werdna said:

I have a set in the shed, ready and waiting, but we have had one day with 1/4 inch of snow. Couple that with virtually no driving, only to the shop and back, and I might even get a discount on my next insurance.

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I won’t lie, I’ve not fitted mine this winter, but only as I’m basically not using the car, and can’t be bothered due to lack of use of the car

Working from home has some advantages, even if this time of the year it’s my energy provider benefiting from my increased heating usage.

I've had mine around 5-6 years now. They're getting old, but hardly any wear, so end of last winter, left them on. Used them all summer, a little gooey on the hottest days, but feeling good again now. Still hardly any wear.

I'm thinking when the winters and summers need changing, I'll go to all-seasons, and quit the faff of changing them. We don't get much snow, although when we do they are magic.

dfs want to deliver my new sofa n chairs next week, but the charity shops are shut, and i have no where to store my old one until they open, cant give it away privately as that has spreading dangers too
was a girl on facebook claiming she had just gone from homeless into her first place and needed stuff, that probably would have been seen as essential, but then someone posted links of her selling all the stuff people were giving her, scammer

portland_bill said:

I've had mine around 5-6 years now. They're getting old, but hardly any wear, so end of last winter, left them on. Used them all summer, a little gooey on the hottest days, but feeling good again now. Still hardly any wear.

I'm thinking when the winters and summers need changing, I'll go to all-seasons, and quit the faff of changing them. We don't get much snow, although when we do they are magic.

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You’d probably be better getting winters again and just leaving them on all year around.

All seasons are okay, but given our climate winters all year round would probably be better as were colder more than we are hot when it comes to road temps.

dave said:

dfs want to deliver my new sofa n chairs next week, but the charity shops are shut, and i have no where to store my old one until they open, cant give it away privately as that has spreading dangers too
was a girl on facebook claiming she had just gone from homeless into her first place and needed stuff, that probably would have been seen as essential, but then someone posted links of her selling all the stuff people were giving her, scammer

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Every town has an estate where the sofa seems to be in the front garden, next to the fridge and washing machine.
a) start your own street trend
b) trundle around your nearest such estate, and offer it to those households without one in the garden
c) Put it outside on a dry day with a "Free" notice on it
d) see if anyone in your street, or nearby, has a skip outside, and put your stuff in it at midnight
e) dismantle it, cut it up into small pieces, and put it in the bin, or some in each of all your neighbours bins.

Sorry, can't think of a useful solution, unless DFS would take yours away?

Most Easterly Pandas said:

You’d probably be better getting winters again and just leaving them on all year around.

All seasons are okay, but given our climate winters all year round would probably be better as were colder more than we are hot when it comes to road temps.

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South Oxfordshire does not suffer from much really bad weather, a lot of fog, rain, some high winds, but little snow.

portland_bill said:

Every town has an estate where the sofa seems to be in the front garden, next to the fridge and washing machine.
a) start your own street trend
b) trundle around your nearest such estate, and offer it to those households without one in the garden
c) Put it outside on a dry day with a "Free" notice on it
d) see if anyone in your street, or nearby, has a skip outside, and put your stuff in it at midnight
e) dismantle it, cut it up into small pieces, and put it in the bin, or some in each of all your neighbours bins.

Sorry, can't think of a useful solution, unless DFS would take yours away?

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DFS are in partnership with British heart foundation to do that, mrs dave is general manager for them and she cant event let me put it in their storage facility local tip is open and i have my own massive skip at work, but it would sell for £150 in a charity shop seems such a shame to just bin it.

portland_bill said:

South Oxfordshire does not suffer from much really bad weather, a lot of fog, rain, some high winds, but little snow.

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More to do with core road temp rather than weather overall. Anything below 7C and winters will out perform anything else, and that 7C is 50%> in the UK.

Most Easterly Pandas said:

More to do with core road temp rather than weather overall. Anything below 7C and winters will out perform anything else, and that 7C is 50%> in the UK.

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Not the case now, a modern set of all seasons (not any old crap but a good one) will outperform a winter at wet and dry braking as well as handling down to about -5. The main advantage of a winter is snow and ice performance as all seasons tend to have fewer sipes and are a little stiffer.

A decent all season will also perform as a summer tyre on a wet day in summer.

If you think in terms of operating window, Winters are 7 degrees and below, Summers 7 degrees and above. A decent all-season should give consistent performance anywhere in the range of temperatures we see regularly.

Not literally the best performance at anything except possibly wet performance but stable and safe at all temperatures.

StevenRB45 said:

Not the case now, a modern set of all seasons (not any old crap but a good one) will outperform a winter at wet and dry braking as well as handling down to about -5. The main advantage of a winter is snow and ice performance as all seasons tend to have fewer sipes and are a little stiffer.

A decent all season will also perform as a summer tyre on a wet day in summer.

If you think in terms of operating window, Winters are 7 degrees and below, Summers 7 degrees and above. A decent all-season should give consistent performance anywhere in the range of temperatures we see regularly.

Not literally the best performance at anything except possibly wet performance but stable and safe at all temperatures.

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when do they become useless though? winters should be changed before 4mm do we do the same with all seasons

dave said:

when do they become useless though? winters should be changed before 4mm do we do the same with all seasons

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Not entirely sure Dave.

Depends on the brand and model. I have seen tests where the cross climate + still retains some cold weather performance down as far 2mm (though obviously reduced). However the older Goodyears didn't have the same abilities past 4mm.

