i must say, i'm sorry if it was implied by me that you where stupid for not using them more of a wow factor to get the point across,

i've been driving around 10 years now and carn't think of a time when grip in poor conditions have been an issue, except for hill starts, but i will stick by my point, they make understeer less of an issue in poor cindition your breaking time is about 1/2 rough estimate, and the is less chance of wheel spin,

ok i could be classed as an exception as i drive to and live in the alps for most of the winter, but it does make sense if you no you are going somewhere the conditons can get very poor,

plus it does save thoses rather expensive summer tyres which some of us put on,:bang:

i suppose if you can afford it i would do it but if not its no great loss

Sorry to resurrect a thread but I though it interesting to see what the naysayers think after the weather we had earlier this year?

Having winter tyres would have made driving in those conditions an ultimately more pleasureable and safer experience. What people don't seem to comprehend is that under 7 degrees C your summer tyres cease to work as well as they could. You see it in F1 quite often..... qualifying and the track is warm and car x does well and car y doesn't because car y is overheating his tyres, come race day it's colder and car x can't get heat in his tyres and car y scoots ahead. Now of course road tyres are made the operate within a much higher temperature range because not everyone wants to change tyres just because the road temp is 5 degrees higher but they still can't operate in a wide enough range to give you a comparable amount of grip when it gets below 7 let alone 0.

I find it funny that some people will pay £300 for ESP which doesn't actually offer you any additional grip or traction yet they won't pay less for something which for 3-4 months of the year will give their car significant handling/safety benefits.

Lets ignore the snow part for a moment and consider just the pure facts.

A winter tyres @ 7 degrees will shorten your braking distance on wet tarmac by almost 10%.


Now consider the fact that half of the drives to and from work in the winter will be done in the morning and a good deal of the time it'll be nearer to 0. Then there are the what if advantages. If you get caught up in any decent snowfall on summer tyres you WILL be driving on the edge of the tyres performance at the most pedestrian of speeds. With winter tyres on you will have a bigger buffer more like the one you have on summer tyres at a decent speed on a normal road in the dry in summer. Now I'm not suggesting that you should drive faster on winter tyres but it just means you can drive at the same speed as everyone else without the worries of skidding off the road or losing traction on uphill gradients.

Thread about someone loosing their Panda 100hp at rather pedestrian speeds in not too severe winter conditions and the damage it caused.
https://www.fiatforum.com/panda-new/171493-ice-pandas-dont-mix.html?highlight=ice

My winter tyres and wheels are going to cost me £210 all up and they will also reduce the wear on my summer tyres and stop the salt from eating my nice alloys as well.

Well... I'm convinced... Sign me up!

What winter tyres have you got?

crabman

i used winter tyres last winter and it made the car a lot more fun to drive

especially in the snow

best benefit is in those sketchy almost freezing conditions when grip can just vanish on normal tyres

you dont need to stress about manky steel wheels either just get a set of used fiat alloys off eBay

wheels and tyres cost me £200 in total, and i have them to use again this year

i'll admit being a bit obsessed with wheels and tyres and have 3 sets for each of my Fiats for different purposes

i'll be fitting mine in November when the trackday season is finished

RobW said:

you dont need to stress about manky steel wheels either just get a set of used fiat alloys off eBay

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Well I'm stripping mine with a wire brush on my drill and then repainting them If they look nice I'm not sure I'll bother with the wheel trims.

306maxi said:

Well I'm stripping mine with a wire brush on my drill and then repainting them If they look nice I'm not sure I'll bother with the wheel trims.

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yep wheeltrims are nasty, will look better with just satin black steelies IMO

RobW said:

i'll admit being a bit obsessed with wheels and tyres and have 3 sets for each of my Fiats for different purposes

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As a matter of interest, what do you say to your insurance company about this, does it put you premium up the fact that you "modify" your car for part of the year with non-standard wheels/tyres?

I think it's a bit strange that having optional rear parking sensors increases the premium on my S-Max despite the fact that they make a claim marginally less likely, so who knows what fitting winter tyres would do, insurance companies are wierd...

trphil said:

As a matter of interest, what do you say to your insurance company about this, does it put you premium up the fact that you "modify" your car for part of the year with non-standard wheels/tyres?

I think it's a bit strange that having optional rear parking sensors increases the premium on my S-Max despite the fact that they make a claim marginally less likely, so who knows what fitting winter tyres would do, insurance companies are wierd...

