when is the best month to fit winter tyres and to take them off ?

thanks

It depends on the tyres, where you live and what driving you do.

Me I live in Gloucestershire and I have Avon Ice and Snow Touring ST and I travel about 1500 miles per week early in the morning and late at night.

Mine go on in December and come off in March. That works for me.

TC

Depends on the tyres as said.

Typically october/november until march isn't an issue with friction tyres.

Depends on the tyres as said.

Typically october/november until march isn't an issue with friction tyres.

as anyone fitted steel wheels with winter tyres to their cars ? if so how much did it cost and can you use the alloy wheel bolts ? i have a 1.2 12v fabia 2)

I've just put steel wheels and winter tyres on my wife's 2003 Polo 9N - and used the original bolts as I seem to remember that VAG uses the same bolts on steels and their alloys.

On the subject of cost, I priced getting the tyres Mitchelin Alpin 3 from Costco but that would mean that I'd have to find 4 or 5 6J X 14 H2 ET43 steel wheels, scrappies could not help, VW wanted roughly £40 each bare wheel, so I got a quote from MYTYRES then found that Costco could only source one tyre from Mitchelin UK with no more tyres expected until at least mid February - so to make sure that my wife did not suffer any more "can't get out of the estate" instances that would make her need to borrow my Passat 4Motion, I went ahead with getting a set of tyres with steel wheels from MYTYRES as the final complete cost was only about £10 more than the cost of buying new wheels from VW and getting tyres (but when) from Costco with their 20% off deal. I've evaded giving an answer to the "how much" question as it depends on if MYTYRE supply steel wheels for the Fabia 2 and which tyres you choose. Take a look at their site - I've used them in the past so had no worries about using them this time. It makes good sense to come down a wheel size if possible as the best performance from winter tyres comes when you drop the width down a bit - so that means that the aspect ratio comes up a bit. The Polo comes with 6J X 14 H2 ET43 wheels with 185/60 tyres, I had speced my wife's car up to 6J X 15 H2 ET43 alloys with 195/55 tyres from the factory, so dropped back down to 185/60 on 14" wheels for snow tyres - the guy at Costco reckoned for best performance I should have gone for 165/70 but I kind of wanted the best of both worlds after reading tales of woe from someone that went from ???/40 down to something with very high side walls. Remember these tyres will be okay for 4 months of the year so it might be best to do as I did and go for a compromise - oh and the overall price drop down with the wheel diameter!

Edited 30 January, 201016 yr by rum4mo