I understand it...]

[neil]

Snow socks are on Groupon at present, has anybody tried them on the odd occasion to get out of stuckness?

tut

I've not tried them, but I did pull someone back onto the road last year who had them fitted to the fron tyres of a Fiesta. What a joke, 4 bald tyres, 2 snow socks and about 3 inches of snow - just as well it was me that pulled him out not the police. This guy went off in front of me doing less than 30mph, just drove straight on fully locked up at the first snowy corner he'd come to. They worked well enough to get him out of the drive ie from stationary, steering was a different issue. I don't know what the recommended speed usage is, but I'd suggest they are purely to get you moving then take them off if you want to go over 10mph.

I used them on both my old Exige and then on my winter runabout and found them quite good. I think you're meant to keep below 30mph, plus if you run them for long on a clear road you'll rip them to shreds. Total PITA to put on though - especially on something like an Exige. Excellent to have in the car for an emergency but you'd get fed up taking them on and off everyday.
One from the album

[Stevoraith]

My car runs 225 on the front and 255 on the rear. For winters I dropped to 225 all round, although to be honest it was as much to do with price as any recommendations for what was best.

Great performance In the snow, but in the dry the traction control light was a lot busier than it would have been with the standard 255s I think.

The wifes car runs 225 18s and I've dropped to 205 17s for the winter. Have yet to see the effect it has.

To be honest, it seems to be the done thing to drop a width, especially if you are also dropping the diameter but I wouldn't get hung up on it, I'd buy whatever profile was cheapest as long as the rolling radius was ok and it wasn't any wider.

[Sanjøy]

Was just watching CNN, I think a Esprit owner in NY state should have read this thread

[Gareth]

Was just watching CNN, I think a Esprit owner in NY state should have read this thread

Well if NY has snow...we're not far behind!

[vet111s]

Snow socks are on Groupon at present, has anybody tried them on the odd occasion to get out of stuckness?

tut

Bit of a pain but easier to use than chains. Good get out of jail free card. Ellie used them on the BMW last year and were great. Got her out of a snowbound tantallon caravan park and also back from glasgow a couple of times when others were getting stuck.
Wouldn't expect to last more than a couple of years but even at normal prices I felt they were a good buy

Ali

[tuscan_thunder]

I'm waiting for someone to upload the photo of the 1-Series, completely stuck but with the snow socks on the front wheels.....

[Stewart]

Was looking into snow socks last night. Problem I have is that my daily driver is a company car and they are highly unlikely to splash out for a set of steelies and winter tyres. It's a honda civic 2.2tdi and absolutely useless in slippy conditions. I have come by £50 of Halfords vouchers so am going to use them this week to buy some socks.

I will only be looking to them as a "get you out of trouble" measure and not a "get you into trouble" measure i.e. thinking that they are the answer to winter driving and setting off on a 50 mile trip in a blizzard.

Had a look on eBay last night and their are thoosan's of them for sale - doesn't seem to be helping to reduce the price much though and no idea of quality.

[Mystic_Meg] My bold prediction is that after two particularly bad winters, this one will be a damp squib and we will all once again become complacent before getting caught out by the great freeze of 2013 [/Mystic_Meg]