Will my spare wheels fit a newer Mondeo?

Iceweasel

greatgimpo wrote: »

The reason I said consistently 0-3ºC is that at 7ºC the temperature will probably fluctuate day-to-day by maybe 3ºC. I was forever changing them over and back again just last spring.

Are you really being serious?

Surely not?

I fit my winters when the clocks go back and leave them on until the clocks go forward again.

If we ever give up this flawed notion of summertime and wintertime I'll just fit them from the 1st of November till the end of March.

I couldn't care less what the temperature does on a daily basis.

greatgimpo

I think the tyres wear out quite fast when the temperature rises.

Iceweasel

greatgimpo wrote: »

I think the tyres wear out quite fast when the temperature rises.

Not at all.

They wear faster than summer tyres but nothing dramatic.

Last Easter we still had snow in early April when I set off for Greece - so I just kept the winters on.

I'm glad I did as we encountered a fair bit of snow, ice and blizzards in Southern Austria.

The next day we had 32 degrees on the Autoput from Zagreb to Belgrade.

A 6000 mile round trip with speeds up to 95mph at points (legally) and less than a millimetre off the tread.

I would have preferred to have had my summer tyres on but the winters are actually OK for year round use.

We did have some snow on the way home too - on the Stelvio in Italy in mid-May.

Lots of Austrians only have winter tyres and their summers are lovely and warm - at low altitude.

bigjl

greatgimpo wrote: »

I think the tyres wear out quite fast when the temperature rises.

Not as bad as you think

I left my winters on all year as i hsd the use of an other car for work snd the Volvo was rsrely use

However if you drove round say a roundabout in a spirited way you would lose bits of the outside tread

Not a perfect scenario but completely legal to use them all year

At the moment your winters should mske good money on eBay

Get a nice set of used mk4 alloys and you have your new winters sorted

The mk4 is a much better car than the mk3 and i rate the mk3 very highly indeed

Stratus

I find this site useful for checking wheel fitments for different vehicles

http://www.wheelfitment.eu

Ultrasonic

I wouldn't want to use winters all year round on safety grounds, not due to wear. See e.g. the wet braking test at 10°C in the following video, where from 70 mph Michelin Alpin A4 winter tyres took 57.9 meters to stop compared to 50.8 meters for Michelin Primacy HP summer tyres. That's an extra 7.1 m or 14% for the winter tyres to stop, which is hardly insignificant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi-o_njQW34

The same video does show that the winter tyres have better lateral grip in the wet at 10°C though, but for me the braking test is more likely to be relevant.

So there is definitely a dilemma as to when to change to winter tyres but I think waiting for the temperature to regularly be at 3°C or below is probably being a bit cautious. I have winter tyres on at the moment and think that on average it is safer to do so at the moment despite not seeing a temperature below 4°C when driving so far this season.

Ultrasonic

Stratus wrote: »

I find this site useful for checking wheel fitments for different vehicles

http://www.wheelfitment.eu

A useful looking website but unfortunately I wouldn't trust it I'm afraid. For my car it lists 6 different tyre sizes (195/65 R15 to 225/30 R20) but only lists a single offset for them all, which is not correct.

JohnM5206

The Michelin web site lists 16" wheels as an alternative fitment for a Mk IV Mondeo.
The tyre size the OP has is listed as one iof the three options in 16".
No reason not to use them. I do think that swapping them at 3C is a bit much - today is 11C outside at the present time.