I used all seasons Vredestein Quattrac 4. They were fine for all year round use and were original size and speed rating. Great traction in snow and the only limiting factor for me was ground clearance.

I used all seasons Vredestein Quattrac 4. They were fine for all year round use and were original size and speed rating. Great traction in snow and the only limiting factor for me was ground clearance.

+1

 

We used them on the Fabia my wife used to drive as she didn't want the hassle of changing wheels twice a year.

because some people are eager to foist their opinion on others, regardless of whether it is solicited or not.

What would you say if he had just taken your money, the guy actualy may know more than you think. Also it shows more about his character, Winter tyres have their place, but it realy percived risk, where you drive, and how much you drive.

My opinion is, it's your money. If you want to bath in jam then go on do it!

There is no right or wrong, if it makes you feel better and safer etc then go for it.

I've got my winters on and with the damp cold weather under the same load they have not broken traction compared to the summer tyres.

My opinion is, it's your money. If you want to bath in jam then go on do it!

There is no right or wrong, if it makes you feel better and safer etc then go for it.

I've got my winters on and with the damp cold weather under the same load they have not broken traction compared to the summer tyres.

Melodramatic, reading this im scared to get in my car with summers on. Ill go and buy some winters right now,

My opinion is, it's your money. If you want to bath in jam then go on do it!

Bathing in nutella is more fun

Melodramatic, reading this im scared to get in my car with summers on. Ill go and buy some winters right now,

Why? At no point in that did I say that summers are dangerous. Just that they "break" traction easier. Which is basically what other above have said.

Although if you feel like that I suggest you go ahead and purchase them, oh and I'd stop reading the Internet too much as I'm seriously concerned for you mental state of all the horrors out there.

Maybe ask your provider to install a "common sense" filter or "take with a pinch of salt" buffer on to your wifi router.

That's possible it says so on the Internet.

:p

Bathing in nutella is more fun

Seen that before, whatever floats the boat ay

It was the over the top comment that did it. As if the the other factors to road traffic accidents are some how negated with winters. Somehow winters are a mirical solution to all accident prevention. I agree if you buy them to feel safer great, but not driving to the condition is what causes accidents, and turning in to jam to coin your phrase. Not tyres. As i mentiond some people have a legitimat reason, driving early, unsalted roads, etc, but the reality is most accidents are caused by bad driving and excesive speed, poor hazard awareness.

I regularly run track days on ice so I've seen quite a few different variants on drive systems, tyre sizes, power, and all the rest. We have a legal requirement up here from 1.12 through to 28.2 or so each year for winter tyres. Spikes can go on from 1.11 to Easter or so, depending on the weather.

I know someone who came up here for the first time last winter from the UK and declined to drive. He was astounded when he saw what we were doing, how fast in conditions that would bring the UK to a screeching halt - I distinctly remember a mild issue with traction when overtaking which wasn't unexpected to me but which he was *not* prepared for. Mindset...

 

Snow is not just snow. Ice is not just ice. There's a complete mindset to change and experience to be gained, along with understanding, expectation and then combine with the capabilities of your car. At least, if you want to get home in one piece without any cold deformation. Bit zen, that, but then I've been driving the winters here for some time 

 

In my experience winter tyres do tend to wear massively when it's warm when they're new. I had a set of All-years on the rental Octy in the summer and the squidge compared to the summers on my own car was significantly higher, to the point that the rental was not a nice place to be along some mountain passes for backseat passengers. It's part of the compromise - mildly harder compound than rear winter tyres, but somehow the carcass build is different and I can't say I know why. At some point after four-five years the winter rubber seems to harden massively and so they get run through the summer and somehow hardly wear but have absolutely awful braking performance...

 

Snow is not just "snow". There is wet snow, there is dry snow, there is powdery, cold stuff, and there's snowpack. The wet stuff is awful to drive on, you've got minimal control with or without winter tyres. It's hard work for the tyres to squash it out of the way so cornering precision is comparatively low. Braking isn't much better, either. This is the stuff you tend to get in the UK, snowball snow. There's no way I'd even try to drive on this now without a decent set of winters on the car: I remember having a rental auto C-Class combi a few years ago in Germany. After massive delays - I'd driven to the airport through snow at 100km/h - and an ontime takeoff, we landed nearly three hours late and at a different airport. I got the c as an upgrade from Sixt and later that evening on a quiet side road turned esc off and pressed the accelerator. Two seconds had the car flipped around 180 degrees... I turned it back on very quickly. This is the stuff that brings Helsinki to a virtual halt for a day or so, it's almost "white mud". 

