Ours hasn't moved since Friday

 

Mine neither, it's tucked up in the garage I'm still a **** though

 

I was out earlier today in the Subaru with Nokian's on and I can't fault them. Unfortunately I can fault the idiots on the road who have no idea - for example the idiot I followed down a hill riding his brakes all the way at about 2 mph. The problem we have around here (High Wycombe) is that every time it snows the roads get completely gridlocked with people trying to drive up and down hills their cars/tyres/driving abilities are just not up to.

I don't think I would support making winter tyres mandatory, but in the congested south east at least it might make sense to adopt the German law where it is illegal to drive in snow or slushy conditions without them - with fines/points doubled if a driver breaking the law is guilty of causing traffic delays.

 

Are you all stark raving mad? Do you seriously think that I am going to shell out on a second set of tires just in case i get the usual 1 day of snow in 365 days.

I think you have been watching too much SKY News and you have allowed them to get into your heads by whipping up hysteria and panic about a little bit of snow

 

OMFG!! WTF!! OMG!!! OMG!!

Seriously WTF...

 

winter tyres are not intended purely for snow (they have snow tyres for that)

the are supposed to work better in conditions below 7c, which (these days) we get quite often between Nov and March

 

I can almost feel your frustration

I've given up already as they're beyond educating

 

Where's the cheapest to look?

 

I think the problem you all have got is the inability to drive to the conditions of the road.

Providing you use common sense standard tyres are adequate for most places in the UK. It really is quite simple. It is snowing outside now as i type and if it sticks i can guarantee numpties will be driving to work in the morning, pedal to the metal, clearly not taking account of the conditions

Looking at some of the posts on here it will most likely be one of you lot.

 

Camskill seem to have good prices

Use http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/ to read real user reviews.

 

Cheers a lot cheaper than the other site I checked. Think I'll get some for next winter.

 

I don't know where you live, but that's definitely not true around here. As an example, a couple of years ago it started snowing on a Saturday morning just before Xmas, and the police immediately closed the main road leaving the town centre - a one-mile 1 in 10 slope uphill. I had to take a detour to get home, and ended up taking 3 hours to drive about 1.5 miles. The problem was that most people were struggling to get up the steeper parts of the hill, with cars crabbing sideways into curbs and parked cars. My son spent the last hour out of the car pushing other cars to help them get up.

With four wheel drive and decent winter tyres I didn't even have to use second gear to pull off even on the steepest stretches - they really do make that much difference.

 

This guy is a sponsor on an M3 forum and his prices often beat the likes of Camskill.....

http://lovetyres.com/

 

 

I'll keep it short, if you think summer tyres are even remotely close to winter tyres in conditions below 7 degrees C or in the snow (unless really cheap and nasty budget ones), you are really

Watch these 2 vids, think it may bring some light to those in the dark (one includes a subaru v a fwd car fitted with winter tyres)



Tony

 

I saw that on another forum...pretty impressive stuff I reckon.

 

I actually find them ok even at ordinary temps of say 15C or so once warmed up, even though this P1 also has a dccd fitted which remains open for 95% of the time. It's purely a toy car for me, not a day to day workhorse. so it only goes out when i fancy a "run" in it or a trackday. It does, oooh, maybe 2500 miles a year, mostly in the summer, but when it does get used it gets used properly (in a controlled manner obviously ) and so gets heat in them .... I also picked them up very cheaply from someone who had bought the wrong size for their car

I have 3 sets of wheels - one with Toyo T1r's on, one with full slicks, and these with R888's on and, yes, I did want to practice some "drifting"

Actually, it was mainly just to give it a little run for 20 miles or so to warm the engine, transmission, and car through and I was certainly careful with the loud pedal.
Mind you, it was still better than the 22 year old 3.5 tonne Bentley with Avon turbospeeds on

 

I live in north Scotland, in the countryside, have all my life. Never bought snow tyres in my life and have never got stuck anywhere, even during the last bad winter in 2010 driving a diesel astra, not some fancy 4x4. Only thing I do is ensure that around Oct/Nov time I buy a set of new tyres with a decent tread pattern - nothing rocket science just common sense IMO.

However, driver capability makes a big difference. You can enforce snow tyres and make people buy them, but you cant make people modify their driving behaviour and understand accelerating, braking and turning effects on the dynamics of the vehicle.

