Winter tyres vol 2

[FiF]

TooLateForAName said:

I had PZero on a 964 and they were terrible in cold weather. I once bought a car which had P6000 on it.

On the basis of my experiences I wouldn't touch their tyres with a bargepole.

I had two Volvo, one on P6000 and on P7. The P7 were fine as summer tyres, the P6000 less so. On both vehicles, needs and circumstances being different from today, I had a second set with studless winters. Again on both vehicles in different years had held off changing over a bit late and got caught out with some unexpected ice and snowfall. Despite having years of experience in winter conditions, it needed the deployment of every trick in the book to find the extra grip around and take more amenable routes to complete the journey.

Furthermore, on the second Volvo, the one on P7s, at the end of one winter changed back as the weather had been decent. On the Monday morning, sods law, it had turned colder, note not icy but about 3°C, the grip from the P7s was noticeably and surprisingly less than the Conti winters had been. Really surprisingly less.

[giblet]

Whilst it has been a relatively mild winter this time round I'm still happy to keep using winter tyres. I had a few occasions in the past where I got stuck in a FWD car on decent summer tyres and even had a few close calls on a AWD car in summer tyres which is why my current AWD car has had winters on during the winter season for the past 2 years. I've owned a RWD car which refused to get up the driveway in the snow. I've seen the difference winter tyres made on other RWD cars that refused to move in the snow. My next car is RWD so I will be sourcing a set of smaller wheels and appropriate winter tyres for next season.

Each to their own I suppose. If you can get around with summer tyres all year round then good for you.

[HustleRussell]

Winter is not over yet... Not by a long chalk.

[dtmpower]

nickfrog said:

dtmpower said:

-3 on the South Coast today....

So ? Drive to the conditions. Pirelli summers will do the job...apparently.

Exactly... I arrived fine.

[nickfrog]

Cool. That's conclusive : Pirelli summer it is for me too then.

[f1nn]

See, we got there in the end.

[nickfrog]

So are you going to stop trolling then now that you have convinced me? Or are you going to preach with others who have compared back to back, unlike you ?

Edited by nickfrog on Tuesday 19th January 20:24

[f1nn]

Doubtful.

[f1nn]

And that was a sneaky edit, choosing your words carefully are you?

[Theoldman]

-4 here in sunny Hampshire.
On the dry road my little ECO friendly tyres are scrabbling like mad under any throttle.
Got to work and the big puddle at the gate had spread ice all over the place, so nearly slid straight into the barrier.
Barrier opened and I literally sat there with the fronts spinning!!
But have over 40 years driving experience, I wiggled the steering wheel and got the 2 meters to get out.

Got a set of Boxster wheels with Avon Ice Ts on them in the garaged to clear out, since selling it.
They got me through two winters, and well worth the cost, as Mitch SP2s don't like snow!!


I had bought myself a Range Rover (standard Pirelli Scorpions M&S) for the winter, so did not bother getting winter wheels/tyres for the little bug.

But last week the alternator packed up!
"Don't yer just luv yer luck sometimes"!!

[Munter]

f1nn said:

Munter said:

No I didn't.

If English is so hard for you perhaps you could try again using interpretive dance?

What you've typed is below.

On a dry sunny day in a 40 limit on a gentle incline I might spend 1% of my time doing that. On summers in snow I might spend 99% doing that. On winters it'd be in between, but far closer to the former.

On a sunny day on summers you say that you might spend 1% of your time assessing your speed and road conditions.

On snow on summers you say that you might spend 99% of your time doing the same.

In the same conditions on winters you say that time spent would be in between (49%?) but closer to the former. The former being 1% (the latter being 99%)

So what you've clearly said is you spend between 1% and 49% of the time driving assessing your vehicles speed and road condition when driving on winters, as opposed to 99% of the time doing the same on summer tyres, when driving on snow.

Between 1% and 49% is less than 99%. No?

Your maths is good. But your conclusion is wrong because you are again ignoring the context. (You got upset about context. If you start down that path, be prepared to include others context).

"On a dry sunny day in a 40 limit on a gentle incline I might spend 1% of my time doing that. On summers in snow I might spend 99% doing that."

Now that has the context in it.

Which makes your statement:
"So what you've clearly said is you spend between 1% and 49% of the time driving assessing your vehicles speed and road condition when driving on winters, as opposed to 99% of the time doing the same on summer tyres, when driving on snow."

Out of context.

See if you can edit it to get it into context.

[phil1979]

Ok, I dare say I will get flamed for this, but...

I've got a set of Dunlop Wintersport 3D on the car (front wheel drive 1.9 diesel, for info).

Admittedly, I haven't had to do any emergency stops as yet but, in all honesty, my traction light is flickering just as much as it did when I had my summer tyres on for a previous winter.

You seem to get shot down for calling winters 'snow tyres', but I genuinely believe that this is the only scenario in my daily driving where I really will be thankful for them.

Ice is ice, and despite having my spangley new winters on, I am treading just as carefully as ever, and still getting spin etc.

Gratuitous pic

[jon-]

How new / old are the tyres?

[HustleRussell]

My Dad reckons the winters he had on his old 535d gripped better than the summer tyres all year 'round and were basically better in every way save for slightly accelerated wear in hot conditions. I think they were Continentals.