Fluff, the dry, powdery snow, is interesting because it can be extremely slippery as snowpack, but the worst bit is the lack of visibility when it gets kicked up by trucks. It can also be melted easily by passing cars and then re-freeze on the asphalt quickly, meaning you get an extremely polished surface.

The ice situation can be even more complex, because it depends an awful lot on just how slowly the water condensed to form it. At track last year, we had a track of natural ice with much more grip than one which had just had water poured on it. Same thing a few years previously, where the weather had gone slightly above plus and then on Friday dropped from +2 to -16 in the space of 12 hours. That track was phenomenally slippery where the icemelt had re-frozen. 

 

But the biggest issue is always understanding the car itself. Great tyres are useless if you're not able to feel where the limits of grip are and to drive within them. I got caught out a couple of weeks back in Helsinki, sliding sideways across a lane and a half with no warning because I'd hit the corner in question with maybe 3km/h too much speed. I drive this stuff every winter. Yeah, Ok, this was the first time out with the Octy in snow and something similar has only happened once since (without provocation   ) so I'm pretty happy that I now understand how much information is being telegraphed to me by the car. 

 

This is why, though, I run trackdays and why I will be taking two cars to 2017s. I haven't practiced just how far the pedal goes down to the floor and made sure I really can push it all the way down where my seat is right now. I haven't felt ABS or ESP hit, I haven't driven an elktest at 85km/h. Without those and quite a bit of free driving on ice, I don't feel I'm even close to really in control of the car in crappy conditions. I can happily twitch the tail of the Fiesta any time I want. Scandinavian flicks are an easy way to disrupt equilibrium, roundabouts with minimal input and right-foot-only is next on my list of things to learn with both the Fi and the Octy. It's a work in progress. That took several hundreds of kms in diferent conditions and a couple of trips to empty icy carparks to really understand where the limits are.

 

Still, there's a couple of things I see every year at tracktime. A misunderstanding of how much braking space their car actually needs on ice. Drivers who don't understand the limits of ESP in terms of "it won't kick in if you're only sliding, it needs to see rotation or nothing will happen". Most understand the meaning of adjusting the angle of a drift / slide with the right foot, but it needs a little practice to understand just how violent you need to be to get the back to kick out. It's handy to have a parking space at the bottom of the street with minimal furniture...It's also amazing how little the difference can be between an A2 1.2 with ESP on and in Auto on 145 winter tyres and a C320CDI if the drivers are similarly skilled and it's siippery. The difference is minimal - lightness can be a boon, as can caution. All wheel drive systems change their attitude quickly and it has been illuminating for them to really understand when drive is going where. 

 

A quote from a participant a few years back about elktest: 80km/h? Yes. 85km/h? yes. 90? probably. 95? maybe. 100? no. For him and me, at that point, the last couple of km/h became really quite important. It can make the difference between being able to keep it on the road or not. And the effect of that knowledge can be significant.

 

My personal thoughts? Swapping tyres twice a year gives you an excellent opportunity to wash everything down, check the state of the tread and sidewalls and give the braking system a visual check. It also makes sure you have the gear you need should something happen, or at least knowledge how to use it. It also makes sure your wheel bolts are tight and adjusted correctly and tyre pressures can be reset. You can also then fill screenwash with the winter mix and generally give the car some TLC. 

I'm at under an hour for any car now with a jack where I needed to find the jacking points; a decent impact driver would have dropped the time down to 25-30 mins.

 

My winter driving advice is simple: assume everyone else out there is a fool. Not necessarily stupid. but not necessarily smart. Assume you don't know what's going on and drive for the conditions. If that means you're driving slower than usual, fine: you should be. If someone else wants to drive faster, they can.  

 

Brake way, way earlier than usual and assume you only have a broad brush for your driving line. Be smoooooth, smoother than a melted rolo, and it will help. Jerky steering inputs or sudden braking simply can't be acted upon as usual if you've minimal grip. Don't stop on inclines unless you have to, because it's a nightmare to get started again. You may need a run up for certain hills.

