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Winter Tyres in the UK. A good idea? Practicalities

Passion, instruction, buying, care, maintenance and more, any form of vehicle discussion is welcome here
staffordian
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Re: Winter Tyres in the UK. A good idea? Practicalities

#365435

Postby staffordian » December 12th, 2020, 1:13 pm

One tip if the only problem is a short distance from your drive to a major road.

Rather than turning out facing the way you want to travel, turn the other way, then reverse up the slight slope.

I had this issue at our last house and this method always worked. Reversing up the hill puts more weight over what are now the "rear" driven wheels and it's usually enough to get traction.

MonsterMork
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Re: Winter Tyres in the UK. A good idea? Practicalities

#365497

Postby MonsterMork » December 12th, 2020, 6:12 pm

Mike4 wrote:completely defeated a few years back by a slope in Daventry town centre.


Easily done. Having lived in the area for many years I was regularly defeated by that slope in summer time too, although that may have been a sub-conscious reflex action trying to help me escape from Daventry! :D

MM

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Re: Winter Tyres in the UK. A good idea? Practicalities

#365509

Postby Padders72 » December 12th, 2020, 7:46 pm

There are a lot of variables at play here, firstly where you live and how cold it gets, secondly do you get snow and do you have to drive on it, next which wheels are driven on your vehicle, then are you in a position to store a set of wheels. Someone with a RWD vehicle will have a greater need for better traction than someone with a FWD hatch or 4WD car on summer tyres though in reality if all got into an emergency stop situation there would be no difference as braking performance has nothing to do with driven wheels so the advantage those offer over RWD is a bit illusory, you can get going but can you stop?

If you have more mainstream summer touring tyres then you might get away with it in winter but the so called performance designs become very poor at low temps and useless on snow and ice. Personally I think summer Supersports tyres are dangerous for much of the UK in winter, the parts above the West Country and South Coast and counties anyhow. I started changing every winter a few years back after years of muddling though and haven't looked back

Running Cross Climates all year is a reasonable choice. These are very good but are not as good as a true winter in snow or sub zero conditions and not as good as summer sports tyres when temps are higher. They are a useful compromise for British conditions but for somewhere that expects snow, high up in England or up in Scotland out of the cites then I would be looking at a decent full winter tyre and swapping. If you don't rag your car or depend on it absolutely then CCs are a great choice, if you do then they might disappoint, particularly in summer or if you get heavy snow and ice.

BT63
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Re: Winter Tyres in the UK. A good idea? Practicalities

#365731

Postby BT63 » December 13th, 2020, 3:52 pm

Clariman wrote: Local garage said to just put the winter tyres on the drive wheel. My son (a bit of a car geek) said put them all round. I see from previous discussion here that Redsturgeon said put them on the back if a front wheel drive.

The other option is to get a 4WD drive but this car is only 9 months old and only just hit 2,000 miles yesterday! :roll:

Any advice appreciated.



Don't mix normal (summer) tyres with all seasons or winters because the difference in grip could result in one end of the car sliding out of control while the other end tries to go where you wanted it to. Winters on the drive wheels will get you moving better but the non-driven wheels with normal tyres won't have enough grip to keep the car safely under control.
Braking performance will also be reduced compared to four matched tyres because you'll have two grippy tyres and two slippy tyres.

Nice video from tyre enthusiast here, using mixed summer+winter tyres:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5aMnmekA38

On snow, ice or other slippery surfaces front-wheel-drive with all season or winter tyres will outperform four-wheel-drive with normal (summer) tyres.

I had no trouble at all getting about in the recent snow/slush in a front-wheel-drive with CrossClimates, including having to make a few emergency manoeuvres to brake/swerve out of the way of vehicles which were sliding towards me out of control due to their non-stick tyres, plus avoiding crashing into a fallen tree on my side of the road round a country bend.

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Re: Winter Tyres in the UK. A good idea? Practicalities

#367685

Postby Clariman » December 19th, 2020, 12:08 pm

My local tyre place can either get premium tyres at £250 a go, or Minerva Winter tyres at £103.

Are Minerva winter tyres any good? I was planning to put winter tyres on all round. Would I be better to go for premium ones on the front drive wheels?

Thanks
C

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Re: Winter Tyres in the UK. A good idea? Practicalities

#367737

Postby Clariman » December 19th, 2020, 3:50 pm

Blackcircles picks the wrong tyre size for my car but when I enter the correct size it only gives me 2 winter-suitabke tyres for the size. One is a Bridgestone all year. Any comments on the Bridgestone Weather Control A005 EVO 235/40 R19 Y (96)? The other one they have is a winter tyre Kumho WinterCraft WP71

redsturgeon
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Re: Winter Tyres in the UK. A good idea? Practicalities

#367770

Postby redsturgeon » December 19th, 2020, 5:19 pm

Clariman wrote:
So I think I will put winter tyres on it and hope that makes the difference. Car is front wheel drive (not the 4WD model). Local garage said to just put the winter tyres on the drive wheel. My son (a bit of a car geek) said put them all round. I see from previous discussion here that Redsturgeon said put them on the back if a front wheel drive.