Obviously unscientific, and I'm sure the equivalent summer would be better in summer, but he rated them.

My main concern with winters all year is that they'd be squidgy and ruin the handling but he said that after feeling scary for the first 1,000 miles they settled down and there was no discernible difference.

[phil1979]

This is their second full winter season - I finally got them in Feb 2014, so didn't use them much for that season, but had them on last winter, and now this one. I average around 10k per annum, too, so not big mileage.

[Monkeylegend]

HustleRussell said:

My Dad reckons the winters he had on his old 535d gripped better than the summer tyres all year 'round and were basically better in every way save for slightly accelerated wear in hot conditions. I think they were Continentals.

Obviously unscientific, and I'm sure the equivalent summer would be better in summer, but he rated them.

My main concern with winters all year is that they'd be squidgy and ruin the handling but he said that after feeling scary for the first 1,000 miles they settled down and there was no discernible difference.

I can vouch for that. I have had my Continental T830 winters on since November 2014, decided to keep them on instead of the hassle of switching back to summers. They are excellent cold weather tyres, much more grip and brilliant in the one snow storm we had last year.

Driving through summer they performed just as well as a summer tyre for the type of driving I was doing, they didn't melt or feel squidgy in 25+C temps, and have just completed 50k miles on them with 3mm+ tread left, so high wear rates in summer is a myth in my experience.

A good winter is better in summer than a good summer in winter so for me the winters works well.

[jon-]

Monkeylegend said:

I can vouch for that. I have had my Continental T830 winters on since November 2014, decided to keep them on instead of the hassle of switching back to summers. They are excellent cold weather tyres, much more grip and brilliant in the one snow storm we had last year.

Driving through summer they performed just as well as a summer tyre for the type of driving I was doing, they didn't melt or feel squidgy in 25+C temps, and have just completed 50k miles on them with 3mm+ tread left, so high wear rates in summer is a myth in my experience.

A good winter is better in summer than a good summer in winter so for me the winters works well.

I don't doubt what you say, but on a winter tyre with +4mm of tread depth, you ARE giving away nearly 20% dry braking.

That's a lot to give away for most of the year.

[wemorgan]

jon- said:

I don't doubt what you say, but on a winter tyre with +4mm of tread depth, you ARE giving away nearly 20% dry braking.

Edited by wemorgan on Wednesday 20th January 13:08

Edited by wemorgan on Wednesday 20th January 13:08

[FiF]

phil1979 said:

Ok, I dare say I will get flamed for this, but...

I've got a set of Dunlop Wintersport 3D on the car (front wheel drive 1.9 diesel, for info).

Admittedly, I haven't had to do any emergency stops as yet but, in all honesty, my traction light is flickering just as much as it did when I had my summer tyres on for a previous winter.

You seem to get shot down for calling winters 'snow tyres', but I genuinely believe that this is the only scenario in my daily driving where I really will be thankful for them.

Ice is ice, and despite having my spangley new winters on, I am treading just as carefully as ever, and still getting spin etc.

[/url]

Not going to get flamed by me.

Sentence emboldened explains it, ice is indeed ice, studless winter tyres aren't magic, European ones especially, even on studless Nordic tyres on smooth ice you still don't have much grip, which is why studs are more common over there.

It's true to say that you will notice a bigger difference on snow, but back to back, you notice a difference even on smooth ice, or ice covered with a tiny bit of windblown snow, very very slippery. Let's not forget that in order to get the 3PMS symbol under testing on snow the tyres have only to hit 10% better traction over a particular standard to get a pass. In reality many are much much better than that. I've not read the UNECE regs which came out a bit ago, think it's somewhere buried in 117, don't take that as gospel.

Also read the second para of my post yesterday timed 11:07 p131, the bit about changing back to P7s and getting a cool snap. This was on clear and clean tarmac roads, mostly dry, odd bits of damp under trees, but on a fast but winding NSL A road, I then knew the grip the summers was noticeably worse than the winters they had just replaced, and despite pegging it back still managed to have a bit of a moment on one particular bend, nothing spectacular, but clearly worse grip.

So in summary, in snow you'll really notice it, outside that back to back you'd notice it, but smooth ice is still, unfortunately, smooth ice. Even if you have, say, 100% more grip, 100% more of bugger all is still pretty much bugger all.

[Monkeylegend]

jon- said:

Monkeylegend said:

I can vouch for that. I have had my Continental T830 winters on since November 2014, decided to keep them on instead of the hassle of switching back to summers. They are excellent cold weather tyres, much more grip and brilliant in the one snow storm we had last year.

Driving through summer they performed just as well as a summer tyre for the type of driving I was doing, they didn't melt or feel squidgy in 25+C temps, and have just completed 50k miles on them with 3mm+ tread left, so high wear rates in summer is a myth in my experience.

A good winter is better in summer than a good summer in winter so for me the winters works well.

I don't doubt what you say, but on a winter tyre with +4mm of tread depth, you ARE giving away nearly 20% dry braking.

That's a lot to give away for most of the year.

I do drive quite defensively, but on the odd occasion when I have needed to brake more urgently I have not had any issues. I really do think based on my experience that winters are much better all round than people give them credit for.

The fact that it is not illegal to run them all year would tend to support this.