Good Evening & Happy New Year

 

A quick question regarding tyre pressures.

 

I have the 220PS DSG and noticed the other day that the car was slipping easier than expected on the icy roads.  I have Winter Tyres on (Conti TS850P) so should be decent tyres and wondered what other people with winters used as tyre pressures.

 

The fuel cap says the lowest is 33psi for the car but was wondering about dropping down to 30psi to give that little extra flex and grip.

 

Any thoughts and opinions are very welcome.

 

 

You should only vary tyre pressures from car manufacturer's recommendation for that size if you have experience that indicates those pressure to be too high or low for the tyres fitted. Also "lowering tyre pressures for better grip" went out with the crossply tyre.

 

Finally, all that is claimed for Winters is that they give better grip than Summers at low temperatures; not that they give grip on ice like Summers give on dry tar at +20C.

6 years wearing winter rubber in Germany highlighted a few differences between summer and winter term tyre pressures. It is advised to run Winter tyres a smidgen higher PSI/BAR than a summer tyre of the same size.

0.2-0.3 BAR is about it, it opens the sipes (little fine grooves in each tread block) up a little to allow them to be stuffed up with snow when it's on the ground. Nothing sticks to snow better than snow, the science doesn't lie and that's what they preach.

The gent above is correct, you cannot overcome the laws of physics expecting winter rubber to grip sheet ice. It does actually, but so infinitesimally better that it's barely worth the mention, but add a super light dusting of snow over that ice and the winters will work very well. Snow grips ice so if there is snow wedged in the tyres sipes and grooves, you'll be stopping considerably better than you would on summers!

As my German friend who owns the garage I bought my wheels and tyres from says, "it's not the going you should worry about, it's the stopping!"

If you are running summer-winter-summer etc, then be sure to run your winters through the summer of their 5th season. In Germany, if your winters are 5 years old and it's snowing during your TÜV, the TÜV guy can either fail you or advise you depending on how much of a that he wants to be. Winter rubber is past its best after 4 years hence you are advised to run them into the ground in their 5th year by running through the summer. That law is not applicable here in blighty so it is down to the user to decide whether to change to new boots.

Hope this helps.

I'm running Contis TS850P on 18" winter alloys and a couple of psi above normal with no problems. Great tyres.

I am running 19's wearing Hankook's and running them at 34 psi with no issues currently.

Pirelli Sottozero winter tyres on mine at about 2-3psi higher, though not for any particular reason. Just seems to work well and they are smaller than the Summer set (17" Yeti set and slightly narrower) but same rolling diameter.

Edited 4 January, 20179 yr by FelisBengalensis

Obviously the tyres pressures may need checked and adjusted several times during a UK winter seeing as the temperature is not going to be around freezing that much for much of the UK & the load carried might change as well..

http://michelin.co.uk/GB/en/winter-tyres/winter-tyres-guide/what-pressure-in-winter-tyres.html