I take absolutely NO chances with my insurers.

Having spent some time recently acting in a management consultative capacity for a large body repair operation, I've seen first hand how 'picky' some insurers can be!

Cost cutting is their mantra

For the avoidance of doubt and to smooth the process should I need to make a claim, I declare everything on my cars which is 'non standard' - that includes all the factory/dealer fitted extras too!

Whilst I might not think this is legally or contractually necessary, I prefer to err on the side of caution!

I take absolutely NO chances with my insurers.

Having spent some time recently acting in a management consultative capacity for a large body repair operation, I've seen first hand how 'picky' some insurers can be!

Cost cutting is their mantra

For the avoidance of doubt and to smooth the process should I need to make a claim, I declare everything on my cars which is 'non standard' - that includes all the factory/dealer fitted extras too!

Whilst I might not think this is legally or contractually necessary, I prefer to err on the side of caution!

As per your experience, MM, I just called SAGA INSURANCE, who. incidentally, aren't subscribed to the ABI list of companies referred to earlier in the thread. I was referred to their underwriting team who simply wanted my confirmation that the winter tyres to be fitted were manufacturer recommended size and will be professionally fitted. They will be emailing me a note to say they have accepted this without any charge but that I need to notify them when they are removed in the Spring.

I've just bought a set of four genuine steel rims from a Skoda dealers in Mansfield via ebay. Worked out at £166 delivered for all four. My local dealer claimed he couldn't buy them himself for that, so I figure it was a good buy. Item number here:

380406886271

Dropped them off at a mate's today for him to spray silver for me (he does a lot of body repair work, so silver paint "just" jobs are very cheap!). All four painted and lacquered for £80 - less than it'd cost me to buy the paint...

Anyhow, got to find some caddy caps for them and make a decision on tyres. I had Bridgestone A001 All-Season tyres on a set of steel rims on our old Golf, and they were very good indeed for the whole November-April period. I'm probably going to try and find something similar for the Yeti rather than a dedicated "winter/snow" compound as they'll probably be better for us here in the South East.

Glen.

I've just bought a set of four genuine steel rims from a Skoda dealers in Mansfield via ebay. Worked out at £166 delivered for all four. My local dealer claimed he couldn't buy them himself for that, so I figure it was a good buy. Item number here:

380406886271

Dropped them off at a mate's today for him to spray silver for me (he does a lot of body repair work, so silver paint "just" jobs are very cheap!). All four painted and lacquered for £80 - less than it'd cost me to buy the paint...

Anyhow, got to find some caddy caps for them and make a decision on tyres. I had Bridgestone A001 All-Season tyres on a set of steel rims on our old Golf, and they were very good indeed for the whole November-April period. I'm probably going to try and find something similar for the Yeti rather than a dedicated "winter/snow" compound as they'll probably be better for us here in the South East.

Glen.

'

The Goodyear all season tyres ("4Season") get good reports. I have them on my Hyundai as a compromise rather than the full on' winter tyres on the Yeti.

'

The Goodyear all season tyres ("4Season") get good reports. I have them on my Hyundai as a compromise rather than the full on' winter tyres on the Yeti.

I do not wish to go the 'winter tyre' route but would like to try out some all-weather tyres.

However, only my back two 'summer' Dunlops need replacing. Is it daft/allowed to replace the back two tyres with "Goodyear 4Seasons" now and then repace the front Dunlops with the Goodyears when required?

I do not wish to go the 'winter tyre' route but would like to try out some all-weather tyres.

However, only my back two 'summer' Dunlops need replacing. Is it daft/allowed to replace the back two tyres with "Goodyear 4Seasons" now and then repace the front Dunlops with the Goodyears when required?

Daft! With different grip levels available front vs. rear this is a sure fire recipe for a spin and accident.

If you are going the winter or all-season route then an initial purchase of 4 tyres is totally recommended IMHO.

I do not wish to go the 'winter tyre' route but would like to try out some all-weather tyres.

