Winter Tyres & Black Ice

[Deleted User]

Lots of black ice on the road early this morning on way to work at 5.30am. Very slippy, car sliding all over the place.

Just wondering if Winter Tyres help with black ice or not?


[FONT=&quot][threadbanner]box[/threadbanner][/FONT]

cardinalbiggles

Absolutely not. Nothing will help with black ice once you start sliding no matter what you are in you're in trouble.

BenL

Winter tyres help a lot on white ice though

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlYEMH10Z4s

Strider590

BenL wrote: »

Winter tyres help a lot on white ice though

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlYEMH10Z4s

That's racist




Seriously though, winter tyres will help on black ice,, but only by small margin and only because the rubber remains flexible at low temperatures.

vaio

and they'll help on black ice too, what little grip you get on black ice comes from the "edges" of tread called "sipes". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siping_%28rubber%29 winter tyres have many more of these than summer tyres so give better grip on ice. Plus the rubber compound is better at dealing with low temperatures

It's still not even close to what you would get on dry roads but way way better than summer tyres

brat

Winter tyres will help because their traction on ice and snow is better when the wheel is rolling, and the features that assist grip are allowed to work.

In the linked YT video in post 3, the car with studless winter tyres was able to brake on smooth level ice at 0.16g, while the car with summer tyres braked at 0.07g.

Every little helps.

neilmcl

Got to agree. Whilst winter tyre wont stop you completely from sliding on ice they will give you a greater level of grip before giving way and also find the grip quicker once you have started to slide.

Still not fitted mine this year and my car was all over the shop this morning on a couple of stretches.

vaio

I put mine on last sunday thereby causing the cancellation of the predicted Siberian weather we were forecast for this week

Gloomendoom

cardinalbiggles wrote: »

Absolutely not. Nothing will help with black ice once you start sliding no matter what you are in you're in trouble.

I'm not so sure. My wife managed to brake to a halt last week without any drama when the car in front spun off the road on black ice. Of course, it could be that the wheels of our car may have not been rolling on the exactly the same bit of road but I was still rather impressed (and relieved.)

Gloomendoom

Strider590 wrote: »

Seriously though, winter tyres will help on black ice,, but only by small margin and only because the rubber remains flexible at low temperatures.

It's not just that. More silica (sand) is used as filler in the rubber instead of carbon black. The silica improves grip on snow, ice and in the wet. The downside is that silica rich tyres generally wear at a faster rate.
.
.
.
.

micmac22

my 2 pence worth,
after thinking about the major expense of winter tyres and having a look round 2nd hand tyre outlets selling the European part worn ones £35 each + fitting, but unable to find 4 the same. spent alot of time ringing round and searches on net, found a company called camskill over on the west cost whitehaven hanook I'cept Evo W310 £416 for 4 delivery 11.96, delivered in 2 working days, 4 tyres fitted by small local garage £30. same tyres for my car from black circles charging £200 each tyre (now tesco owned). fitted them today you can feel a lot more sticky grip on corners than all round tyres and a hole lot more grip than summer tyres.
i do drive motorways, 320 mile round trip tomorrow morning 02.00hrs start up to glasgow will run them in. Had a small £950 prang 5 yrs ago that added over £200 to each year of my renewal insurance for the last 3 yrs, so i think winter tyres should hopefully pay for themselves by stopping me sliding into parked cars and being hit with higher insurance the following years.