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Winter tyres - the ADAC's annual assessment

Cheese said:
Most of you guys can afford winter tyres, so buy some. You may live in areas with little snow, but remember that even one snowy morning per winter justifies fitting them. Do it in November, so you’re on the safe side. Worrying all winter about getting stuck on a busy road with summer tyres, blocking traffic ? Not for me, thanks.
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Winter tyres are less about grip on snow and more about gripping roads with low surface temperature (below five Celsius) which definitely applies to the UK.
 
We could have a cold winter any time though we haven’t for several years. I don’t commute and can chose when I drive, it’s incredibly rare that I drive in temps under 5C. We all have an individual profile to our driving times and locations. There are no manufacturer approved options for all-seasons with my wheels, I’d need another set of wheels to run anything other than summers. So…I’m keeping to summers. I do however ensure I have plenty of tread for winter.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
As are all-season tyres. They’re a good solution for our mild but wet winters IMHO.
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That's why I've gone for the Goodyears this time around

The country roads local to me are generally covered in standing water and with the rain we get every winter; they're great for that

When we're up in Dunkeld; the snow can get heavy'ish there, but it's well cleared. But when you start heading up towards Dalwhinnie/Cairngorms and even House of Bruar; the snow can get much heavier etc...

They'll do perfectly for those weather conditions
 
clivem2 said:
We could have a cold winter any time though we haven’t for several years. I don’t commute and can chose when I drive, it’s incredibly rare that I drive in temps under 5C. We all have an individual profile to our driving times and locations. There are no manufacturer approved options for all-seasons with my wheels, I’d need another set of wheels to run anything other than summers. So…I’m keeping to summers. I do however ensure I have plenty of tread for winter.
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More tread doesn't mean better; but get where you're coming from

Folk don't seem to realise that summer tyres have completely different compounds to all-season/winter tyres and that summer tyre compounds firm up in the colder temps, which isn't good at all
 
Cheese said:
Most of you guys can afford winter tyres, so buy some. You may live in areas with little snow, but remember that even one snowy morning per winter justifies fitting them. Do it in November, so you’re on the safe side. Worrying all winter about getting stuck on a busy road with summer tyres, blocking traffic ? Not for me, thanks.
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Oct to March for me generally...
 
hifilover1979 said:
More tread doesn't mean better; but get where you're coming from

Folk don't seem to realise that summer tyres have completely different compounds to all-season/winter tyres and that summer tyre compounds firm up in the colder temps, which isn't good at all
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UK does not have any limit set by law how deep has to be tread? We have 2mm in summer and 4mm in winter.
 
hifilover1979 said:
More tread doesn't mean better; but get where you're coming from

Folk don't seem to realise that summer tyres have completely different compounds to all-season/winter tyres and that summer tyre compounds firm up in the colder temps, which isn't good at all
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When you see the graphs for stopping distance in the wet with <3mm of tread then you’ll get why I change tyres at 3mm.

Yes the tyre compounds are very different for tyres designed for low temps. It’s possible to crack summers in very low temps, let alone lose a lot of grip. Not only have winters been very mild where I live since about 2010, most have been dry, if not drought conditions.

Choice of tyre comes down to many factors and circumstances. What’s right for one situation isn’t so smart for others. We were going to a big Christmas week-long gathering at a castle in the far north of Scotland, had this gone ahead I would have bought new wheels and tyres as my logic for staying on summers would have been well and true skewered. It would have been a very expensive trip!
 
clivem2 said:
It’s a crazy 1.6mm.
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Yup; stupid IMO - as you said, 3mm min it should be! Makes a lot of sense...

Even worse when the knobbers drive round in their cars with really badly worn tread etc...

But as the way it goes; most of them don't give 2 shits!