 

Keep a towrope in the car, along with the hook, hiviz vests, and please don't go driving in an igloo. Wipe *all* the snow off the complete car with a brush before leaving, then it won't surprise anyone. 

 

 - Bret

Edited 20 November, 20169 yr by brettikivi

I have put Continental winter tyres on steel wheels on my octy 2 for the last three years. They are winter tyres, not snow tyres, made with a different compound to perform better below 7 degrees C. They do give more confidence in the winter, and on snow, it is difficult to make the car misbehave. Felt like a waste of time and effort last winter, which was very mild as I recall, but if I could accurately predict when snow will arrive, I'd be rich.. The point is, they are common practice in colder countries, where people have more experience of winter conditions and know better. My view is that I can't stand the thought of not being able to go out somewhere because of the conditions, so make the effort. Bit late this year and fitted them two days after our snowfall. Your tyre fitter may know more than me, but how educated he really is on tyre performance is anyone's guess. He fits tyres all day long but probably gets no more opportunity to drive and to live with different tyres than the rest of us. 

Just wrecked my 3rd 19" Pirelli front n/s tyre since car was new 8600 miles ago, half an hour ago on a pothole/unfinished drain cover on a newly surfaced road, so off to swap to my 18" winter wheels and tyres.

Bl**dy lazy plonkers that can't even fill around a drain cover - the road has been reopened fully weeks ago and no signs or anything.

Low profiles are not the best bet for winter tyres. For all the above reasons.

I recently declined the FOC 17" wheels on our new Octavia as the roads are so bad that 16" wheel & tyres give a much better ride, have more chance of surviving our crap streets and also a better chance of avoiding kerbs. Oh - they're cheaper too.

And I don't care for all the nonsense talked about about "sporty handling". We've all been reduced to plodding from A to B and racy handling is a load of ****** these days.

I've convinced myself that winter tyres perform better on slush and snow, but I'm considering Goodyear 4 Seasons next time to save me storing 2 sets of winter wheels in the garage.

Reason not to? The current crop of all season tyres perform very well in all conditions that the UK experiences so my current set of separate wheels is likely to be my last. But otherwise, Ill have them. Even if I don't have any summer tyres to swap them with.

OMG - same topic all over again. Putting aside the tyre cut topic for a second, just check what happens with the rubber compound of the summer tires under winter conditions.

One more thing - some 7 or 8 yrs ago (or few cars ago I had a "first snow attack" situation when I got caught off-guard on my 17" 225 summer rubbers.

Suburban road went all shiny white, so I did keep a lot of safe distance from the car in front of me (few times more than needed to stop in normal conditions). One moment he/she started breaking in a simple straight line slow-down, and I did have a chance to experience the feeling of being in a slow-motion movie...New car, all safety things in, driver rested, but despite the vast distance and immediate reaction on my end, I stopped just 1-2m or so behind the other car. Way too much cold sweat on my neck to call it a win. Ugly thing to see you car sliding forward on and on with next to no control.

You also have to be careful with insurance, unless the manufacturer specifies winter tyres as sutible for there vehicles you will invalidate your insurance I believe.

Edited 21 November, 20169 yr by Crogers

You also have to be careful with insurance, unless the manufacturer specifies winter tyres as sutible for there vehicles you will invalidate your insurance I believe.

Not quite true. As long as the tyres are the correct size and meet the minimum load and speed rating requirements for the car then there should be nothing to declare, no more than if you changed to any other compliant tyre. Some manufacturers (like my Subaru) explicitly specify allowable lower specs for winter tyres too, to increase your options.

 

You will need to consult them if you change the wheels though, or if you're reducing the speed rating below the requirements, though many insurers just wave it through.

I live in London where snow is pretty rare. It does however get wet and cold, and i can really notice the difference between summer tyres (Conti SC 5's) and winters (Nokian WR-D3's). The winters grip better in cold-dry conditions, much better when cold & damp, and massively better when cold a wet / really wet / frosty.

 

Do I really need winters? - No.

 

Do I feel my family is safer with winters on? - Yes

 

I tend to fit mine from December until end of March. Even on rare warm winter days the tyres grip as well as my summers, although they will of course wear faster. Summer tyres feel too greasy when it gets cold, and with VRS power the front wheels spin far too easily from standstill.

You also have to be careful with insurance, unless the manufacturer specifies winter tyres as sutible for there vehicles you will invalidate your insurance I believe.

