Winter tyres vol 2

[irc]

matthias73 said:

Does anyone know if most lorries run winter's? They don't seem particularly bothered by it.

From the news today




But seriously, I drive up to 7.5 ton vans at work. No winter tyres. Crap in snow. Saw one of my companies van crashed through a central reservation on the news tonight.

Good day to be off. I was out and about on snow covered road north of Glasgow, my Octavia on Goodyears Vector all seasons wasn't 't troubled at all in a mix of packed snow on the main roads and foot deep drifts on the side roads.

[ALTO77]

Wills2 said:

I moaned about my winters earlier but they have just got me home after 200 mile journey from the south the weather was appalling in Yorkshire and they worked well.

I would have been stranded without them.

How do you know you would have been stranded without them,? Have you experienced the same conditions before but didn't have those particular tyres fitted and got stranded? genuinely curious as winter tyres are something i've always considered, but in 22 years of driving in Glasgow despite some really bad weather I haven't bothered with, if it would make my commute to work more simple in the winter I would consider it, do the tyres make that much of a difference?

[tonyb1968]

ALTO77 said:

How do you know you would have been stranded without them,? Have you experienced the same conditions before but didn't have those particular tyres fitted and got stranded? genuinely curious as winter tyres are something i've always considered, but in 22 years of driving in Glasgow despite some really bad weather I haven't bothered with, if it would make my commute to work more simple in the winter I would consider it, do the tyres make that much of a difference?

Yes, a good branded (like any tyre) winter will be better than any summer tyre in the snow, you will be able to actually brake and turn corners without crashing into someone else, the ability to make emergency maneuvers like swerving with no real effort (with summer tyres you will normally just carry straight on) and also have grip, good grip levels.
Winter tyres make a lot of difference but if you want to compromise, the latest all season tyres are also very good.

[Bill]

andyps said:

Only if you are going too fast for the conditions. For a few winters I ran a fwd car with winters on the front and summers on the back and never had an issue on dry, wet or snowy roads.

Obviously you can mitigate the risk by taking care, but had you needed to brake hard because of something that you hadn't anticipated it would be much more likely to be messy. I've had cars with much worse grip on the rear and while it's hilarious fun it isn't exactly sensible.

[FiF]

matthias73 said:

Drove an hour up the A1 to Newcastle and back for dinner with family tonight, despite the excellent blizzards.

Cooper winter tyres so far haven't let me down. I always get a smug feeling when I overtake something in my 330 vert, I may put the roof down tomorow just to get more gawps

Does anyone know if most lorries run winter's? They don't seem particularly bothered by it.

Depends where they are based, but in UK, no not usually.

Every year I worked in Sweden we'd get some dope based in Marseille or Madrid or somewhere warm who'd rock up and get stuck on a set of lights with a 1:1000 incline hill start. Cause chaos till we got something out to give them a tow.

[andyps]

Bill said:

andyps said:

Only if you are going too fast for the conditions. For a few winters I ran a fwd car with winters on the front and summers on the back and never had an issue on dry, wet or snowy roads.

Obviously you can mitigate the risk by taking care, but had you needed to brake hard because of something that you hadn't anticipated it would be much more likely to be messy. I've had cars with much worse grip on the rear and while it's hilarious fun it isn't exactly sensible.

With summer tyres on the front and winters on the back in snow or ice needing to brake hard means you have a problem, full stop. At least with tyres the other way round the steering wheel has some affect and the brakes may just work. I've done it the way I did and tried hard to provoke the kind of spin people suggest happens and they really don't unless the conditions are such that summer tyres wouldn't allow the car to move anyway. On wet roads etc. it just wasn't an issue in my experience.

[Countdown]

tenohfive said:

My attitude is fundamentally simpler than that - you can do things to mitigate the skid or braking compromises either way, but if you're sat tyre spinning on your driveway it's all moot. Hence why I'd favour putting them on the driven wheels.

Completely agree.

[Wills2]

ALTO77 said:

Wills2 said:

I moaned about my winters earlier but they have just got me home after 200 mile journey from the south the weather was appalling in Yorkshire and they worked well.

I would have been stranded without them.

How do you know you would have been stranded without them,? Have you experienced the same conditions before but didn't have those particular tyres fitted and got stranded? genuinely curious as winter tyres are something i've always considered, but in 22 years of driving in Glasgow despite some really bad weather I haven't bothered with, if it would make my commute to work more simple in the winter I would consider it, do the tyres make that much of a difference?

Well I'll have to tread carefully having posted the picture of my M3 stuck on tiny amounts of snow earlier on the thread, but last night the final 60 mile section of my 200mile journey from the M18 to 12 miles north of Bradford was in the worst driving conditions I've witnessed in 30 years of driving. White out blizzard conditions for miles on end, lying snow on all the motorway lanes and all the main roads with inches of snow on them at -7c

I wasn't feeling very confident when I got into the snow having had the issues I posted about earlier, the car has over 400hp, 275 section fat rear tyres and is low slung so no I wasn't confident, would I have got home on a set of my summer MPSS no I wouldn't, not a chance in hell I've had experience of those tyres on the same roads in far better circumstances and on an M3 they are awful.

I live half way up a 1200ft hill and it made it up to my drive through 4-5 inches of lying snow, at this point last night I was the only car on the road I was very grateful to them.

The tyres gave me steering and braking control, the rear traction wasn't great under power but you maintained momentum and once up into 4th you could cruise on a constant throttle and knew you still had brakes and steering so could keep going, M3's are known for being utterly awful in snow.

The last steep up hill section with 90 degree bend to go round was attempted in the "if in doubt flat out" style, 3rd gear, lots of arm twirling and a boot full of throttle, I think it would have been quite interesting to have watched.