I'm so glad that I don't have to commute nor drive many places during the week unless I choose to etc
 
Looked up, yes, we also have 1.6mm for summer. It does feel a bit low, when you look at new tyres, how much you need to drive to get them to those 1.6mm ? Probably that is why people still using even 10 year old tyres, maybe we need also law for tyre age, not just recomendations. Scandinavia probably have, as we used to have a lot of used, still good, tyres from them in market.
 
gints said:
Looked up, yes, we also have 1.6mm for summer. It does feel a bit low, when you look at new tyres, how much you need to drive to get them to those 1.6mm ? Probably that is why people still using even 10 year old tyres, maybe we need also law for tyre age, not just recomendations. Scandinavia probably have, as we used to have a lot of used, still good, tyres from them in market.
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It the UK we have a tyre age limit of 10 years but this excludes cars. My last set of tyres didn’t last long…they had a high wear rating and only 7mm of tread so 4mm to use of rubber before I changed them. This took just under 3 years and only 13,000 miles…it’s a 1.9 tonne powerful car,
 
Just had a very nasty drive down from Fort William back to Edinburgh in horrible conditions with enormous amounts of standing water. Fortunately the SLK has brand new Pilots Sports on which coped well with the conditions, but I'd definitely have preferred to have been in my own car with its Cross Climates. We passed one car (a very new 7-series BMW) rammed into a ditch in Glencoe, looking like it'd spun after hitting a very heavy bit of standing water - no injuries from the looks of it thankfully.

We're heading back up that way again tomorrow, to Skye, but in my own car this time. Hopefully in better driving conditions!
 
SteveG said:
Just had a very nasty drive down from Fort William back to Edinburgh in horrible conditions with enormous amounts of standing water. Fortunately the SLK has brand new Pilots Sports on which coped well with the conditions, but I'd definitely have preferred to have been in my own car with its Cross Climates. We passed one car (a very new 7-series BMW) rammed into a ditch in Glencoe, looking like it'd spun after hitting a very heavy bit of standing water - no injuries from the looks of it thankfully.

We're heading back up that way again tomorrow, to Skye, but in my own car this time. Hopefully in better driving conditions!
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What temperatures were you seeing on the drive from Fort William to Edinburgh?
 
When I bought my current car it had wide/low profile tyres which were standard fitment. The tyres were Michelin Primacy 3 and utterly useless in the wet. I replaced them with Avons which were far better but felt the ride was still a bit harsh so bought some (also regular equipment/same pattern) alloys that were 1" smaller and a bit narrower on eBay. The plan was to have a summer/winter set up. However the roads and potholes have got worse so I've stuck with the smaller wheels and all season tyres, the best I've had so far are Michelin Cross Climate or whatever they're called not silly money and last well although noisier than some. Caveats are my car only has 160 odd hp, is a large-ish estate and I'm getting on a bit!
 
If you think Michelins are noisy, try Goodyear!
It feels like James Bond on the run with the constant noise of a helicopter chasing you close behind.
 
gints said:
Probably that is why people still using even 10 year old tyres, maybe we need also law for tyre age, not just recomendations. Scandinavia probably have, as we used to have a lot of used, still good, tyres from them in market.
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As Scandinavian. No, in my country Sweden there is no limit to age. I, stupidly, once had tires so old there where cracks from ageing so that one could see the white cord!!! No complaints in MOT.

They really imported SH tires from Scandinavia? Summer or winter ones?
 
SteveG said:
Just had a very nasty drive down from Fort William back to Edinburgh in horrible conditions with enormous amounts of standing water. Fortunately the SLK has brand new Pilots Sports on which coped well with the conditions, but I'd definitely have preferred to have been in my own car with its Cross Climates. We passed one car (a very new 7-series BMW) rammed into a ditch in Glencoe, looking like it'd spun after hitting a very heavy bit of standing water - no injuries from the looks of it thankfully.

We're heading back up that way again tomorrow, to Skye, but in my own car this time. Hopefully in better driving conditions!
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The drive back for us in Feb 2020 sounded just like that; lots of standing water on the A9 and it was made worse by all the road works they were doing whilst widening parts of the A9...

I tried to get to Braemar in Feb 2020 too; Glenshee was shut so that was a no-go. Shows you the differences of weather at different elevations etc
 
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