Winter Tyres

bowlhead99

force_ten wrote: »

my first post on this thread was a direct response to your quote saying

winter tyres are much better in the wet than summer tyres.

I posted a factual video that showed at 10 degrees ambient the summer tyres stopped 8 meters shorter than the winter tyres

Correct, you did.

I watched that Autocar video, as presumably bigjl did too. And actually that video showed two things.

One, it showed that the winter tyres, when the temperature wasn't at or below the 7degree target temperature, took a greater distance to stop the car in a straight line. An extra car length or more, on your car. This is not altogether unexpected because the water-and-snow-displacing tread pattern of the winter tyre leaves a smaller amount of rubber contact area to touch the road, and the extra grippiness of the tyre compound in cold weather does not come into its own until you get to lower temperature. So it will take more distance to come to a stop in your straight line emergency brake test.

However, it also showed that with the help of the winter tyres, the car was able to complete a timed lap of the circuit five and a half seconds (7%) quicker, a product of being able to safely hold corners at almost 4mph faster (36.8mph vs 33mph) stemming from its ability to generate 14% more lateral G-force without spinning out on the wet track.

Your road tester said in summation at around 2.30 in the video, "And I have to say, my impression at least is that the difference between the two tyres is stark, in these conditions (ten degree ambient remember). The grip these WINTER tyres are generating is significantly better. The car traction's improved, it's got better bite at the front end, significantly easier to steer round this circuit. And I'm not really trying to carry any more speed: it's simply easier to do. There's much less slip at the rear axle and the traction control system is intervening much less as well, which suggests there's a lot more grip to play with."

This was his experience driving it around a wet track. Even at above optimal temperature it was grippier, easier to drive fast and safe without coming off the road.

The female Autocar tester summed up after she had done the emergency brake straight line test., at about 4.15 "And actually, even in these warmer conditions the winter tyres DID prove beneficial, particularly in terms of the grip and the feel they providd on our low friction wet surface. However, there is a payoff in terms of the braking distance... but we still wouldn't hesitate to recommend winter tyres."

So, a reasonably independent-minded person watching the test, listening to the commentary, perusing the stats, and hearing the conclusion from Autocar at the end, could think, "OK, there are a few different tests that could be done on the handling characteristics of tyres. The straight line braking is only one feature on which they can be judged, and the recorded statistics during the video test showed that even at the higher 'autumn' rather than 'winter' temperature, the Winter tyres were excelling in other areas."

That reasonably-minded, independent person might well go on to think: "overall, in other tests representing the general day to day handling that I'll be doing most of during the colder seasons, the specialist winter tyres seem superior and were actively recommended by the car magazine during, and at the conclusion of, its suite of tests. In their tests, even higher than the optimum 5-7 degrees, the car with winter tyres handled the wet weather much better, providing acres more grip when trying to turn the wheel while moving. Only if I'm slamming on my brakes in a straight line and NOT trying to steer around the obstruction (a very rare event), would I want summer tyres at ten degrees in the wet."

That viewer might go on to conclude: "the water-displacing properties of the winter tyres are going to give me superior traction and wet-weather steering whether I am at ten degrees or seven degrees or 0 degrees. So instead of worrying about whether it will average ten degrees or 0 degrees C in the next month, I will just go ahead with winter tyres, which are shown to be better in the wet than the summers, at these sorts of temperatures (yes, including some temperatures which are above the 5-7 degrees normally touted as being ideal for winter tyres to go on)"

This seems a reasonable stance to take.

However, in the character assassination that you are attempting to complete on poor bigjl, you say

force_ten wrote: »

you poo pooed that saying straight line braking isn't important, and the only thing that mattered was a tyres ability to splash through puddles at the side of the road

He did not say that at all. What he ACTUALLY said was

bigjl wrote: »

The Winter tyres I used were GoodYear UltraGrip 8 and which much superior in the wet.

Obviously I don't do emergency braking tests.

But the tyre that came off were GoodYear aswell, Efficient grip.

But braking is only one of the ways to judge a tyre.

The way a tyre deals with standing water is a significant point.

And in my experience they were exceptional.

