Why is "everyone" using black naked steelies for their winters btw?

They are cheap!

I'm no expert on this topic but I've read literally hundreds of contributions on this subject from novices and experts alike since I lost my Audi Quattro.

Firstly the weather. If Huck...... lives in North Yorkshire he must be experiencing the terrible road conditions experienced nearby in Geordieland. We've had lots of moist nights with a clearance early morning leading to rapid ice forming on many occasions. This would test any car especially if H..... gets up and out at 5.00 am. I've experienced black ice on several occasions at 10.00 am when I deign to go out!

Now the car - as many have said its not the car but mainly the tyres. I'm not sure what bhp the VRS generates but presume in the high 170s. Even with feet treading on egg shells there will be lots of power getting to the wheels (its not a Kia Picanto on 14" tyres!). My previous Audi A4 with the 3.0 tdi engine was only made in quattro form because the wheels would spin otherwise even with mild acceleration if FWD. The car did 70-80 mph at 2000 rpm.

So its the tyres and the drive. The experts tell us not to call tyres winter tyres by that name. They are cold weather tyres. so H....is on the wrong tyres or so says conventional wisdom which says that under 7 degrees C winter tyres will act much, much better on cold surfaces because they will keep their elastic nature and not become hard and unspreading.

Equally wisdom tells us that AWD will aid traction when needed so the best combination of winter driving would be AWD on winter tyres but winter tyres first, of course.

Now the car. The Kia Picanto on its narrow small tyres will be placing much more weight on a narrow surface area so will bear down better on the icy or snow surface, particularly on winter tyres. That reads across to experts telling us to go down to the narrowest wheel possible to drive in bad conditions eg steel wheel replacements on the VRS with say 16" tyres.

All of this costs money say £1200 for the premium for 4WD over FWD on buying new plus the cost of steel wheels and tyres at £150 each say.

I went for a direct tyre replacement at £113 each on 225/45 R17s to save having to get new wheels. Not perhaps the best option.

Now on buying tyres, I would trust the experts. An awful lot of contributors decided to buy winter tyres but then cut corners on what the experts recommend after thorough testing. OK you can get Crapgrip 16 "s for £25 each but the frontrunners in all tests are Goodyear Ultragrip 8s and Continental TS830 or 850s. If you're going to get serious why not trust someone who's done a full test under extreme conditions.

Hope H.... wont blame himself or the car and will get on bettter in time.

All these discussions are about certain 'summer' tyres is unessessary....Just get winter tyres and/or wheels and away you go

All these discussions are about certain 'summer' tyres is unessessary....Just get winter tyres and/or wheels and away you go

...or stay put if the car doesn't start (sorry, Chris, couldn't resist)

I can appreciate what it's like with the wheelspin, My Mk 1 Elegance only had 110BHP and that always slipped at wet junctions, roundabouts etc under anything but the mildest throttle. On snow or ice it was dire. Only the last set of tyres I had on it (Matadors) stopped that happening to a reasonable degree, but they wore down to the limit after only 15K.

Didn't fancy a repeat performance with the Yeti, even it does have AWD, so bought winter tyres (WR A3s) & wheels ready (something to look at while waiting for delivery). Haven't had any snow or much in the way of ice to test them on as yet, but sufficient to convince me to sort out SWMBO's i10 as well. That's getting Goodyear Vector 4Seasons, as she doesn't do the mileage to warrant swapping tyres over twice a year - they'd be over six years old and still only half worn.

I've got Hankook ice bear winter tyres fitted onto the orginal 18" alloys and they make a huge difference. Everyone says the extra cost isn't worth it but having just seen a friends car written off and he had to get cut out of it due to hitting a patch of ice and skidding off the road and I would question why you wouldn't spend a few hundred pounds that could save your life. Same argument against people that buy really cheap tyres instead of paying that little extra.

I hit some ice approaching a roundabout recently and without winter tyres I would have certainly have skidded and crashed. The ability to steer and brake on ice and snow with winter tyres is amazing!

Two winters ago..almost to the day, I was able to drive past, up asteep hill, a stuck Range Rover Sport

The drivers face was a picture!!

