botze

Yes, there are "Nordic winter tyres" and regular winter tyres. I usually do like you, go for the test winner which right now seems to be Continental Viking Contact 7. But yesterday I ordered Goodyear UltraGrip Ice 2, which was the test winner last year. The Conti tyre is brand new and a bit more expensive, and seems a bit more noisy.

Thanks a lot! I'm in central Gothenburg so I'm actually not considering studs at all. I'm looking to buy probably the Goodyear UltraGrip Ice 2 or the Pirelli Winter Ice Zero FR, since these tyres seem to perform the best in tests I've read, together with the Continental Viking Contact 7 but that's a little bit more expensive, and the performance seems similar to those I mentioned.

Very informative, thanks! He also confirms my suspicion that the perfect all-weather tyre doesn't exist. I don't want to be in a crash with my kids thinking "maybe a proper winter tyre could have saved us from crashing". I think I will keep changing twice a year 😁

Interesting. The idea of not having to change wheels twice a year is very appealing. However some compromises must be made with those tyres I imagine. I don't worry about summer grip, what I do want is best possible grip in snowy bad conditions.

Studded tyres are legal everywhere in Sweden (within some time of the year) except for some streets in the center of the biggest towns. But like I said, in Gothenburg where I live they love salt on the road, so a lot of times you will have snow on smaller roads which they don´t put salt on and asphalt on the bigger roads. And metal to asphalt is not beneficial for anyone. But regarding all weather tyres, my understanding is that the rubber is way softer in the winter tyres, so it stays softer at cold temperatures than summer tyres, and that´s the big difference between the tyres (along with deeper pattern on the winter tyres). And that softer rubber would wear out quickly in the summer.

I know it's not comparable but don't rally cars typically use narrow tyres, to dig into the snow/mud/whatever?

Yes they are, however in the southern parts of Sweden most of the winter is not that much snow, and I live in a city (Gothenburg) where they like salt a lot so most of the times the roads are "slushy". Spikes are more common in the norhern parts of Sweden, and maybe more on the countryside. Also, the environmental part of it, they tear up the road, and they are noisier.

Found it now, thanks

This is the information I couldn't find while Googling. If it says 6.5 (what unit?) on the rim, how do I know how wide tires I can have on it? However now that I know they're 205 and not 255 😁 I think I'll stick to 205.

Thanks, but I'm in Sweden where we occasionally get a lot of snow in winter, so I'd rather have proper winter tyres 😊

Thanks. You're right, they're 205 which is probably fine. Summer tyres are 225 and winter 205.

I'm so sorry guys - they're 205 😁 had to go to the garage to check. I noted it down quickly some time ago, guess I wrote to 5's instead of a 0 and a 5. As you can tell, I'm not that familiar with tyre sizes 😁 The reason I asked initially was because I couldn't find ANY tyres that size. No wonder 😁 Can't find any way to edit my post... does anyone know?

True. Actually the fuel tank is the same size as on other Octavias (I think), they've just reduced the size of the trunk to fit the CNG tank. Still a decent size trunk.

Are you saying I can fit 205 tyres on the rims?

I know it's probably super narrow for petrolheads 😁 but I'm a dad of 2 and drive carefully, I have no need for wide tyres. Narrower tyres perform better in snow and that is more important to me + lower fuel consumption + less noise. But what you're saying is that 255 is narrow enough?