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Winter tyres are part of the specifications in the handbook so I should think they will have nil effect on your premium. If an insurance company wanted to suggest otherwise or invalidate a claim they'd have a fun time in court trying to prove that tyres specified in the manufacturers specification and tyres which are more suited to the conditions at the time make for more risk.

crabman said:

Well... I'm convinced... Sign me up!

What winter tyres have you got?

crabman

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I've not got any as of yet Currently I think it'll be Conti's or Vredestein SnowTrac 3's At £45 or so each I really don't see it as much of an expense and more of an investment in safety.

Which tyres are fitted to the Fiat, they may be all season tyres rather than summer, if so the 7 degree rule may not be valid depending on the tyre manufacturer. You also have to bear in mind the reverse, that if the temperature warms up during winter (which it does in the UK) the winter tyres are not as good. Unless it is cold and damp/wet on more days than the reverse, winter tyres have moe drawbacks on dry roads.

In the UK we don't normally get a consistent enough cold spell to balance the risk of winter vs all season tyres. In terms of accident statistics, this doesn't show that winter tyres are the answer as the accidents in winter are caused by a lot of factors, it's dark during commuting, fog, rain etc. I bet very few in the UK climate would be caused by not having winter tyres alone.

Only my opinion and it really depends where you live.

poggy said:

Which tyres are fitted to the Fiat, they may be all season tyres rather than summer, if so the 7 degree rule may not be valid depending on the tyre manufacturer. You also have to bear in mind the reverse, that if the temperature warms up during winter (which it does in the UK) the winter tyres are not as good. Unless it is cold and damp/wet on more days than the reverse, winter tyres have moe drawbacks on dry roads.

In the UK we don't normally get a consistent enough cold spell to balance the risk of winter vs all season tyres. In terms of accident statistics, this doesn't show that winter tyres are the answer as the accidents in winter are caused by a lot of factors, it's dark during commuting, fog, rain etc. I bet very few in the UK climate would be caused by not having winter tyres alone.

Only my opinion and it really depends where you live.

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I've got Potenza RE050's which are very much summer tyres and if you do a search on mytyres.co.uk there are no all weather tyres for the 16" rims, only a few for the 15" rims and still not that many for the 14" rims and none of the options are ones I've seen on 500's. Also remember that MOST tyres that you'll buy will be summer tyres and not all weather tyres.

Of course winter tyres would be worse above 7 degrees but if you look at the average temps for the UK the average maximum temps are below 7 from December to March so most of the time you're going to be better of on winter rubber.

Also, winter tyres leave you prepared for conditions which can be severe. You wouldn't drive around on slick tyres in the summer would you? Sure they work well in the dry but for the times when it's going to rain you'll be wanting treaded tyres. Just as summer tyres are more or less fine for driving around in winter but winter tyres are better.

306. You do know it's still August. You should'nt go wishing your life away thinking about winter just yet even though some pubs have their Christmas boards out and Rochester have put their Christmas lights up.

Murano16v said:

306. You do know it's still August. You should'nt go wishing your life away thinking about winter just yet even though some pubs have their Christmas boards out and Rochester have put their Christmas lights up.

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Of course But I'm wanting to be prepared and at the moment I'm still at the stage where I'm wire brushing the wheels as they're a bit skanky at the moment. It'll be a good few weeks before they're painted and I won't be ordering tyres till at least November as I want the tyres to be as new as possible

I am all in favour of people making an informed judgement on this and in the interests of balance would note the following:

It is apparent in that graph below that on dry days the Summer tyres are still superior in terms of braking distance, even below 7deg when the accepted wisdom says that they dont work. When it does heat up above the threshold temp (which it does here in the UK occasionally) the winter tyre increases stopping distance by as much as difference between the summer and winter in the cold and wet when as you note the winter tyre is clearly superior.

I am actually surprised that the winter tyres dont make a more compelling case to be honest.

What you should have added is that, based on this very limited data alone, in dry winter condition or if the temp temporarily creeps up you are better off on the Summers.

306maxi said:

SNIP

Lets ignore the snow part for a moment and consider just the pure facts.

A winter tyres @ 7 degrees will shorten your braking distance on wet tarmac by almost 10%.