Why do people blame the car and not the tyres. :wonder:

I'm sorry but those that think that winter tyres improve their grip on ice are deluded. Nothing, except maybe studs, is going to grip on ice. What winter/cold weather tyres do is have a compound and tread pattern that works better at lower temperatures.

I do get concerned that people buy these winter tyres for use in bad weather and think that they can continue to drive in the same manner as they do during good weather.

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I'm sorry but those that think that winter tyres improve their grip on ice are deluded. Nothing, except maybe studs, is going to grip on ice. What winter/cold weather tyres do is have a compound and tread pattern that works better at lower temperatures.

I do get concerned that people buy these winter tyres for use in bad weather and think that they can continue to drive in the same manner as they do during good weather.

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But no one in this thread has said that winter tyres grip on ice? They are talking about bad weather.

I'm sorry but those that think that winter tyres improve their grip on ice are deluded. Nothing, except maybe studs, is going to grip on ice. What winter/cold weather tyres do is have a compound and tread pattern that works better at lower temperatures.

I do get concerned that people buy these winter tyres for use in bad weather and think that they can continue to drive in the same manner as they do during good weather.

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Problem embedding from my phone:

Still need to drive to conditions, but do make quite a difference...

Edited 13 December, 201213 yr by Lemming

@ dunc69 I got them from this seller on ebay. Although I asked him for caddy ones.. Had them in stock but was not advertised. Send him a message.

http://www.ebay.co.u...984.m1439.l2649

Sly - many thanks! :-)

Yup VRS is crap on ice but so is every car without winter tyres.

I hit some ice approaching a roundabout recently and without winter tyres I would have certainly have skidded and crashed. The ability to steer and brake on ice and snow with winter tyres is amazing!

I'm sorry but those that think that winter tyres improve their grip on ice are deluded. Nothing, except maybe studs, is going to grip on ice. What winter/cold weather tyres do is have a compound and tread pattern that works better at lower temperatures.

I do get concerned that people buy these winter tyres for use in bad weather and think that they can continue to drive in the same manner as they do during good weather.

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But no one in this thread has said that winter tyres grip on ice? They are talking about bad weather.

There were two comments that concerned me. I'm not disputing that winter/cold weather tyres offer greater grip in a lot of winter conditions - that is what they were designed and manufactured to do, however to think that they allow anyone to continue driving in bad weather as they would do in good weather is dangerous.

As I have said, in icy conditions, no tyre will grip properly, basic physics dictate that. I have responded to many collisions and cars in ditches that have found that out the hard way. Sometimes it is just the car and the driver's ego that is damaged, unfortunately other times it is more serious and people are hurt. I'm struggling to think of any that I've been to where the driver was not surprised that their winter equipped car (either with or without winter tyres) with TC/ESC/ABS etc etc has ended up either in the ditch or in another vehicle.

No matter what the tyre choice - the driver must drive to the conditions.

With regards to the video posted by Lemming, the "tests" were conducted on an ice rink. Road conditions are rarely flat and many other factors affect the road surface condition.

I'm not saying that winter tyres are no good, they are not a magic answer to bad weather. And no, I don't have them fitted to my car.

Sorry, but I for one did mean that cold weather tyres do help grip on ice.

I've seen demos where BMWs and Porsches use an ice track with both summer and cold weather tyres.

On the summers the car loses grip and turns round - on cw tyres the car twitches as it loses grip and then straightens back onto the steering and continues on its journey. OK it could be fiddled but on evidence the cw tyres do enable grip on ice.

That doesn't mean of course you should not drive with great care on any tyres and on any drive type ie AWD RWD or FWD.

I think what's being said is that winter tyres are better on snow and ice but they don't provide grip to the same degree as a summer tyre on a dry road. Which is unfortunately what many people expect.

Completely agree with the overall sentiment. Winter tyres are without question safer in cold/icy/snowy conditions but they are not a complete solution.

Only posted the video in reference to the improved grip on ice (or lack thereof as per the discussion at that point). It has to be used only as a guide to differences such as the "junction" test being at 10mph - the car on winters only just made the turn. 15mph would have seen a similar result to the all seasons or even the summers...

