Summer tyres for winter?

mjoneseyjones

force_ten wrote: »

but you said it never happens and i said it does nearly every year, if you live in a bubble with its own little tropical sub climate and you never experience bad weather then well done you, did you not experience the big freeze in 2009-2010

No I didn't. You're putting words in my mouth to suit the point you're trying to make. I said that on the very rare occasions we have heavy snow, it doesnt affect the vast majority of the population/roads. To try and disprove this you posted a google search related to a freak heavy snowfall, searched for with a hysterical headline of your choosing!

Show me some facts to disprove what I'm saying.

I work outside and spend large periods driving around a rural area and we tend to get around far better than the people that live in urban areas and think it never ever snows in this countryand

Good for you. I live in London but grew up in the Yorkshire Dales. I'm well enough versed with how the frankly moderate weather we enjoy in this country does and doesnt affect different areas on a regular basis.

as to the first point if your statement was correct i would expect google to come up with no results found

How are you not getting this? I didnt say it never snows, or we've never had roads closed due to heavy falls.

It's very simple, and I'll say it one more time -on the very, very rare occasions we get snow heavy enough to close roads, it still doesnt affect the huge majority of the population. Hence how ridiculous the clamour is on here to out do each other on the winter tyre stakes.

JustinR1979

mjoneseyjones wrote: »

It's very simple, and I'll say it one more time -on the very, very rare occasions we get snow heavy enough to close roads, it still doesnt affect the huge majority of the population. Hence how ridiculous the clamour is on here to out do each other on the winter tyre stakes.

What I find closes the roads is accidents and abandoned cars.
I have often had to wriggle round and through cars scattered all over the roads.
As I previously said, battle on round until people come out for work and school run, then accidents happen and cause road closures and obstructions.
Is very rare I've had to turn round for a road closure in force by the authorities. Maybe I've driven round the signs I didn't see covered in snow once or twice, maybe not....

Iceweasel

JustinR1979 wrote: »

I dunno, looked sporty, but trying to tow a lorry out of snow, guess proper knobbly tyres are needed, not buttons to push.
Still very wide tyres though, so sit on the snow rather than dig in?

Knobbly off-road tyres are not so good on snow covered asphalt as proper Winter tyres - but of course they are great in mud.

Winter tyres are rubbish in mud.

M+S tyres without the 'snowflake on the mountain' symbol might be good for 4x4s or occasional off-roaders but they are pointless on a car that doesn't leave asphalt.

Proper Winter tyres with the snowflake on the mountain symbol are what most people should consider - but as yet the benefits are not widely understood.

force_ten

JustinR1979 wrote: »

I dunno, looked sporty, but trying to tow a lorry out of snow, guess proper knobbly tyres are needed, not buttons to push.
Still very wide tyres though, so sit on the snow rather than dig in?

now that is a whole new can of worms

it always used to be the case that for winter tyres you fitted the narrowest tyres allowed for your car, but continental are trying to turn this on it head and they are now saying that for winter tyres bigger is better

it was a concept i found hard to grasp but if you look into it then some of it makes sense

JustinR1979

force_ten wrote: »

now that is a whole new can of worms

it always used to be the case that for winter tyres you fitted the narrowest tyres allowed for your car, but continental are trying to turn this on it head and they are now saying that for winter tyres bigger is better

it was a concept i found hard to grasp but if you look into it then some of it makes sense

When I had my M5 it had 275's on the back, I don't think the width helped!
If it didn't have dsc I wouldn't have gone to work, was the only thing kept me pointing straight.

OddballJamie

JustinR1979 wrote: »

I dunno, looked sporty, but trying to tow a lorry out of snow, guess proper knobbly tyres are needed, not buttons to push.
Still very wide tyres though, so sit on the snow rather than dig in?

Pulling a lorry in the snow, I would think studded tyres or chains would help. Although they were brave to try in a new car, I wouldn't, but too worried about stopping the lorry once it got going.

force_ten

mjoneseyjones wrote: »

No I didn't. You're putting words in my mouth to suit the point you're trying to make. I said that on the very rare occasions we have heavy snow, it doesnt affect the vast majority of the population/roads. To try and disprove this you posted a google search related to a freak heavy snowfall, searched for with a hysterical headline of your choosing!

