Summer tyres or winter tyres all year round?

[sat1983]

I'm in need of new rubber- and have coped well enough on 'summer'tyres.
However for a small extra financial outlay I could get good winter tyres.
Would it really make that much difference keeping them on the car all year round?

[CommanderJameson]

Depends on the car and what you're going to use it for, but I keep winter tyres on my elderly 528i all year round, which doesn't get driven too hard.

For my car at least, if I don't buy the winter tyres in the winter rush, they don't cost any more than summers. Note: I also have the usual size fitted (225/55R16), so no need for steel wheels.

[Gokartmozart]

I guess it depends on the car, i.e perfromance - snotter, mileage, driving style.
Winter tyres are not recommeded to be used all year.

You can get "all season" tyres which will be an obvious compromise between the two.

Some advice from the AA

http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/safety/winter...

[CommanderJameson]

Gokartmozart said:

I guess it depends on the car, i.e perfromance - snotter, mileage, driving style.
Winter tyres are not recommeded to be used all year.

...by organisations that would like to sell you more tyres, and their chums.

[parapaul]

CommanderJameson said:

Gokartmozart said:

I guess it depends on the car, i.e perfromance - snotter, mileage, driving style.
Winter tyres are not recommeded to be used all year.

...by organisations that would like to sell you more tyres, and their chums.

Exactly. The last advice I saw (from Continental IIRC) was that if you can only afford one set of tyres, it's better to run winters all year round than summers.

The performance payoff of using winter tyres over summer is much, much less than than from using summer tyres through winter.

[Russ T Bolt]

I have run winter tyres on my Subaru for the last 5 years. They last about 20k miles and perform as well in the summer as the original fit tyres.

[sat1983]

parapaul said:

Exactly. The last advice I saw (from Continental IIRC) was that if you can only afford one set of tyres, it's better to run winters all year round than summers.

The performance payoff of using winter tyres over summer is much, much less than than from using summer tyres through winter.

Pretty much all I need to know! Thanks

[oldcynic]

Get a decent set of all-season tyres if you can actually find some at this time of year.

[Randy Winkman]

Depends where you live. I'm in SE London - driving around on winter tyres all year would be silly for me.

[Patrick Bateman]

I wouldn't but then I couldn't be arsed with a compromise.

That being said, the Vredestein Quatrac 3 seems to get good reviews as far as all seasons go.

http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/Tyre/Vredestein/Quatr...