Trev, you didn't upset me. But you posted that all the info about winter tyres being better is pish. It's simply not. On summer tyres of course you can drive, no one says you can't. But stopping distances increase ten fold. The police have been posting plenty of warnings to that effect.

Now with winter tyres, that doesn't happen. Fact.

A friend of mine is currently unable to get back to his house because the road is blocked by 6 4x4s who's drivers also subscribe to the "it's all pish" school of thought. My friend is having no issues driving and stopping but the road is blocked with a collection of stranded range rovers. He's not overly impressed.

But I'm not fussed whether all you flat earthers accept that there are advantages or continue to believe it's all a fantasy. I really don't care.

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Domhnall - didnt say winter tyres are pish, i said all this pishyou and a few others are preaching about winter tyres are a must, you cant drive in snow without them blah blah blah, THAT, my friend is a load of pish.

Are you guaranteeing that i wont crash with winter tyres on my car? Thats what your trying to put across, which again is alot of pish!

I know there are advantages to winter tyres, im not stupid, i just dont believe that i MUST have them, i WILL be screwed without them and i WILL crash!

Would rather use £500 elsewhere!

Yesterday I drove Heathrow to North Wales and you can guess what fun that was. Somewhere around Birmingham someone in a Honda drove up the outside lane, lost it and slid across all carriageways into the barrier on the inside of the hard shoulder. My brakes worked just as I would have hoped; quick slowing in a straight line without the antilock coming on. Without the winter tyres I'm sure that it would have been a fish tail event. No amount of careful driving, anticipation or other techniques could have avoided the need for my sudden braking.

I think it needs to be excepted that some areas requre winter tyers and other areas are ok with "normal" tyers (i am not going to refer to them as Summer tyers as they are not).

Some people are less experienced than others and probably feel more confident with "Winter tyers"

I personally have driven 50 miles to day with "normal tyers" and never felt in danger once.

I may when i next need new tyer's invest in some Uniroyal Rainsport(unless someone can recommend a better all year tyer).

Domhnall - didnt say winter tyres are pish, i said all this pishyou and a few others are preaching about winter tyres are a must, you cant drive in snow without them blah blah blah, THAT, my friend is a load of pish.

Are you guaranteeing that i wont crash with winter tyres on my car? Thats what your trying to put across, which again is alot of pish!

I know there are advantages to winter tyres, im not stupid, i just dont believe that i MUST have them, i WILL be screwed without them and i WILL crash!

Would rather use £500 elsewhere!

Trev, no I didn't and don't say any of that. There aren't any guarantees of anything.

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Calm down lads, its only a car forum ffs lol.

If Trev doesnt feel the need for winter tyres then fair enough, its his decision :-)

If he does decide to try them in the future, theres some bargains to be had if he searches around. I got my steelies and tyres for £200, bloke selling them only done 500 miles with them last winter and sold his fabia.

I think it needs to be excepted that some areas requre winter tyers and other areas are ok with "normal" tyers (i am not going to refer to them as Summer tyers as they are not).

I'm afraid that most premium tyre manufacturers now do market "normal" tyres as summer tyres, and that is, in my mind, part of the reason why quite a lot of UK should consider changing tyres in winter, that along with the current change to winter conditions that seem to be making driving conditions worse than they used to be. I too am someone that never considered using winter tyres in my previous 30 years of driving, but general winter weather/road conditions and the change of "normal" tyres being optimised for summer use has forced this re-think on me.

Spending a few quid on winter tyres is a lot cheaper than an insurance claim.

18 years of fitting winter tyres to all my different cars, would have cost me way more than a few insurance claims.

