No salt, mandatory winter tyres?

[Jag_NE]

I saw a black A3 today and it was the rustiest car I’d seen for ages. Being a nerd I looked up the MOT history expecting an epic mileage but it had only covered about 150k miles.
I’m in Facebook group that covers high mileage vehicles and cars in parts of the US are clicking hundreds of thousands of miles and the cars still look great.
Would it be feasible to scrap salting of roads if everyone had to run winter tyres for 6 months of the year?
There’s an environmental argument for it if cars last significantly longer.

[Rough101]

Emmm, no. Winter tyres performance on black ice is negligible and don’t have enough ice that we could run studded tyres.

[donkmeister]

Could just use whatever it is they use in Japan to deice roads.

[donkmeister]

Jag_NE said:

Being a nerd I looked up the MOT history expecting an epic mileage but it had only covered about 150k miles.

A nerd starting a thread pushing mandatory winter tyres across the UK? Well colour me shocked

(I am also a nerd, FWIW)

[Downward]

donkmeister said:

Could just use whatever it is they use in Japan to deice roads.

Heated roads ?

Anyway I’m sure canada has the same issues. I watch some you tube detailing channel from a guy in a Canada and 2 year old cars look like 10 year old ones.

https://youtu.be/W-1IwcOck4c

[Sheepshanks]

Jag_NE said:

I saw a black A3 today and it was the rustiest car I’d seen for ages.

Must admit I didn't do the "research" that you've done but I walked past a 3 door A3 the other day that had rusted through the top of the quarter panel and the bottom of the B post. Never seen anything like it before.

[mac96]

Sheepshanks said:

Jag_NE said:

I saw a black A3 today and it was the rustiest car I’d seen for ages.

Must admit I didn't do the "research" that you've done but I walked past a 3 door A3 the other day that had rusted through the top of the quarter panel and the bottom of the B post. Never seen anything like it before.

You weren't around in the 1970s!

[Sheepshanks]

mac96 said:

You weren't around in the 1970s!

Well, I was actually. My Mk3 Cortina rusted through the top of its wings before it was 3yrs old.

I was being A3 specific!

Edited by Sheepshanks on Sunday 5th March 22:11

[J4CKO]

The practicalities and costs of changing and storing tyres for the negligible benefits is just not worth it.

I have a plastic garden store thing for my spare set but then I have a decent sized garden, not everyone does.

Think that all season tyres would be a better option for a lot of non performance cars, and a minimum standard that doesn’t allow the worst, poor performing budget rubbish, some are ok but some beggar belief as to how bad they are.

[anonymous-user]

Downward said:

Heated roads ?

Anyway I’m sure canada has the same issues. I watch some you tube detailing channel from a guy in a Canada and 2 year old cars look like 10 year old ones.

https://youtu.be/W-1IwcOck4c

Not sure that has much to do with salt on the road, that is just a disgusting and lazy family.

[457892345]

Don't they do underbody seals and such to make it a non issue? Probably better to fork out for that than expect everyone to adhere to a winter tyre law

[Mr Tidy]

Sheepshanks said:

Well, I was actually. My Mk3 Cortina rusted through the top of its wings before it was 3yrs old.

I was being A3 specific!

Edited by Sheepshanks on Sunday 5th March 22:11

I think you'll find plenty of late 90s/early 2000s scabby Mercedes and some E46 BMW 3 Series.

[GT03ROB]

Rough101 said:

Emmm, no. Winter tyres performance on black ice is negligible and don’t have enough ice that we could run studded tyres.

Funnily enough studded tyres are mandatory here for part of the year, we have as much snow & ice as parts of the UK.

Studded tyres are the business though. I have a 600km journey I do monthly up to the Russian border. I've done it with 3-400 km of the journey being on snow & ice. It takes about the same time as in the summer. They don't drive any slower!

[aterribleusername]

Sheepshanks said:

Jag_NE said:

I saw a black A3 today and it was the rustiest car I’d seen for ages.

Must admit I didn't do the "research" that you've done but I walked past a 3 door A3 the other day that had rusted through the top of the quarter panel and the bottom of the B post. Never seen anything like it before.

Most modern cars are very good at resisting rust, especially to the extent that panels develop big holes. My daily is a MkII Fabia and I've never seen a rusty one of those despite most of them being over a decade old. Even the MkI's are rare to see a rusty one! The only rusty vehicles I see now are vans and the odd survivor BMW and Merc from the early '00s.

[Mr Tidy]

GT03ROB said:

Studded tyres are the business though. I have a 600km journey I do monthly up to the Russian border. I've done it with 3-400 km of the journey being on snow & ice. It takes about the same time as in the summer. They don't drive any slower!

Well you possibly don't need to slow down much if you are using the right tool for the job!

I've been fitting winter tyres to my 3 Series since 2015 but living in the South East I only once got to find out how fantastic they are in snow when we had the Beast from the East in 2018. They really were a revelation.

[Fastdruid]

aterribleusername said:

Sheepshanks said:

Jag_NE said:

I saw a black A3 today and it was the rustiest car I’d seen for ages.

Must admit I didn't do the "research" that you've done but I walked past a 3 door A3 the other day that had rusted through the top of the quarter panel and the bottom of the B post. Never seen anything like it before.

Most modern cars are very good at resisting rust, especially to the extent that panels develop big holes.

Not all though. Fords like the Mondeo, are good yet others like the (original) Puma, shocking. 00's Mazdas, Mercedes are really poor.

Does of course depend where they've lived, if they live by the sea they'll rust away in no time.

[Bobley]

Bodywork resists rust. Subframes dont...

Macans or Merivas both bad?

[Rich_AR]

The small area where I am in Canada they don't salt the roads, they 'sand' them as it gives more grip, especially when the roads themselves are thick packed snow/ice for 4-5 months of the year. I run studded tyres on one of my cars and normal winter tyres on the others. My old WRX (which is my main winter hack) is in half decent condition considering the winter beating it gets.

This was early November, first snow fall of the 2022 winter:

Edited by Rich_AR on Tuesday 7th March 02:08

[belleair302]

Don’t laugh but I parked next to a car in Clearwater FL last week where it was hovering around 26c and it was a new local car with winter tires. Not a snowbird from Wisconsin or NY. Why, who knows.

[skedaddle]

Glad I live in New Zealand where we have lots of old cars on the roads with no rust presumably because the roads aren't salted. It helps that where I am on the north island it very rarely freezes.