Noisy tyres - winter tyres or something else?

[fwaggie]

I'm stuck in a hotel in Norway near Oslo at the moment (woohoo!?)

One odd thing I've noticed is that some cars seem to have their own portable gravel trap...

Some cars sound as if they're driving along a VERY LOUD crunchy gravel driveway, all the time.

But it's a normal tarmac road, and other cars sound perfectly normal.


This isn't just "a little bit noisy", I can't believe how loud this "crunching" is, the first time I heard it was from behind me, turned round to "WTF?" and waited for about 5 cars to pass (at 30kph) before the noisy one passed.

You can hear them 500 yards away, seriously.

And the speed doesn't matter, even pulling away from rest, crunchy, crunchy, crunchy...

I can only guess this is winter / snow tyres, but I've never ever heard this effect before?

[edo]

[jon-]

Studs on normal roads = sad face

[fwaggie]

jon- said:

Studs on normal roads = sad face

I thought of studded tyres but I thought the studs rip out of them rapidly if you drive on roads not covered in snow/ice with any gusto.

Those studs don't look like they project very far, so are there types of studded tyres that are suitable for non-snow / ice conditions?

Would explain the noise.