So, YOUR chosen video, from all the ones you could have picked, does indeed show that "braking is only one way to judge a tyre", as bigjl said, and even though a car might take a bit more stopping distance in straight line, the journalists in YOUR video acknowledge that actually the winter tyre handled the wet conditions in a far better way, more grip, more traction, easier to steer through corners, faster lap time, higher G force and consequential higher safe cornering speed.

You say

all i care about is the fact that you will not accept fact and think your experience with one set of tyres holds more water than the articles that have published by some very well respected motoring magazines

force_ten wrote: »

A tyre's ability to splash through puddles is not the be all and end all, there is a lot more to it than that, but for some reason that is the one thing that you seem to be basing your whole debate on

I think you may benefit from taking a deep breath, clear your head and reread your posts to see who is actually saying what, versus what are you reading between the lines to back up your prejudged opinion that so and so is an idiot.

You seem to be ranting about bigjl not seeing sense, not listening to facts, and focussing everything on 'splashing through puddles'.

While actually HE is the one acknowledging there are a wide range of tests, and is happening to share preferences with the journalists in YOUR video who said the winter tyres held the road better and were recommended in typical wet UK autumn conditions even above the magic 7 degrees.

Perhaps it is YOU who are not seeing sense and not listening to facts, because you stubbornly believe that stopping in the shortest possible distance in a straight line emergency brake situation is the absolute most important thing for tyres. Ignoring things like being able to hold the road in a wet corner, swerving round unexpected hazards etc which you characterise as 'splashing through puddles' as if unimportant.

So when you slam on your brakes and assume your 45 metre death slide into the back of an obstruction ahead, I expect you will be cursing your broken legs but thinking yourself all superior that your summer tyres would technically be able to stop in 50m instead of 58m, just like in your video, if only you'd had as much as 50m to play with in real life. Meanwhile the person behind you shod in winter tyres has a lucky escape, because although he only has 40m before hitting the back of you, he simply turns his steering wheel, carves through the standing water, and steers around you with 20m to spare.

I generally dislike discussion forums where people push personal opinions as fact and ignore sense, reason and actual facts. According to you lot, this is what bigjl is doing. Making the board worse for the rest of us poor souls who just want easy answers and the highbrow intelligent discussion we would get if it were all moderated by the likes of BykerSands. Pull the other one :rotfl:.

To me - as a bystander who doesn't spend as much time on this forum as some of the other MSE ones - Bigjl seems to just be sharing his experience and acknowledging he is not an expert in every area but recommending you look at all angles before judging one thing to be absolutely better than another.

What makes a forum even less fun than one filled with the occasional mild trolling, is an environment where people deliberately misquote and belittle others, make fun of their screen names or whatever, go back through years of posting history to see if a 'rival' debater has ever made a single mistake in their adult lives... to play a game of one-upmanship and try to make us think that they must be the ones who are right about everything because they are not getting as much abuse as the person they pick on.

Unfortunately most web forums have this sort of intolerance, often showed by otherwise intelligent-sounding posters whose opinions are swayed by lazy reading or by misquotes or out of context comments fed to them by trolls. It's sad really.

FWIW, I'm not bothering with winter tyres on my car, as a good set of winters (plus storage for my summers) for the size wheels I have is expensive and a hassle to swap for two or three months a year - and I have the luxury of not needing to use my car for a commute. If the weather is too crappy, I'll just try to avoid using it, or in a pinch use the second car which is smaller and less comfortable but also less powerful and less expensive to write off.

Of course, YMMV.

bigjl

neilmcl wrote: »

So I ask again, with all your extensive research in winter tyre wet weather abilities and contradicting every other authority are you still standing by your overriding statement that "winter tyres are much better in the wet than summer tyres."?

A simple yes or no will suffice?

Did you watch the linked videos?

I haven't but another poster has and kindly posted a summary above.

Might be an idea to do that.

bigjl

force_ten wrote: »

you seem to be very confused as to when you actually bought these goodyears as on this thread you claim it was around five years ago



that is a quote from one of your posts in october 2015, so we have gone from 2/3 years to five years in two months :T :T

Time flies when you are having fun

The tyres where fitted 5 years ago, probably around November/December, I don't put such things in my diary.

If you look at my other posts you will see that they were in there for two winters and the car was sold in October 2013.