Unfortunately too many people seem oblivious to road conditions (be they wet or icy) and simply drive the same as always. See the exact same issues in summer when the rain goes nuts - very few drivers think twice about behaving as normal.

I have winters fitted and they clearly make a lot of difference in the current conditions but then again I drive as carefully as I would if I still had summers fitted.

They are cheap!

That's relative, when you compare their cost here to the cost in central Europe.

I'm sorry but those that think that winter tyres improve their grip on ice are deluded. Nothing, except maybe studs, is going to grip on ice. What winter/cold weather tyres do is have a compound and tread pattern that works better at lower temperatures.

I do get concerned that people buy these winter tyres for use in bad weather and think that they can continue to drive in the same manner as they do during good weather.

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Depends on the ice.

On white ice, winter tyres with their sipes and softer compound do help.

No they're not a patch on studs, but they are a lot better than a hard smooth surface.

That does not mean you can go hooning around as if it was summer, just that if you're careful you'll probably be ok, as opposed to summer tyres where you'll probably not be.

As I said previously, if they'd fix the law here so you could run studded tyres it would be good. We suffer most from ice and they are the correct solution for that. If studded tyres were mandated, then they could stop gritting and actually use that money to regularly resurface the road surfaces.

That would mean more grip in true winters and better grip the rest of the year due to a better road surface.

Edited 13 December, 201213 yr by cheezemonkhai

The problem with here in England as apposed to say Finland or other scandinavian countries is that we don't ever have a clearly defined 'Winter Period'. If every year it started to get bad in Novemember and was good again by March then more people would use winter tyres. However we can some times have really mild christmas period and spring then get hit with a tonne of snow in MAY. Its crazy probably down to the gulf stream. If you think about it we perhaps need winter tyres for about a week to a fortnight incrementally. most days it doesn't get lower than 4° we have the odd freek day that goes -17° but its generally quite mild in England compared to most of northern europe. There in lies the problem we get caught out.

I m pleased Scribbler said England as parts of the highlands eg Braemar are bl**dy cold in most winters. So clearly you have to factor in the difference between Torquay and Inverness in deciding what the risk factors. The way I feel at the moment I think Newcastle (TYNE) is joining the Scots!!

My opinion is that it is the tyres and not the car. during the two bad winters 2009/10- 2010/11 my car still had its original michelin premacy's fitted and had no problems what so ever, i was amazed had how well they coped with the winter snow and ice. then for winter 2011/12 the car was fitted with michelin sport 3's, and the car got stuck all the time. i have have just had a full set of hankook winters fitted that does have the mountain/snow sign on them so they should be good, so i had a good look at the sport 3's and can see why they are so bad in winter due to the fact the centre part of the tyre is basicly 3 un groved bars of rubber unlike the premacys which are fully treaded over the width of the tyre.

I m pleased Scribbler said England as parts of the highlands eg Braemar are bl**dy cold in most winters. So clearly you have to factor in the difference between Torquay and Inverness in deciding what the risk factors. The way I feel at the moment I think Newcastle (TYNE) is joining the Scots!!

Wae'aye man its a bit grim up north . Although im hardly positioned south in Nottinghamshire am i?. I wouldn't say we have harsh winter though compared to the rest of northern europe.

I'm sorry but those that think that winter tyres improve their grip on ice are deluded. Nothing, except maybe studs, is going to grip on ice. What winter/cold weather tyres do is have a compound and tread pattern that works better at lower temperatures.

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I think you'll find winter tyres do grip better on ice than a summer tyre . Have you tried driving on ice with with winter tyres? Given that the abs cuts in a lot less and I can steer better I would say that is proof that they are better. Agree that you should still drive to the conditions but in an eemergency it can be the difference between staying on the road or not .

It's not the car, buy some winter wheels and tyres. Three years ago I was struggling to climb a gentle icy crest from a standing start. A police standard diesel wafted up the same crest with no bother. Learnt my lesson and bought a set and have had no bother since.