However, only my back two 'summer' Dunlops need replacing. Is it daft/allowed to replace the back two tyres with "Goodyear 4Seasons" now and then repace the front Dunlops with the Goodyears when required?

I certainly would have said it would have been a bad idea to fit two winters and two...'.normal, non winters' ('summer' tyres, despite that being a slightly controversial expression) as there are video clips readily available showing the winter pair maintaining grip where the summer pair lost it....but that's not what you asked.

The option of two all season's is a bit more diluted as they don't apparently have quite the same tenacious cold weather grip. I can see your mild dilemma but personally would only stick four of any one sort on at any time given the importance of tyres and given the unusual weather events we seem to be seeing. That way if anything ever did occur you can satisfy yourself that you did everything you could have done by not compromising the tyres you fitted.

But I wouldn't even want mixed makes of the same type of tyres on the car...even by having them in pairs, front or back, so the likelihood of me having two summer and two of a different sort is nil.

I try to achieve this by swapping front to back annually to even out the wear so I can buy four new tyres rather than two at a a time.

Edited 27 September, 201213 yr by oldstan

Many thanks for those replies - I suspected as much. I'll be buying the standard Dunlops Sport 01s for now.

I'll make sure to swap around my tyres more carefully in future!

so I want 4 steel 16" wheels 215/60 with a set of Hankook W310's or (as good)

what should I pay and where should I go?

Hampshire/ S London area please

Cheers

I am (currently) insured with AA Insurance. Phoned today to let them know I would be switching to winter tyres at end of October. Rep had no idea what winter tyres were (I had to explain) or whether there would be an additional premium because they were non-standard. Wanted to know 1. Value of wheels. 2 Value of Tyres. 3. Size of tyres including full spec and speed rating. Rep will "put this information in front of underwriters" who will call me to discuss impact on premium! Now this is the AA who are supposed to be knowledgeable about all things motoring and I would have thought that they would at least have briefed their reps about the advantage of Winter tyres.

Policy is due for renewal at end of October so quite likely I will be changing insurance companies.

Had a call back from AA Insurance today confirming that winter tyres will not result in any premium change and an apology that the rep I spoke to originally didn't tell me that immediately. They are more than happy for policy holders to use safer winter tyres.

so I want 4 steel 16" wheels 215/60 with a set of Hankook W310's or (as good)

what should I pay and where should I go?

Hampshire/ S London area please

Cheers

Setyres should be round your way, we paid £72 per corner for hankook 310's fitted by them.

If its not been covered before, why not just fit all-season tyres to the standard alloys and avoid the need to keep changing them - especially as the UK can have so many different weathers in one week. I have Goodyear Vector 4Seasons fitted which are M+S rated and so far have been very impressed - no worry about when the weather might turn nasty(ier!). I expect in some colder climates one needs a proper winter tyre but for the UK these seem a really good compromise.

http://www.goodyear.eu/uk_en/tires/vector-4seasons/index.jsp

Regarding the Vector 4Season people are mentioning......

An Irish tyre site has the below options available.

Can anyone advise which is the most appropriate for the yeti?

(170hp on 17's)

Here is option 1

http://ssl.delti.com...124&sowigan=GAN

Option 2

http://ssl.delti.com...124&sowigan=GAN

Option 3

http://ssl.delti.com...124&sowigan=GAN

Finally Option 4

http://ssl.delti.com...124&sowigan=GAN

They seem to differ based on noise and rolling resistance.

I'm wondering which one is the most appropriate for the Yeti.

Thanks gents.

Regarding the Vector 4Season people are mentioning......

An Irish tyre site has the below options available.

Looking at the site - I think its the same as mytyres

My Vector 4Seasons came from Oponeo. http://www.oponeo.co.uk/tyre-finder/car-all-season-tyres-225-50-r17 And I had them fitted locally. Not this size though....they're on the i10 and only cost £58 each. On the Citigo they're cheaper still!

