Wintertires

FreddieS3

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I'am bit curious. Here in Sweden you have to have snow/winter tires from 1 december - 31 march or earlier/longer if the temperature is below 0 degrees. We have two different types of wintertires, the european one without spikes and the more common with spikes, about 70% of Sweds drives with spikes.

My car arrives in January and I have ordered tires with spikes, the besttires when you want to drift and use the quattro on frozen lakes! :rockwoot:


How is it in other European countries like the UK and so on?
 
I think in UK wintertires are only a recommendation, not compulsory.

I live in Inverness and my Alfa has Dunlop Sports, hardly a winter tyre, never had any problems...

Pedro
 
I see today that Costco are pushing Michelin's range of winter tyres now in the UK.
I must admit that you can really tell the difference with siummer tyres when the tarmac gets colder & damp and the grip drops off.

Given the length of the copld damp British winter, I did wonder about fitting those to my wife's car as her normal tyre....

For normal driving (and non-enthusiast drivers), surely its better to have better grip in poor conditions even if you lose out a bit in the hot & dry...
 
I've used Toyo SnowProx's in the past, and currently got a set of Pirelli SnowSports on my Golf and the difference is amazing when it's frosty.

I didn't bother last year and couldn't get out of my road (in the middle of a housing development)...I expect no such problems this year with narrower, proper cold temperature compound tyres.

I reckon I'll have them on December to end of March ish.
Worth the investment I think.
 
You are probably right. But I've been in the UK for 2 years and have managed with summer tires, off course one must be extra carefull and winter tires should give more grip...

Pedro
 
In the uk the vast majority or drivers use summer tyres all year round, and there is no legal obligation to use winter tyres at all. I believe that metal studded tyres are not permitted. I know that in Germany and Switzerland it is similar to what you describe in Sweden - you have to have winter tyres on between certain dates. France is like the UK.

I've got Vredestein Snowtrac 2 on my car at the moment - I'm a bit dissapointed with the road noise, but the grip is excellent. The only problem is that I have to be careful that I don't go too fast driving other cars that don't have winter tyres!
 
Unless everyone is forced to use winter tyres, as is the case in Sweden, there's not much point. You may be able to stop quicker in the snow but the guy behind will then just sail into your **** :)
 
Vertigo1 said:
Unless everyone is forced to use winter tyres, as is the case in Sweden, there's not much point. You may be able to stop quicker in the snow but the guy behind will then just sail into your **** :)
True, but when it snows here in the UK, the whole country grinds to a halt so winter tyres are of little use ...
 
I think people are confusing winter tyres with snow tyres.

Winter tyres work better when the temperature is down at 5 degrees or below...not just in the snow.
On frosty mornings they are much better at finding grip than a set of ulta high performance summer based tyres.
 
In Germany most people have 'proper' summer tyres and then change over to winter tyres, at this time of year you see lots of flash cars driving around on these huge balloon wheels, I think all UK cars are supplied nowdays with all year round tyres, usually indicated by M+S (mud and snow) on the tyre wall.
 

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