SNIP

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Padders said:

I am all in favour of people making an informed judgement on this and in the interests of balance would note the following:

It is apparent in that graph below that on dry days the Summer tyres are still superior in terms of braking distance, even below 7deg when the accepted wisdom says that they dont work. When it does heat up above the threshold temp (which it does here in the UK occasionally) the winter tyre increases stopping distance by as much as difference between the summer and winter in the cold and wet when as you note the winter tyre is clearly superior.

I am actually surprised that the winter tyres dont make a more compelling case to be honest.

What you should have added is that, based on this very limited data alone, in dry winter condition or if the temp temporarily creeps up you are better off on the Summers.

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Oooh I just noticed that, something tells me they've got the graph a little wrong. Summer tyres stopping you better in the dry when it's 5 degrees than @ 20 degrees is very much wrong.

Just remember that the average temps in the average maximums in the UK hover around 7 for almost 4 months of the year so on average you're going to be better off in those months and at the worst of times you'll be far better off as summer tyres fall off dramatically below 5 degrees. Then there's also the advantages you'll have if it snows. If we assume that they got the graph slightly wrong it's quite clear that winter tyres in winter give you roughly equivalent performance to summer tyres in summer.

P.S It's always good to have a balanced discussion

I never understood why people buy "winter tyres" our summer/winter weather is pretty much the same, just a bit damper.....in summer! Last winter it was pretty damn cold though, even the sea froze over (no really it did) and i had the ECO continentals on the Panda, they were fine, even went through snow/ice with no problems, so why do people buy "winter tyres"? Our weather isn't extreme enough imo.

DraigFlag87 said:

I never understood why people buy "winter tyres" our summer/winter weather is pretty much the same, just a bit damper.....in summer! Last winter it was pretty damn cold though, even the sea froze over (no really it did) and i had the ECO continentals on the Panda, they were fine, even went through snow/ice with no problems, so why do people buy "winter tyres"? Our weather isn't extreme enough imo.

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The sea didn't freeze up dude It was just a bit of ice from the river.

Your MJ had 155's on it and your 500 Abarth weighs not much more and has 195's or 205's on it. Almost 25% more rubber for how much more weight? 70kg's according to the specs. The effect of your MJ's 155's was like the tyres on the Suzuki SX4 WRC below in that being skinny they push through the snow underneath and grab onto the hard base of the road which gives them bite. Wide tyres especially in the compound your tyres are in will give sod all grip in snowy conditions. The wifes Subaru has 4WD but was on 205's and it was struggling for grip on a snowy gravel road.



At the end of it all the advantages in snow and ice are only what if's, there are clear advantages to be had from the use of softer compounds in colder weather.

If you want to argue with the science and documented evidence though that's up to you.

when was the last time we had propper snow for more than 1 day ?, the other argument is that if you have winter tyres so can stop like a few meters shorter and the lorry behind doesn't have them then the tyres arn't going to do a great deal are they ?? gain v cost on winter tyres is a waste imho. if you'r that bothered about a bit of a chill maxi then you should put away the 500 and use you'r partners subaru

white 500 said:

when was the last time we had propper snow for more than 1 day ?, the other argument is that if you have winter tyres so can stop like a few meters shorter and the lorry behind doesn't have them then the tyres arn't going to do a great deal are they ?? gain v cost on winter tyres is a waste imho. if you'r that bothered about a bit of a chill maxi then you should put away the 500 and use you'r partners subaru

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Considering we need two cars it's not really an option just to use the Subaru

If you think it's a waste consider that the Potenza's on my car are £70 each and winter tyres are £40 each and using steelies in winter means my nice alloys won't get wrecked by salt.

As has been said a number of times they're not tyres for snow, they're tyres for when it's below 7 degrees celsius which is most of the time between the start of december to the end of March We had snow here in North Wales in late October last year and it was below 5 degrees as a maximum most days.

Here's a photo of our late October weather last year 4WD on the Subaru is good but it doesn't make the car brake any better and it can't make the rubber any grippier.



We even had such cold weather that ice started to form in the rivers and the tide broke it up and pushed it out into the sea prompting one young man to proclaim that the sea was freezing

https://www.fiatforum.com/leisure-lounge/175467-frozen-sea.html

306maxi said:

If you want to argue with the science and documented evidence though that's up to you.

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No I'm not arguing the science, I'm just saying i personally wouldn't bother with winter tyres (if such a thing exists) we're not rally drivers after all and our casual climate is hardly "extreme". Here's the frozen sea/river (meet you half way, it's the estuary) and the Panda in the snow.