I'm liking the look of Hankook H727's as all-season rubber. But they appear to only be sold in the US. Looks like Tirerack.com is my only option. I prefer non-directionals.

why not just fit all-season tyres to the standard alloys and avoid the need to keep changing them

Firstly, all-season tyres don't perform as well on ice and snow as full winter tyres. It's a balance against the risk of ice or snow in the places you usually take/might want to take your car. For me up here in Scotland that balance is quite heavily in favour of the full winter tyre, especially since I like to go in to some fairly remote parts of the Highlands, including off the main road network (estate/hydro roads & landrover tracks for access to the hills, for example).

Secondly, a lot of people (though I'm not saying that you're one of them) have a misconception that winter tyres are only beneficial when there's ice and snow about. In fact the rubber compound is designed to stay flexible and function better than summer pattern tyres at temperatures below about 7C, plus they have more aggressive siping designed to clear water and slush more effectively. Even in Edinburgh I can pretty much rely on temperatures on or below 7C from round about the time the clocks go back, until late February or early March. So it's only two changes per year - and while the winter tyres are on, the summer tyres aren't being worn out, so the only real cost is in the extra set of wheels (which is one reason to go for steels rather than alloys for the winter tyres).

Another reason to prefer steelies in winter is the greater risk of damaging expensive alloys in winter conditions. Even with winter tyres on to reduce the risk of slipping, there's usually extra cr@p kicking around on the roads in winter eg bits that fall off cars as they get freed from snow (salt on the roads->knackered exhaust mounting bolts->oops, bye bye silencer...) or chunks of tarmac & kerbstones dislodged by frost. It's worse still if the debris gets covered by snow and can't be seen to be avoided. The winter before last round our way, you couldn't even see where the normal kerbs were for several weeks - more so after the council snowplough did eventually come round, as it threw huge piles of snow all over the pavements! An additional possible cause of damage to alloy wheels in winter is from the use of snow chains - OK it would most likely only be cosmetic damage, but alloy wheels are largely a cosmetic item anyway for most drivers IMO.

As I said before, it comes down to a balance of cost/inconvenience vs risk of severe conditions. Where I live, and given the places I like to drive to, the balance is heavily in favour of winter tyres on steel wheels and with the option of using chains. In Surrey, all season tyres would probably be a good compromise for someone who only needs to be reasonably confident of being able to get around on the normal road network in 99.9% of likely weather conditions.

Edited 28 September, 201213 yr by ejstubbs

Hello,

For Edinburgh/ Scotland and other cold places on the continent then I totally agree with you. I'm from South Derbyshire/ Staffordshire so the weather here is far more favourable than up in the proper north and thus a more aggressive all season that is M+S rated is a good compromise.

I will have to have a look and see what the difference is between my Vectors and a true winter tyre.

Also agree w.r.t the steel wheels if you're using chains or have a lot of debris on the roads.

I want to do a road trip up to the Highlands soon with my Yeti to see how it copes with the snow etc so will report back (either when I return or from a ditch at the side of the road!).

In all seriousness, I agree It comes down to compromise one way or another - those like yourself in harsher environments or use their yeti off road a proper winter or all terrain tyre is a necessity.

For most of us who live in a rural areas in the Midlands then I think a M+S rated all season is a good choice all year around.

Simon

Firstly, all-season tyres don't perform as well on ice and snow as full winter tyres. It's a balance against the risk of ice or snow is low in the places you usually take/might want to take your car. For me up here in Scotland that balance is quite heavily in favour of the full winter tyre, especially since I like to go in to some fairly remote parts of the Highlands, including off the main road network (estate roads & landrover tracks for access to the hills, for example).

Secondly, a lot of people (though I'm not saying that you're one of them) have a misconception that winter tyres are only beneficial when there's ice and snow about. In fact the rubber compound is designed to stay flexible and function better than summer pattern tyres at temperatures below about 7C, plus they have more aggressive siping designed to clear water and slush more effectively. Even in Edinburgh I can pretty much rely on temperatures on or below 7C from round about the time the clocks go back, until late February or early March. So it's only two changes per year - and while the winter tyres are on, the summer tyres aren't being worn out, so the only real cost is in the extra set of wheels (which is one reason to go for steels rather than alloys for the winter tyres).

