Fair price for swapping summer for winter tyres?

ventureuk

Deleted_User wrote: »

Never had any problems driving on bog standard summer tyres on steel wheels every winter. I drive to the conditions.

Made me smile.

I've spent some time in Northern Sweden (inside the Arctic Circle at -35) and in Denmark during the last couple of years, on studded, Central European winter tyres and driven on frozen lakes as well as the roads.

It was this experience that taught me the value of using the right tyre for the road during winter here in the UK.

This year I've also fitted Schwalbe Marathon Winters to the MTB, 200 studs per tyre should be fun 'playing out' when the snow and ice comes.

Living on the Pennines I have actually skied during the last two winters on the hills only five miles from my door and being off the main roads my street is never cleared or gritted. Snow can still be found on the high moors visible from my window in late April.

So like you I drive to the conditions, but instead I prepare and suspect your conditions are fairly mild.

redux

reeac wrote: »

There's the clue - "German police". Germany, where winter tyres are a legal requirement, has a Continental climate i.e. hotter summers and colder winters than the maritime UK. I'm sure that winter tyres are an advantage in the more Northern and/or more mountainous parts of the UK but I'm not convinced of their necessity on a nation-wide basis.

I'm wondering about starting a campaign for the SUMMER BATTERY - why carry that heavy old high-CCA battery around all summer when you could save fuel by swapping it for a lightweight summer version?

The argument cuts both ways. Abroad people are more used to dealing with poor conditions, and the road agencies are better at treating the roads to keep them running ok

Here a small amount of snow or ice can bring things to a standstill, as the authorities fail or even refuse to treat the roads.

A few years ago a line of thunderstorms with heavy snow showers moved south across the whole UK. I travelled along 10 miles of a B road where the people coming the other way had ground to a halt and formed queues in 3 or 4 places, at very brief inclines of a few degrees. Once one stops the rest have more of a problem to get going again and get past. On the main road south the 3 or 4 inches of snow had compacted smooth and refrozen to half an inch or so of ice. People were doing about 20 mph. A mile north of where I live the temperature rose above zero and the road was ok. I went shopping a few miles to the south and there was about 4 inches of snow

I phoned the council at 6.45 the next morning and asked whether they'd managed to get around to treating the roads by now. It come out of the blue!, he exclaimed. No, I replied, it was forecast for 2 or 3 days ahead, and you could track it coming south throughout the day, starting with Aberdeen at about 11 am, Manchester and Liverpool and Leeds at about 2 pm, and so on.

A few years ago I drove home from Slovakia through fairly poor weather, with the temperature at minus 15 there and below zero all the way. No problems at all anywhere, though there was snow in all the fields. In Belgium I switched on a British radio station, and they were blethering ad nauseam about bad weather, and don't travel unless it's really necessary. Quarter of an inch of snow in about half of Kent, which was supposed to be the worst part. Wimps.

So, as far as I'm concerned, if councils and other road agencies here, or their contracted out and contracted suppliers, need to cut back on spending and simply either can't be bothered or no longer have as much equipment or for some other strange reason can't be forced to get organised and look at weather forecasts and treat the roads accordingly, and this tendency to completely miss things once in a while is if anything increasing, perhaps the potential usefulness of winter tyres is just as much here as abroad, and that's why I've now got some and they'll be on the car in the next few weeks

We may not have much bad weather this winter, like last, or it might be like the one before, but even without actual snow or ice winter tyres come into an advantage when the temperature is below about 5 or 7 degrees. That's plus not minus.

steve-L

ventureuk wrote: »

Made me smile.

I've spent some time in Northern Sweden (inside the Arctic Circle at -35) and in Denmark during the last couple of years, on studded, Central European winter tyres and driven on frozen lakes as well as the roads.

Yes, Pigdekka really are something on a frozen lake.....
Since they were banned inside Oslo (due to chewing roads and creating ozone) many urban Norwegians now have 3 sets of tyres and wheels....Summer, Winter-Town and Winter-out of town.

its funny that people that never used them are so quick to challenge their value.

Tobster86

For the most part and from my own experiences, agree with the comments that winter tyres in the UK are an unnecessary expense for most motorists, especially living now in Worcestershire where the temperature very rarely even drops below zero.

In rural North Yorkshire, a set of £35 snow chains made my old front wheel drive summer-tyres Audi 80 more capable than most 'soft-roaders'. Fitting/removing them by the road side proved to be a very mild inconvenience.

With my current income I'd consider them for rural northern areas, but not down south.

Inevitably they will become more popular and eventually legislated; and probably have a net result of making drivers on-average more complacent and less able to deal with loss of vehicle control.

C_Crawford

Ok I was a sceptic like others and thought I could drive in all weather with my Michelin Pilots like I had done many winters before. (2007 Focus TDCI) Then 3 years ago we got some real winter weather and I drove to the conditions, unfortunately I ran out grip on a slight hill near my house and nearly sh#t myself as for the first time in my life I was a passenger in the driving seat of my own car heading towards a main road. (luckily it was empty)
To cut a long story short I had a 3 month old boy at this time and I knew I was having to drive over the Christmas period to visit my family 100s of miles away. It was a big expense at the time but worth the £450. I am now onto my 3rd winter with them and I still have my original Michelin pilots as well.
Looking at both sets of tyres I think I will get another year out of both so the cost will be exactly the same if I had just used summer tyres all year round. What people forget is winter tyres are not just for snow, slush and ice but they are brilliant in the rain as well. I'm completely sold on them now, for the doubters just search youtube for winter V Summer tyres..

Zekko

Living on the South coast, I've never personally felt the need to get winter tyres. We don't usually get much snow down here, and even in the middle of winter, the average temperatures at times I am driving just don't justify their usage.