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Got up to a good 4 inches of snow in my estate which is quite steep this morning

just made a coffee and went into sitting room heard a car coming down the road

so looked out of window to see it trying to turn into my cul de sac it slid and slammed

into the curb with passenger side alloy wheel he then went further down the hill which

is a dead end he could not turn around so he tried to reverse back up

all 4 wheels spinning and engine screaming it was a passat 4 motion it slid across

the road and slammed into the curb again with both front and rear drivers side alloys

a bit of digging and he tried again this time slid back across the road and hit the curb

on the other side with the passenger side alloys then slid back down the hill fully locked up

and just missed a parked car

45 minutes later after some digging a lot of wheel spinning and engine screaming he

finally got out of the estate

i then went out brushed snow of my fab with vredstein snowtrak 3 on turned around and drove up hill

without any wheelspin what so ever

how much damage did he do to his car and just pure luck he missed the parked car

18 years of fitting winter tyres to all my different cars, would have cost me way more than a few insurance claims.

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Branded 14" winter tyres at £35 a corner from Camskill (£10 voucher promo), £10 fitting to loose rims per corner or less if I pull in a favor and I'll get 5 years out of them only using them when snow is forecast (about 2 months a year) so 36 ish per year average. The rims cost me the scrap value and a favor.

So if you say I have one fault claim in the snow every 10 years (seems reasonable as that's circa 300,000 miles of driving for me) and a £250 excess that's £25/yr average over 10yrs, on top of that you have a loss of NCB and/or (if protected) a loading for each claim. If you are seriously trying to tell me a fault claim will add less than £11 a year on even with protected NCB then I'll have whatever you're having!

My car was written off by a drunk uninsured driver last year, I had protected and max NCB, the claim was settled as non fault, I can only dream of my premium only going up by £36 a year, it'll be more than that each year for the next 5. I dread to think what I'd be looking at if it were a fault claim such as ploughing into the back of a stationary vehicle in the situation I described previously.

Either way for me it's cheaper not to mention safer to fit tyres appropriate to the conditions I drive in, if I pootled about doing a few thousand miles a year in a well gritted city and had the option of using public transport or getting a taxi etc. then i'd probably feel differently.

Avalon all well and good if you keep the same "one" car for years on end.

All I know is out if 18 years of driving I have had not one single accident. So winter tyres would have cost me more.

If ever I do have a smack in the snow I shall come back and update.

As above living in the welsh valleys I managed to get the vrs out and the scirocco out onto roads only 4x4 where using.

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Edited 19 January, 201313 yr by Lew0-VRS

You're snatching at straws now but fair enough, I lost nothing on my Rav4 alloys when I sold them, my Roadster alloys are still in the garage as I'll sell them in the summer (not many people brave snow in a low mid engine RWD car) so prices are higher then but I doubt I'll loose anything on them as I paid £160 less than the cost of the 4 brand new T1R's they came fitted on the spade set with which I needed anyway so I'm not doing that badly.

Like most things it's about when you buy and when you sell.

The majority of people harping on about winter tyers appear to be living in the North of England, Scotland or other areas that are effected by worse weather than where i live.

As i have said, if i lived in such an area then i would get Winter tyres, presently i do not need them.

The majority of people harping on about winter tyers appear to be living in the North of England, Scotland or other areas that are effected by worse weather than where i live.

As i have said, if i lived in such an area then i would get Winter tyres, presently i do not need them.

If by 'harping on' you are referring to suggesting that it depends on the person, where they live and the amount/type of driving they do then you'd be right. Winter tyres are a marmite issue but critically those that say they aren't required have rarely (if ever) fitted or even driven a car with them on.

http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/Article/Winter-Tyres-Real-World-Experiences.htm

You're snatching at straws now but fair enough,

Not at all just saying it as it is from my side of the fence.

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Just put the winter wheels/tyres on the VW T5 ready for the trip north of Inverness next weekend. Wouldn't contemplate driving up there without them.

Its a bit of cost but I can't see how you loose. I save running the usual tyres for three months for the expense of a set of steeles from ebay and £25 a corner for the tyres. Win !

Anyone else doing the "Puffer" 24hr mountain bike race too ?

The winters will be on until March/April depending on the weather.

The majority of people harping on about winter tyers appear to be living in the North of England, Scotland or other areas that are effected by worse weather than where i live.

As i have said, if i lived in such an area then i would get Winter tyres, presently i do not need them.