Another reason to prefer steelies in winter is the greater risk of damaging expensive alloys in winter conditions. Even with winter tyres on to reduce the risk of slipping, there's usually extra cr@p kicking around on the roads in winter, particularly under snow where it can't be seen and thus is difficult to avoid. The winter before last round our way, you couldn't even see where the kerbs were for several weeks - more so after the council snowplough did eventually come round, as it threw huge piles of snow all over the pavements! Another possible cause of damage to alloy wheels in winter is from the use of snow chains (OK it would most likely only be cosmetic damage, but alloy wheels are largely a cosmetic item anyway for most drivers IMHO).

As I said before, it comes down to a balance of cost/inconvenience vs risk of severe conditions. Where I live, and given the places I like to drive to, the balance is heavily in favour of winter tyres on steel wheels and with the option of using chains. In Surrey, all season tyres would probably be a good compromise for someone who only needs to be reasonably confident of being able to get around on the normal road network in 99.9% of likely weather conditions.

The real concern about using all-season tyres all the year round is not to do with their winter performance being somewhat poorer than winter tyres, but with their weak performance in the 8 (or more) months of the year when you're using them instead of summer tyres.

Already by Spring weather, for example, all-season tyres are very considerably poorer than both summer and winter tyres for wet braking distance, wet cornering, and even acceleration in the wet (wheelspin). In the dry, all-season tyres again trail behind summer tyres for braking distance and cornering.

So with all-seasons you have a distinctly weaker and less safe tyre for all those months of the year when the temperatures are mild or warm or hot. And for this reason, the further south you are, the less attractive all-season tyres become.

Here is one test that attaches some figures to the performance gaps:

http://www.insideline.com/features/tire-test-all-season-vs-snow-vs-summer.html . This is from North America, which has a very different tyre market, but in this case the main points of the results are replicated in many tests from Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.

Of our 5 family cars, two are switched between summer and winter tyres; two are on Goodyear Vector 4Seasons all year round; and one stays on summer tyres and lives in the garage when it's freezing (that's the one with 367 bhp). So there is no purchaser's confirmation bias in my view of this question. All these cars live in Scotland; if we were further south, I would not be happy with having two of them on all-season tyres all year round. One of the two cars with all-season tyres does undemanding duties and gets driven very cautiously indeed; the other I worry about.

Had a good chat to my mate at the tyre shop today about the merits of all-seasons versus dedicated winters.

His opinion was, given that I've got expensive alloys fitted with new "summer" rubber already, was to fit proper winter compound tyres to the new steel rims. He pointed out that they aren't "snow" tyres, but specifically designed to cope with running below 7 deg C in rain, as well as on dry or greasy roads. He also pointed out that, whilst mid-day temperatures might be above 7 deg C, the mornings and evenings, when SWMBO is driving it to and from work, are below the magic 7 from November to April most years - ergo, his advice would be to avoid all-weather tyres as their performance at each end of the envelope would be lacking, whereas the summer/winter combination would overlap.

He said his advice might be different if I'd got a set of worn out summer tyres on my alloys, that had seen several seasons use already and if I wasn't worried about swapping sets of tyres round or wanted to avoid having to store the spares.

My thoughts are, basically, that the Matterhorn alloys on my Urban are over £250 each, and damaging just one of them would cover nearly half the outlay required for a full set of winter wheels and tyres. Thats without the aggro involved (no spare remember, just gloop and a pump), or the fact that keeping the alloys out of the salt and muck will preserve both their finish and the summer tyres fitted to them.

The tyre he recommended was a Kumho KW23 in 215/60 R16 99H. Worked out at £102 each, fitted and balanced. I've done a search online and I could save a little by shopping online, but not enough to tempt me to take my business away from somewhere I've been dealing happily with for a couple of decades. He didn't charge me for the last puncture repair I had done, so that more than covers the difference IMHO!