A large number of the insurers in the UK subscribe to the ABI Winter Tyres Commitment - where, provided you fit standard sizes for your vehicle, you are not required to notify them. The Companies are all listed, along with their requirements.

Warrior193. 

I regularly run track days on ice so I've seen quite a few different variants on drive systems, tyre sizes, power, and all the rest. We have a legal requirement up here from 1.12 through to 28.2 or so each year for winter tyres. Spikes can go on from 1.11 to Easter or so, depending on the weather.

I know someone who came up here for the first time last winter from the UK and declined to drive. He was astounded when he saw what we were doing, how fast in conditions that would bring the UK to a screeching halt - I distinctly remember a mild issue with traction when overtaking which wasn't unexpected to me but which he was *not* prepared for. Mindset...

 

Snow is not just snow. Ice is not just ice. There's a complete mindset to change and experience to be gained, along with understanding, expectation and then combine with the capabilities of your car. At least, if you want to get home in one piece without any cold deformation. Bit zen, that, but then I've been driving the winters here for some time 

 

In my experience winter tyres do tend to wear massively when it's warm when they're new. I had a set of All-years on the rental Octy in the summer and the squidge compared to the summers on my own car was significantly higher, to the point that the rental was not a nice place to be along some mountain passes for backseat passengers. It's part of the compromise - mildly harder compound than rear winter tyres, but somehow the carcass build is different and I can't say I know why. At some point after four-five years the winter rubber seems to harden massively and so they get run through the summer and somehow hardly wear but have absolutely awful braking performance...

 

Snow is not just "snow". There is wet snow, there is dry snow, there is powdery, cold stuff, and there's snowpack. The wet stuff is awful to drive on, you've got minimal control with or without winter tyres. It's hard work for the tyres to squash it out of the way so cornering precision is comparatively low. Braking isn't much better, either. This is the stuff you tend to get in the UK, snowball snow. There's no way I'd even try to drive on this now without a decent set of winters on the car: I remember having a rental auto C-Class combi a few years ago in Germany. After massive delays - I'd driven to the airport through snow at 100km/h - and an ontime takeoff, we landed nearly three hours late and at a different airport. I got the c as an upgrade from Sixt and later that evening on a quiet side road turned esc off and pressed the accelerator. Two seconds had the car flipped around 180 degrees... I turned it back on very quickly. This is the stuff that brings Helsinki to a virtual halt for a day or so, it's almost "white mud". 

Fluff, the dry, powdery snow, is interesting because it can be extremely slippery as snowpack, but the worst bit is the lack of visibility when it gets kicked up by trucks. It can also be melted easily by passing cars and then re-freeze on the asphalt quickly, meaning you get an extremely polished surface.

The ice situation can be even more complex, because it depends an awful lot on just how slowly the water condensed to form it. At track last year, we had a track of natural ice with much more grip than one which had just had water poured on it. Same thing a few years previously, where the weather had gone slightly above plus and then on Friday dropped from +2 to -16 in the space of 12 hours. That track was phenomenally slippery where the icemelt had re-frozen. 

 

But the biggest issue is always understanding the car itself. Great tyres are useless if you're not able to feel where the limits of grip are and to drive within them. I got caught out a couple of weeks back in Helsinki, sliding sideways across a lane and a half with no warning because I'd hit the corner in question with maybe 3km/h too much speed. I drive this stuff every winter. Yeah, Ok, this was the first time out with the Octy in snow and something similar has only happened once since (without provocation   ) so I'm pretty happy that I now understand how much information is being telegraphed to me by the car. 

 

This is why, though, I run trackdays and why I will be taking two cars to 2017s. I haven't practiced just how far the pedal goes down to the floor and made sure I really can push it all the way down where my seat is right now. I haven't felt ABS or ESP hit, I haven't driven an elktest at 85km/h. Without those and quite a bit of free driving on ice, I don't feel I'm even close to really in control of the car in crappy conditions. I can happily twitch the tail of the Fiesta any time I want. Scandinavian flicks are an easy way to disrupt equilibrium, roundabouts with minimal input and right-foot-only is next on my list of things to learn with both the Fi and the Octy. It's a work in progress. That took several hundreds of kms in diferent conditions and a couple of trips to empty icy carparks to really understand where the limits are.