But I have the generation 2 Goodyears on mine and they have a bunch of things built in to keep performance consistent. So sipes are straight at the top then become zigzag as you wear into the tread. As a result they can be deeper so they don't disappear with wear but interlock to maintain dry handling. Also the grooves are cut wider closer to the carcass, so the open as the gauge reduces so you have a similar of void available for snow and water (Although you lose a little dry performance instead).

I'll see how they go but given they started at 8, and the fronts have lost 1mm in 18 months. The rears are pretty much new they'll probably have cured to rock hard or I'll have sold the car by the time they would be worn. Probably rotate them this year at the service.

The gen 3 version on the Citroën is designed to be more long lived, in wear testing it lasted longer even than the Michelin. But again we shall see but the annual mileage of that car again means there'll be 5 or 4 years before they get near worn. Again more likely to have sold the car or changed on the basis of age than wear them down past 4mm.

dave said:

winters should be changed before 4mm do we do the same with all seasons

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Only for optimum snow performance, because by this point the sipes as almost none existent. Still fine down to the depth you'd let summer tyres go down to for all other conditions.

With an MOT due on my Ibiza in 2 months time - coming up on 5 years old and 25,000 miles - and the discussion going on here about tyre variants giving me food for thought, I just went out to check it's tyres. It's still on the original Bridgestone Ecopia EP150 jobbies which are down to a tad under 4 mm on the front and about 5mm on the rears. So plenty of life in them yet I was thinking but I also noticed, some time ago, that there is considerable cracking circumferentially around the base of the tread grooves. This is not deep yet and does not expose the deeper construction in any way, but I'm not "happy" with it. I have to say I don't like the general performance of these "eco" tyres which are noisy and don't grip too well in the wet. Considering too that they are roughly only half worn in 25,000 miles my guess would be that the tread compound is probably quite hard which would explain the comments I've just made. I notice from the build dates on them that they were produced 42nd week of 2015, so, by MOT time they'll be about 5.5 years old.

With all the above in mind I've been thinking of replacing at least 2 of them in the near future. In the past I've usually gone for a mid range "summer" tyre - Barum (owned by Continental) being a big favourite - because they tend to last longest in terms of mileage. Now, being retired and not doing the miles any more, I'm thinking that tyre aging is going to be a bigger limiting factor for me in future. So I'm considering All Season tyres - which may wear more quickly - won't be a problem for my usage - but also grip better? - I've long been an admirer of AVON Tyres and their involvement in motor sport so I've almost convinced myself to try some of their AS7s
https://www.avontyres.com/en-gb/tyres/avon-as7
My size is a "sensible" 185/60x15 which I see they offer. Now I'm going to find where I can get the best bargain. I do have one wee "issue" with them though and that is that they are directional. Having been heavily involved with racing tyres early in my career I know well the advantages of directional tyre designs and their ability to shift water but I've always disliked the fact that this makes their fitment directional so, once mounted on a rim you can only run them on the apropriate side of the vehicle, which makes carrying a spare a big problem. However I see most of these types of tyre, regardless of brand, are directional. Guess I'll just have to carry a "normal" spare I suppose.

Most Easterly Pandas said:

Only for optimum snow performance, because by this point the sipes as almost none existent. Still fine down to the depth you'd let summer tyres go down to for all other conditions.

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sipes are to help stopping on ice too not just for snow

When I drove back my Coop from the Bristol area after the refurbishment, one of my tyres was loosing air. I took the wheel off and took it into the tyre place I use. I was more than surprised when the chap informed me although the tyre had plenty of tread left, it was dated 2004 Feck me. In the end, although all the tyres on my Coop looked good, the rears were dated 2004 and the fronts 2003

I lashed out on good tyres costing me over 400 quid. On a car like this needs the tyres must be the best you can afford. My Coop has been my weekend car and a nice place to be, so not doing many miles, aye it pays to keep an eye on your tyres and not just the pressure.

dave said:

sipes are to help stopping on ice too not just for snow

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I don’t believe they do. Their purpose is to trap snow as snow grips snow better than rubber does, so gives better grip in the snow.

Not aware of ice being grippy against ice or collecting in sipes?

Most Easterly Pandas said:

I don’t believe they do. Their purpose is to trap snow as snow grips snow better than rubber does, so gives better grip in the snow.

Not aware of ice being grippy against ice or collecting in sipes?

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Yes, its a strange phenomenon that winter tyres are designed to clog with snow, as snow grips snow best. Like rolling a snowball, it gets bigger. As said above, this is why the recommendation to replace at 4mm, so the grooves are dep enough to fill with snow. Other advantages of winters, being more flexible remain down to much shallower grooves.
I think with ice, we're relying on the rubber, which is why winters work better, as they stay more flexible at lower temperatures.

portland_bill said:

Yes, its a strange phenomenon that winter tyres are designed to clog with snow, as snow grips snow best. Like rolling a snowball, it gets bigger. As said above, this is why the recommendation to replace at 4mm, so the grooves are dep enough to fill with snow. Other advantages of winters, being more flexible remain down to much shallower grooves.
I think with ice, we're relying on the rubber, which is why winters work better, as they stay more flexible at lower temperatures.

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Yep agreed on all your points. Like you say it’s the different silica content in the rubber that make winters perform so well below 7C where they still remain soft, even as the tread wears.

Cannot find a source at the moment but 99% sure I have read on ice the sipes give an increase in the number of "edges" in contact with the surface effectively multiplying the number of points on the tyre it can generate grip with.

Most Easterly Pandas said:

I don’t believe they do. Their purpose is to trap snow as snow grips snow better than rubber does, so gives better grip in the snow.

Not aware of ice being grippy against ice or collecting in sipes?

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siping_(rubber)