Anyway, I'll report back once I've made my final decision.

Glen.

Edited 3 October, 201213 yr by GlenAnderson

You can do a lot better than the Kumho KW23, which came 12th out of 15 in TCS's winter tyre test last year. It is rather weak on wet roads, which is presumably exactly what you'd want it to be good at; and also its comfort level and wear rate are both among the weakest.

You can do a lot better than the Kumho KW23, which came 12th out of 15 in TCS's winter tyre test last year. It is rather weak on wet roads, which is presumably exactly what you'd want it to be good at; and also its comfort level and wear rate are both among the weakest.

Do you have any more information on this tyre test?

I don't expect all season tyres to do as well as summer performance rubber in the warm. As long as they behave predictably in most conditions I'll be happy.

The tyre he recommended was a Kumho KW23 in 215/60 R16 99H. Worked out at £102 each, fitted and balanced. I've done a search online and I could save a little by shopping online, but not enough to tempt me to take my business away from somewhere I've been dealing happily with for a couple of decades.

Anyway, I'll report back once I've made my final decision.

Glen.

Some proper info there from him but personally Id look at a different tyre options for that cost.

If its not been covered before, why not just fit all-season tyres to the standard alloys and avoid the need to keep changing them - especially as the UK can have so many different weathers in one week. I have Goodyear Vector 4Seasons fitted which are M+S rated and so far have been very impressed - no worry about when the weather might turn nasty(ier!). I expect in some colder climates one needs a proper winter tyre but for the UK these seem a really good compromise.

http://www.goodyear.eu/uk_en/tires/vector-4seasons/index.jsp

Given that in the last 2 years I've seen temperatures hit - 19 I'm not so sure I'd like to see a colder climate than the UK. Interested in the all weather options for my camper van though

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

Had a good chat to my mate at the tyre shop today about the merits of all-seasons versus dedicated winters.

His opinion was, given that I've got expensive alloys fitted with new "summer" rubber already, was to fit proper winter compound tyres to the new steel rims. He pointed out that they aren't "snow" tyres, but specifically designed to cope with running below 7 deg C in rain, as well as on dry or greasy roads. He also pointed out that, whilst mid-day temperatures might be above 7 deg C, the mornings and evenings, when SWMBO is driving it to and from work, are below the magic 7 from November to April most years - ergo, his advice would be to avoid all-weather tyres as their performance at each end of the envelope would be lacking, whereas the summer/winter combination would overlap.

He said his advice might be different if I'd got a set of worn out summer tyres on my alloys, that had seen several seasons use already and if I wasn't worried about swapping sets of tyres round or wanted to avoid having to store the spares.

My thoughts are, basically, that the Matterhorn alloys on my Urban are over £250 each, and damaging just one of them would cover nearly half the outlay required for a full set of winter wheels and tyres. Thats without the aggro involved (no spare remember, just gloop and a pump), or the fact that keeping the alloys out of the salt and muck will preserve both their finish and the summer tyres fitted to them.

The tyre he recommended was a Kumho KW23 in 215/60 R16 99H. Worked out at £102 each, fitted and balanced. I've done a search online and I could save a little by shopping online, but not enough to tempt me to take my business away from somewhere I've been dealing happily with for a couple of decades. He didn't charge me for the last puncture repair I had done, so that more than covers the difference IMHO!

Anyway, I'll report back once I've made my final decision.

Glen.

Good sound information given to you and seeing you are in Canterbury (Kent I presume, not New Zealand) with the hills of the Downs you can easily get caught out in snowy weather. Mind you, SWMBO may not thank you when she is the only one to be able to get to work!

IMHO, go for the winter tyres.

As to the actual tyre choice; the Kumho is a budget/mid-range tyre and yes, there will be better. You get what you pay for. Just remember that a Kumho winter tyre will be streets ahead of any summer tyre in cold, damp, wet, snow.