 

Still, there's a couple of things I see every year at tracktime. A misunderstanding of how much braking space their car actually needs on ice. Drivers who don't understand the limits of ESP in terms of "it won't kick in if you're only sliding, it needs to see rotation or nothing will happen". Most understand the meaning of adjusting the angle of a drift / slide with the right foot, but it needs a little practice to understand just how violent you need to be to get the back to kick out. It's handy to have a parking space at the bottom of the street with minimal furniture...It's also amazing how little the difference can be between an A2 1.2 with ESP on and in Auto on 145 winter tyres and a C320CDI if the drivers are similarly skilled and it's siippery. The difference is minimal - lightness can be a boon, as can caution. All wheel drive systems change their attitude quickly and it has been illuminating for them to really understand when drive is going where. 

 

A quote from a participant a few years back about elktest: 80km/h? Yes. 85km/h? yes. 90? probably. 95? maybe. 100? no. For him and me, at that point, the last couple of km/h became really quite important. It can make the difference between being able to keep it on the road or not. And the effect of that knowledge can be significant.

 

My personal thoughts? Swapping tyres twice a year gives you an excellent opportunity to wash everything down, check the state of the tread and sidewalls and give the braking system a visual check. It also makes sure you have the gear you need should something happen, or at least knowledge how to use it. It also makes sure your wheel bolts are tight and adjusted correctly and tyre pressures can be reset. You can also then fill screenwash with the winter mix and generally give the car some TLC. 

I'm at under an hour for any car now with a jack where I needed to find the jacking points; a decent impact driver would have dropped the time down to 25-30 mins.

 

My winter driving advice is simple: assume everyone else out there is a fool. Not necessarily stupid. but not necessarily smart. Assume you don't know what's going on and drive for the conditions. If that means you're driving slower than usual, fine: you should be. If someone else wants to drive faster, they can.  

 

Brake way, way earlier than usual and assume you only have a broad brush for your driving line. Be smoooooth, smoother than a melted rolo, and it will help. Jerky steering inputs or sudden braking simply can't be acted upon as usual if you've minimal grip. Don't stop on inclines unless you have to, because it's a nightmare to get started again. You may need a run up for certain hills.

 

Keep a towrope in the car, along with the hook, hiviz vests, and please don't go driving in an igloo. Wipe *all* the snow off the complete car with a brush before leaving, then it won't surprise anyone. 

 

 - Bret

Hi Bret, a lot of good advice in your post. I do rather envy you  for your opportunities with ice racing - sounds and looks a real hoot.

Warrior193.

Reason not to? The current crop of all season tyres perform very well in all conditions that the UK experiences so my current set of separate wheels is likely to be my last. But otherwise, Ill have them. Even if I don't have any summer tyres to swap them with.

I have also read some very positive reports on all season tyres. I will continue to use my winter wheels until the tyres are shot, but will replace with all season tyres eventually. I recently replaced the tyres on my wife's Panda with Goodyear 4 seasons. They seem very good, but have not been tested in all conditions yet. Took it out this morning, lots of water around and localised flooding, and they did inspire confidence

The main advantage I can see with the winter tyres I put on my car is that, for the past three winters at least, putting them on has meant the complete absence of snow and ice for the four months of the year I have them on.

Seriously though, I have not regretted getting them and as they still have approx 6mm + tread left I'll get at least one more winter out of them. As has been said they are effectively cost neutral so why not use them?

The main advantage I can see with the winter tyres I put on my car is that, for the past three winters at least, putting them on has meant the complete absence of snow and ice for the four months of the year I have them on.

Seriously though, I have not regretted getting them and as they still have approx 6mm + tread left I'll get at least one more winter out of them. As has been said they are effectively cost neutral so why not use them?

My friends encourage me to fit my winter tyres as it has ensured no snow for the past 3 winters.  However, as others have said, I see definite gains in grip and braking on cold wet roads.

My friends encourage me to fit my winter tyres as it has ensured no snow for the past 3 winters.  However, as others have said, I see definite gains in grip and braking on cold wet roads.

 

You don't even need snow to feel the difference. Compound in summer tyres simply does not perform that well in cold environment. Summer boots rubber is not that grippy when temperature gets closer to 0C; this is when winter ones come handy with their different (softer) rubber formulation.

Does anyone know what tyres a new Octy would come with or does it depend on exact model, wheel size etc - I'm expecting 18" alloys on mine when it finally arrives? Options were never discussed at time of purchase