 

I think we need to recommend some driver training courses for some people on here because they think they can go out and buy a set of winter tyres, drive recklessly according to the conditions and be immune from the chance of stacking their pride and joy.

 

Or we could just fit a sharp blade to every steering wheel, facing the driver!

I'm sure that would make people drive safer.

 

last year my Mrs was that c*nt as I was full of flue dying on my settee and she decided to take the M3 to the shops , I told her to take my FWD lsd'd car out but she wanted to take the posh car ! 2 mins later a got a call to come and get her as she was stuck just around the corner , so I had to get dressed and dig and push her out , lucky she didn't get the shovel around the back of her head lol , I was as weak as a kitten and feeling like sh*t and that was the last thing I needed , so any sign of snow and it stays on the drive.

I did the wyedean rally last year in the snow , which got compacted down into sheet ice , it was the worst conditions I have ever driven in , I fitted brand new gravel tyres thinking they would offer some level of grip , I had none ! the people who did well were the ones who fitted road ice and snow tyres , a 1.4 nova finished 3rd overall behind 2 4wd's , the rally is on again in 3 weeks and if the snow and ice is still about i'll be buying a set ,

 

I saw more reckless drivers on the way down south yesterday who drove at stupid speeds on summer tyres thinking they were immune to snow, ice and slush at speeds well over 70mph!

Only last year on the M60 when it snowed that I was doing 50mph in the scoob with her winter socks on (and the M60 was white, you could not see the tarmac), there were cars overtaking me with summer tyres on!!!
The best one was a vw transporter van who decided after joining the M60 from the M62 that going out across to the (completely snow covered) outside lane and ending up just missing the barrier and sliding sideways in front of me that I had to avoid such an idiot, so you may say people with winter tyres drive recklessly, 99% dont, but you do get much more grip and the ability to acutally stop in a straight line in about a 1/4 of the distance a car with summer tyres on does! (where 99% seem to drive like total numpties until they touch their brakes and crash/**** themselves )

I think you should try some winter tyres for yourself (decent ones), its night and day as demonstrated in those vids I put up.

Tony

 

You're wasting your time mate, some people on this board are such good drivers they can make their cars defy physics. I am going to call the rally and F1 teams and let them know how good madcap and his buddies are as the teams are obviously missing a trick messing about with the likes of Alonso, Vettel and Loeb

 

The only car that I have ever got stuck in was my BMW 328i.
This was 3 or 4 years ago when we all got a stupid amount of snow very quickly one evening at 5pm.
I was in a queue heading towards a hump back bridge.
The only two clowns that needed help was me and the guy in front, who was also in a BMW.
Try pushing 1.5 tonnes in the snow whilst wearing loafer, with no grip.

If that didn't provide a much needed laugh to the queueing traffic behind, I don't know what else would.

 

A simpler way to impliment this would be via your insurance. If you have an accident when the road conditions are covered in snow/ice/slush etc., and you don't have winter tyres fitted, then you have a minimum £1,000 excess. That way those who don't see the benefit of winter tyres don't need to buy a set, but if they do venture out and cause an accident, then they are held responsible and have to pay.

I've been using winter tyres for 9 years now on my current and previous Impreza. The same set !! Admittedly this will be their last winter as they are down to about 3.5mm tread all round now. I bought a cheap set of kerbed 2nd hand alloys to fit them onto, and just keep them in the garage between end of March and mid November.

I too was a non-believer until I actually tried a car fitted with them in snow. It wasn't so much the traction improvements, but the difference under braking and cornering that opened my eyes. A 4WD car may have twice as much traction, but on snow and ice, two times nothing isn't much more than nothing and there is no benefit under braking.

John

 

It's always BMWs and Mercs

BTW depsite all this talk of how good they are I am not really advocating they should be made law... think that may be a step too far.

 

At least we have not had any snow here in my part of Devon yet.

Les

 

+1

 

Good "real world" analysis here
http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/Article...xperiences.htm

 

Well, 'sources in Government' are fully behind the legal requirement to have Winter Tyres fitted, could be Law by 2014.

As someone above said, these tyres are good between October and March - so, you would get value for money.

The biggest cost would be a new set of alloys/steel wheels ... but, these can be sourced quite cheaply at the moment.

But, watch the price of wheels in the scrapyards suddenly get very expensive all of a sudden!!