NOBODY NEEDS THEM (OK a very few people might) the whole point of winter tyres is give yourself the maximum available grip in the conditions when you really need it, I suppose it all comes down to how much you value your safety.

I live in the SE… nearly as far as you can get before getting your feet wet and I CHOOSE to fit winter tyres simply because they outperform non winter tyres by a huge margin when it gets really cold. For the few days per year when it does snow you simply cannot compare them at all.

The first accident in the snow I have come across this year just happened to be an X3, who lost it big time going DOWN hill, 4WD is no better than 2WD when gravity takes over, invariably it will be worse as a 4WD car is typically heavier, when all 4 tyres loose grip on ice then you become a passenger who can do very little.

This same hill (Spitfire Way… for those local) is where we typically get 50+ cars parked up when it snows as the drivers have no idea how to drive in the snow, there are always Range Rovers, X5’s X3’s and cars on skinny tyres… Micra’s, Polo’s etc amongst those who get stuck.

I have yet to get stuck on ‘summer’ tyres, due to forward planning, sitting 100’+ behind the car in front so if they start to struggle I can either slow down or go round them, keeping momentum going is the key thing, so why did I bother fitting winter tyres on both cars? well on winter tyres I can close the gap a little as even if I need to stop half way up the hill starting off again is not an issue, but the real reason is not starting off… it’s so I can stop as well.

As people say it all depends where you live - I've always lived in the welsh border region, but always close to main roads. I've been driving for nearly 40 years and I've not had a single "damage" accident owing to ice or snow as far as I can recall. I did pirouette on the A5 once in a Maestro but without hitting anything. I remember battling from Shrewsbury to Burton for a meeting in around 1988 - and no one else turned up - but it was without incident in the journey. If I lived where snow is more prevalent, or away from "tended" roads, yes, I'd probably invest in winter tyres, but where I presently live and bearing in mind the reasons I need a car, it's not worth the hassle or expense.

Just picked up a set of winters conveniently already attached to fabia vrs rims on ebay. Stuck them on the car and the difference is unreal. The car just has so much extra traction, braking and cornering ability. Me likes very much

One thing any potential purchaser of used winter tyres should be aware of is, when these tyres get down to 4mm they are "finished" as far as real winter use is concerned, that is the very reason why UK and maybe some other countries, are getting flooded with "really good deals" on used winter tyres coming in from Germany, with only 4mm of tread, the Germans know they are "finished" but some other poor mug in UK etc has not considered that fact as they are still within the legal minimum tread depth for UK.

Mine have all got around 8mm so I think my deal was quite good. Especially as I now also have a complete spare set of vrs alloys

Out of interest how much do insurance companies charge when you inform the about winter wheels/tyres.

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Out of interest how much do insurance companies charge when you inform the about winter wheels/tyres.

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Well from my experience, and some other peoples experiences are that there should be no extra charge as long as the wheels/tyres are either original size or manufacturer's winter option size (on all four wheels). Also, speed ratings can be lower as long as you should be driving slower in winter, at least no where near the limit imposed on the tyres.

Out of interest how much do insurance companies charge when you inform the about winter wheels/tyres.

Esure don't charge anything but several other insurance companies tried to charge me a premium increase of approx 20% to have winter tyres fitted.... go figure out that one.

Edited 20 January, 201313 yr by djdazzy

Out of interest how much do insurance companies charge when you inform the about winter wheels/tyres.

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It hasn't cost me anything

Considering my last cars list of declared modifications my independent family run broker just laughed and noted the policy in years gone by irrespective of the size/type of alloys as long as they were genuine OE, as I no longer have a car they can insure (kit/classic/competition/smart) I had to go mainstream. When taking the policy out I specifically asked and was told that as long as the tyre/wheel size was the same and they were OE rims then they wouldn't make any charge for noting the change and this was confirmed by the notes put on the account and the underwriting team at my insistence.

I suspect if I suddenly decided to rock some 17" alloys OE or otherwise they'd want an additional premium irrespective of what tyres I fitted but that's to be expected