Show me some facts to disprove what I'm saying.



Good for you. I live in London but grew up in the Yorkshire Dales. I'm well enough versed with how the frankly moderate weather we enjoy in this country does and doesnt affect different areas on a regular basis.



How are you not getting this? I didnt say it never snows, or we've never had roads closed due to heavy falls.

It's very simple, and I'll say it one more time -on the very, very rare occasions we get snow heavy enough to close roads, it still doesnt affect the huge majority of the population. Hence how ridiculous the clamour is on here to out do each other on the winter tyre stakes.

if you even bothered to look at the results of that google search, then you would see that there are results from 2009 2010 2011 and 2012 so hardly a very very rare occasion

where i live we are five miles from a mountain road that i use on a regular basis and in the last thirty years it has remained open all winter about three or four times, it is often shut by snow for weeks on end

it is also pretty ironic that the tread was started by a guy living in london looking to buy winter tyres for his car so does he know something that you don't?

mjoneseyjones

force_ten wrote: »

if you even bothered to look at the results of that google search, then you would see that there are results from 2009 2010 2011 and 2012 so hardly a very very rare occasion

I did look, hence how I know whet a terrible example it was! It's pretty funny that the articles you choose to back your point up only reaffirm mine. Perhaps you should have a read yourself:

There are mentions of 'the uk grinding to a halt' (and remember this is newspaper 'grinding to a halt', and not the actual reality of how much of the uk was affected) in 5 different years, going back to the earliest one I could find in the first 6 pages, 2007.

Over these 5 seperate years, in the space of 7 years, a quick skim suggests this 'chaos' and 'grinding to a halt' lasted for the grand total of 7 days.

So that's the grand total 7 days of snow based disruption in 7 years. Given the fact this highly infrequent occurrence would have affected a tiny proportion of people each time, I think its fair or say the average british road user doesn't have much to worry about on this front.

where i live we are five miles from a mountain road that i use on a regular basis and in the last thirty years it has remained open all winter about three or four times, it is often shut by snow for weeks on end

Great. Would you say this is representative of anything other than a very small amount of the populations driving routines? Or anything other than a very small proportions location based tyre needs?

I'm not saying winter tyres aren't good at what they do, and that no-one needs them - they're just entirely pointless for the vast majority of the population of a moderate climate country like ours.

it is also pretty ironic that the tread was started by a guy living in london looking to buy winter tyres for his car so does he know something that you don't?

No, I'd imagine its more likely he's read and swallowed the absolute guff written about the necessity of winter tyres on here. Do you think the tens of millions of people who go through their motoring lives just fine without fitting winter tyres know something you don't?

JustinR1979

OddballJamie wrote: »

Pulling a lorry in the snow, I would think studded tyres or chains would help. Although they were brave to try in a new car, I wouldn't, but too worried about stopping the lorry once it got going.

He was giving it a good run and it was bouncing about as rope went taught!
Some idiot with a lease/company car no doubt thinking it was capable of anything I suppose.
Was fun to watch, but obvious it wasn't going to work.

Gloomendoom

Iceweasel wrote: »

Knobbly off-road tyres are not so good on snow covered asphalt as proper Winter tyres - but of course they are great in mud.

Knobbly tyres are good in deep snow... even on asphalt. Some knobblies have the mountain/snowflake mark too.

Winter tyres are rubbish in mud.

But very good on wet grass.

M+S tyres without the 'snowflake on the mountain' symbol might be good for 4x4s or occasional off-roaders but they are pointless on a car that doesn't leave asphalt.

I beg to differ. Based on my own experience, it depends on the tyre. The all seasons on my car just have an M+S symbol, no snowflake and they most certainly not pointless, despite the car not leaving the tarmac. The secret is to check the reviews to see how good they are on snow. However, I do agree that dedicated snowflake rated tyres will most likely be better.

Once this car was cleared of snow it drove out of that parking spot and a 100 miles home on its low profile M+S tyres...