So in fact they were still on there 2/3 years ago.

You do realise that you don't put tyres on then remove them straight away don't you?

Why not pop down to EliteDirect in Rainham as they fitted them.

Ask them when they were fitted if it that significant an issue for you.

It might be an idea if you actually reread the post you have quoted second.

I didn't say they were fitted 2/3 yrs ago, I said they were on my V50 2/3 years ago.

As I have said I sold that car over two years ago. Why would I fit brand new winter tyres then sell it?

That is what happens when you troll through a forum members posts and try to pull things out of context.

You end up looking silly.

neilmcl

bigjl wrote: »

Did you watch the linked videos?

I haven't but another poster has and kindly posted a summary above.

Might be an idea to do that.

That'll be a no then.

Alter_ego

OP here, just had a look at the 5 day forecast, around 8 degrees in my general area.
Guess I'll wait a while.

force_ten

In one of my first post on this thread i said

on the video above at 3.57 in it shows that at 10 degrees ambient in a brake test from 70mph the summer tyre stopped 7.9 mts shorter than the winter tyres the winter won on lap time and corner speed but 7.9 mts is one and a half car lengths longer stopping distance on my car

I fully accept that a winter tyre can outperform a summer tyre in certain situations but not all situations

what i cant accept is why anybody would go on about how good a tyre is and how well it performs in the wet, but then say they would never buy that tyre now due to the C rating for wet grip

sorry but it is just beyond me

bigjl

force_ten wrote: »

In one of my first post on this thread i said



I fully accept that a winter tyre can outperform a summer tyre in certain situations but not all situations

what i cant accept is why anybody would go on about how good a tyre is and how well it performs in the wet, but then say they would never buy that tyre now due to the C rating for wet grip

sorry but it is just beyond me

That isn't what I said though is it?

I said when I bought the UltraGrip8 I said they were not a C for wet grip.

I think it was you that posted they changed the way they rate tyres in 2012.

I bought mine before that.

Which means to any reasonable person they were not rated by the EU.

Which explains why though they were an A or B.

Because when Inmade my decision to buy my winter tyres many years ago I would have ruled out a tyre that was C for wet weather.

That is obvious isn't it?

You we trying to act smart but you have failed to understand what I have said in a very simple statement.

I was replying to the person who posted up about the change in 2012.

That was you wasn't it?

I think I even thanked you for the info which I wasn't aware of.

Now do you understand the context?

I haven't bought UltraGrip8's since before the change.

I assume that before this point the tests where biased towards a general ability in the wet rather than the EU approach which as I have learnt on here is now related purely to wet braking.

Did you actually watch your linked videos.

As a poster above seems to have found they say pretty much what I have been saying all along.

I never linked them, you did.

force_ten

yes it was me that posted about the current EU tyre label coming into force and under the new labeling scheme the goodyear ultragrip 8 is rated a C for wet grip and braking performance

would you go out tomorrow and buy a set of four goodyear ultragrip 8 and fit them to your car

Kim_kim

Why had this turned into such a heated debate?
Shouldn't it be about people sharing their thoughts & helping others?

bigjl

force_ten wrote: »

yes it was me that posted about the current EU tyre label coming into force and under the new labeling scheme the goodyear ultragrip 8 is rated a C for wet grip and braking performance

would you go out tomorrow and buy a set of four goodyear ultragrip 8 and fit them to your car

Honest answer?

I probably would due to my experince with that tyre.

Though even the UltraGrip 9 is a C for wet braking. So I might have to read some proper reviews of them before pulling the trigger, as I have said already wet braking is only one parameter to consider.

Let's not forget that my previous decision on the UltraGrip8's was made years ago. Which is when I said I wouldn't have bought C rated Wet winters.

You have fallen into the trap of BykerSands trying to twist things out of context to create arguments.

Which is exactly what he got.

As far as I was aware your post backed up my opinion.

As you will see elsewhere on the forum I like the idea of All Season tyres especially the new generation of All Seasons such as the Nokian Weatherproof or Maxxis AP2. The new Michelin is a bit rich for me at the moment and not available in the size the Berlingo takes, not even close.

But then I don't and hours going through posters previous posts to attempt to derail a debate.

Context is everything.