[Patrick Bateman]

Got away from work 2.5 hours early thankfully. The roads were bad this morning and I'm one of the first few on them at the back of 5 but at least visibility was good. Coming home the snow drifts off the field were horrific though. fk all visibility and was thick enough to yaw the car about 30 degrees at one point.

Not the most reassuring feeling.

[NRS]

andyps said:

Bill said:

andyps said:

Only if you are going too fast for the conditions. For a few winters I ran a fwd car with winters on the front and summers on the back and never had an issue on dry, wet or snowy roads.

Obviously you can mitigate the risk by taking care, but had you needed to brake hard because of something that you hadn't anticipated it would be much more likely to be messy. I've had cars with much worse grip on the rear and while it's hilarious fun it isn't exactly sensible.

With summer tyres on the front and winters on the back in snow or ice needing to brake hard means you have a problem, full stop. At least with tyres the other way round the steering wheel has some affect and the brakes may just work. I've done it the way I did and tried hard to provoke the kind of spin people suggest happens and they really don't unless the conditions are such that summer tyres wouldn't allow the car to move anyway. On wet roads etc. it just wasn't an issue in my experience.

With less grip on the front you feel what the car is doing more, and can adjust to the conditions. With the rear it tends to let go more quickly. Have a google and you see all the main manufacturers say to put the tyres with more grip on the rear. Most of it is about summer tyres, as they basically say use 4 winter tyres.

Have a look at this which is the most controlled test I've seen as a comparison.

https://youtu.be/3xzQQfT5O84?t=26s

[Patrick Bateman]

I recently had new tyres fitted on the Clio. I'd always had front to rear swapped to keep new on the rear but figured since the rears were still at 6-7mm I'd give it a go as I wanted to see what difference the new tyres made to the steering feel etc.

Despite the rears still being good I encountered a few unexpected oversteer moments that I had never encountered in 3 years of owning the car. They're now swapped around again but given that small difference in tread depth allowed it, I wouldn't want to be fitting winter tyres on only the front of an FWD car with such massively different grip characteristics to the rears.

[untakenname]

Surely its best to have the best tyres on the driven wheels?
I've currently got federal rsr 595 tyres on the front of my car with 2mm of tread and rainsports on the back with 7mm, went for a prebooked service a couple of days back in a rural location and it was very hairy, car understeered everywhere and kept on following the camber of the road and the only way to bring it back in line was to repeatedly break traction by spinning up the rear wheels.
Nearly got stranded so I'm not driving in the snow till I get better tyres on it.
Still pleased I put the best tyres on the back though as there was no way I would have got up the hills.
Dashcam here if anyones interested (some nsfw language)
https://youtu.be/jNTchKRiyCk

[Patrick Bateman]

Generally rule of thumb is to fit new tyres to the rear where possible, for reasons above.

[andyps]

I'm not offering advice, I'm not suggesting anyone should do anything particular. I'm just giving my experience after a few winters running a fwd car the way I did, probably covering about 20k miles in a variety of conditions. Anyone is free to make their own choice.

[NRS]

untakenname said:

Surely its best to have the best tyres on the driven wheels?
I've currently got federal rsr 595 tyres on the front of my car with 2mm of tread and rainsports on the back with 7mm, went for a prebooked service a couple of days back in a rural location and it was very hairy, car understeered everywhere and kept on following the camber of the road and the only way to bring it back in line was to repeatedly break traction by spinning up the rear wheels.
Nearly got stranded so I'm not driving in the snow till I get better tyres on it.
Still pleased I put the best tyres on the back though as there was no way I would have got up the hills.
Dashcam here if anyones interested (some nsfw language)
https://youtu.be/jNTchKRiyCk

If the car is understeering it would be losing grip sometimes if the rears were the more worn tyre, resulting in it suddenly stepping out. If you do crash it's better to go front in, as that is where you have the biggest crumple zone etc. You also feel the grip for the conditions a lot more, rather than having it let go quickly once the rear goes. That said, PHers would potentially bit a bit better coping for the most part if they have RWD hooligan experience,

[RicksAlfas]

The best advice is to have four tyres the same. Winter / Summer / All Season. Whatever you fancy. But have four of them.

[Podie]

Anyone tried the Cross Climate tyres?

[DailyHack]

RicksAlfas said:

The best advice is to have four tyres the same. Winter / Summer / All Season. Whatever you fancy. But have four of them.

Deffo! The only way is to have all 4 corners on winter tyres!

[DailyHack]

Podie said:

Anyone tried the Cross Climate tyres?

No I haven't, I have thought about it, but dedicated winters would give me more reassurance if it was going to get bad, don't think they will ever be as good as proper winters

[SpydieNut]

DailyHack said:

Podie said:

Anyone tried the Cross Climate tyres?

No I haven't, I have thought about it, but dedicated winters would give me more reassurance if it was going to get bad, don't think they will ever be as good as proper winters

I have them on my car - put them on a few months ago and have to say that in the last couple of days I've had chance to test them properly and am *very* impressed. I accept they may not be as good as full winters, but the only thing I couldn't do was get up a hill today where the compacted snow between the tyre tracks scraped the underside of the car. - and that's hardly the fault of the tyres.

They've taken me through thick snow, slush and a mix, without problems, up and down some steep local hills. I did have to roll back and turn around half way up a hill on Tuesday, as the snow drifts beyond that point were about a metre high - again, nothing short of a tractor made it higher up the hill that day .

So I'd recommend them . In the past I had full winters on steel rims, but haven't got place to keep a spare set of wheels, so this is the best choice for me.