Clariman


Just to clarify, what I said was that it is generally accepted that you should have the grippiest tyres on the non driving wheels for control purposes.
However I would recommend fitting winter tyres on all four wheels if you are going to do it.

John

BT63
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Re: Winter Tyres in the UK. A good idea? Practicalities

#367790

Postby BT63 » December 19th, 2020, 6:36 pm

Clariman wrote:My local tyre place can either get premium tyres at £250 a go, or Minerva Winter tyres at £103.

Are Minerva winter tyres any good? I was planning to put winter tyres on all round. Would I be better to go for premium ones on the front drive wheels?

Thanks
C


Minerva are ultra-budget tyres. I usually only fit premium but would consider mid-range tyres if the premium options were limited. I would never fit budgets.
One of our cars has Michelin, one has Goodyear, one has Continental and one has Pirelli. All have four matching tyres.

A typical budget winter tyre might be respectable on snow and ice but with cost constraints might have to sacrifice other areas of its design such as long stopping distances and unstable handling on dry or wet roads which we encounter much more than snowy or icy roads.

I wouldn't mix budget tyres and premium tyres because of the difference in grip under different driving conditions. I wouldn't even mix two different brands of premium winter or all-season tyres because they'll be coping with a wider range of conditions than normal tyres.

However, I would mix two different brands of 'summer' (normal) tyres because their design is far less variable than winter or all-season tyres.

In most parts of the UK I don't think winter conditions justify anything more than all-season tyres.

What's your tyre size that's making supply so difficult?
Have you thought about mail-ordering the tyres you want? Black Circles, for example, or Halfords mobile fitting (or Tyres on the Drive who are a Halfords subsidiary). Maybe even Kwik Fit offer mobile fitting in your area.

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Re: Winter Tyres in the UK. A good idea? Practicalities

#367793

Postby Clariman » December 19th, 2020, 6:42 pm

BT63 wrote:
Clariman wrote:My local tyre place can either get premium tyres at £250 a go, or Minerva Winter tyres at £103.

Are Minerva winter tyres any good? I was planning to put winter tyres on all round. Would I be better to go for premium ones on the front drive wheels?

Thanks
C


Minerva are ultra-budget tyres. I usually only fit premium but would consider mid-range tyres if the premium options were limited. I would never fit budgets.
One of our cars has Michelin, one has Goodyear, one has Continental and one has Pirelli. All have four matching tyres.

A typical budget winter tyre might be respectable on snow and ice but with cost constraints might have to sacrifice otehr areas of its design such as long stopping distances and unstable handling on dry or wet roads which we encounter much more than snowy or icy roads.

I wouldn't mix budget tyres and premium tyres because of the difference in grip under different driving conditions. I wouldn't even mix two different brands of premium winter or all-season tyres because they'll be coping with a wider range of conditions than normal tyres.

However, I would mix two different brands of 'summer' (normal) tyres because their design is far less variable than winter or all-season tyres.

In most parts of the UK I don't think winter conditions justify anything more than all-season tyres.

What's your tyre size that's making supply so difficult?
Have you thought about mail-ordering the tyres you want? Black Circles, for example, or Halfords mobile fitting (or Tyres on the Drive who are a Halfords subsidiary). Maybe even Kwik Fit offer mobile fitting in your area.

They are 235/40 R19

Halfords and Kwik Fit don't have winter tyres in that size. Blackcircles only have Bridgestone Weather Control A005 EVO 235/40 R19 Y (96) and a winter tyre Kumho WinterCraft WP71

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Re: Winter Tyres in the UK. A good idea? Practicalities

#367923

Postby airbus330 » December 20th, 2020, 9:02 am

Does this help? Camskill have your size in Nokian and Hankook winter rubber. At the bottom is a AutoExpress test with both in.
I had some experience of buying cheap winter tyres a few years back, they were worse than the OE summer tyres. Goodyear winters are brilliant, but not in your size.

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/accessori ... s-reviewed

Nokian Snowproof Phttps://www.camskill.co.uk/m98b0s4900p ... se%3A_70dB
Hankook W320 Winter I*cept Evo2

https://www.camskill.co.uk/m98b0s4900p1 ... se%3A_72dB

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Re: Winter Tyres in the UK. A good idea? Practicalities

#367938

Postby Mike4 » December 20th, 2020, 9:53 am

airbus330 wrote: Goodyear winters are brilliant, but not in your size.


I'll second this. I have the van back from the garage now and I checked the tyres last night. I have Goodyear M+S tyres which I find excellent in slippy conditions, both muddy grass and snow-covered roads.

They seem fine in summer too, I run them all year round rather than swapping to different tyres for different seasons.


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