General Which winter tyres are people going for

[306maxi]

Oh by the way i just read on the GTR manual about summer tires. It says never drive with summer tires below -20c as it will cause permanent tread deformation!

It says use winter tires in temperatures below 0c.

Tbh if you have a GTR the best thing to do is just not drive it in the winter. I used to work for a company where the guy who owned it was a multi millionaire and his brother was fairly loaded too. His also owned a stake in the company had an F430 as his daily driver, but to go down to the shops to get milk and to drive to work in the winter he had a Grande Punto. If you can afford that sort of car then you can afford a cheap FWD daily driver with some winter tyres

 

[ahmett]

Tbh if you have a GTR the best thing to do is just not drive it in the winter. I used to work for a company where the guy who owned it was a multi millionaire and his brother was fairly loaded too. His also owned a stake in the company had an F430 as his daily driver, but to go down to the shops to get milk and to drive to work in the winter he had a Grande Punto. If you can afford that sort of car then you can afford a cheap FWD daily driver with some winter tyres

Fair enough but it must be good fun drifting a GTR in the snow!!

 

[306maxi]

Fair enough but it must be good fun drifting a GTR in the snow!!

Believe me, in the snow it's best to have a nice light low powered car

 

[Geddes]

Believe me, in the snow it's best to have a nice light low powered car

I would have loved to have been able to film the bloke trying to get his Dodge Viper out of the car park a couple of years ago.

However it looked a bit like this but with more BVVOOOOOM! and people pushing.

 

[GrandeGuy]

I used to own a Skyline GTSt, i thought it would be great fun in the snow but it was absolutely terrible, if there was a slight camber the car would just end up tail down hill no matter what you did, it took 4 guys to hold the rear up hill while i set off and got momentum, i drove straight home after that

 

[306maxi]

Looks like winter might be arriving next week?

Probably not a huge amount in the way of snow for anyone south of Scotland but winter is finally here. Had the first "ice on road possible" message in the 500 tonight!

 

[frupi]

Lovely hard frost on both cars this morning. Wife crept quietly away on the Vreds this morning. Hopefully, we might now start seeing the real benefit of them.

 

[RobinPJ]

It's arrived in Hertforshire - 1 degree this morning and ice on the car. (Must remember to put it in the garage now on.)

Bring it on!

 

[frupi]

Let's hope your garage is air-conditioned then!

 

[306maxi]

Lovely hard frost on both cars this morning. Wife crept quietly away on the Vreds this morning. Hopefully, we might now start seeing the real benefit of them.

You will be already

If there's snow then you'll be driving around people like they're standing still

 

[rockaroller]

0 degrees when I left the house this morning on the motorbike... Roads was dry and what a great sunrise it was.

RaR

 

[GrandeGuy]

Got the winters mounted on the Ebay alloys yesterday, but cant see the point of putting them on the car when its 12Degc outside :shrug:
http://www.stbees.org.uk/weather/current.htm

 

[RobinPJ]

The ticker on that page you linked to says min temp 2.9 degrees?

 

[306maxi]

The ticker on that page you linked to says min temp 2.9 degrees?

That's for this month.

GrandeGuy, just fit them. They will work just fine when it's 12 degrees outside just like your car is not going to roll over and catch fire if you use summer tyres when it's -2 and the road is dry.

Here's why you want to be fitting your winter tyres this weekend
http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=uk714day;page=9;ct=~CA27 1AA;sess=

 

[RobinPJ]

That's for this month.

GrandeGuy, just fit them. They will work just fine when it's 12 degrees outside just like your car is not going to roll over and catch fire if you use summer tyres when it's -2 and the road is dry.

Here's why you want to be fitting your winter tyres this weekend
http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=uk714day;page=9;ct=~CA27 1AA;sess=

That's kind of my point. You can't decide on whether to fit your winter tyres based on current temperatures - you do rather need to look at the wider horizon.

 

[306maxi]

That's kind of my point. You can't decide on whether to fit your winter tyres based on current temperatures - you do rather need to look at the wider horizon.

Exactly. Which is why the whole 7 degrees thing is somewhat of a red herring. You yourself will probably have driven around on your winter tyres in temps getting on for perhaps 15 degrees and have you felt like the car is scrabbling around for grip like a Jack Russell Terrier on a freshly waxed floor chasing after a mouse? I'm not in your shoes of course, but from personal experience of the same car with the same tyres, I'd suggest not.....

Tyres aren't like a winter coat, you can't simply reach into the wardrobe and put them on in 10 seconds, it'll probably take you at least 30-45 minutes to do the change and do you really want to be doing that when it's actually cold? Winter tyres are something you put on to prepare for cold weather, it doesn't need to be cold for them to work and the sensible thing is to put them on early so if you snap a stud, can't find the locking wheel nut key etc etc then you've got time to sort it out before you genuinely need them.

I think a lot of people have a very poor way of lookin at the risk/reward ratio involved in firstly buying winter tyres and secondly, in when to fit them.

 

[RobinPJ]

Exactly. Which is why the whole 7 degrees thing is somewhat of a red herring. You yourself will probably have driven around on your winter tyres in temps getting on for perhaps 15 degrees and have you felt like the car is scrabbling around for grip like a Jack Russell Terrier on a freshly waxed floor chasing after a mouse? I'm not in your shoes of course, but from personal experience of the same car with the same tyres, I'd suggest not.....

Tyres aren't like a winter coat, you can't simply reach into the wardrobe and put them on in 10 seconds, it'll probably take you at least 30-45 minutes to do the change and do you really want to be doing that when it's actually cold? Winter tyres are something you put on to prepare for cold weather, it doesn't need to be cold for them to work and the sensible thing is to put them on early so if you snap a stud, can't find the locking wheel nut key etc etc then you've got time to sort it out before you genuinely need them.

I think a lot of people have a very poor way of lookin at the risk/reward ratio involved in firstly buying winter tyres and secondly, in when to fit them.

Same as putting in a stronger screen wash mix - you do it as soon as it is realistically possibly you will need to and to avoid the risk of not doing it when things change suddenly.

 

[ahmett]

Same as putting in a stronger screen wash mix - you do it as soon as it is realistically possibly you will need to and to avoid the risk of not doing it when things change suddenly.

Yeah i think its best just to use winter screenwash mix all year round, which is what i did since i never changed mine since last winter!

 

[306maxi]

Same as putting in a stronger screen wash mix - you do it as soon as it is realistically possibly you will need to and to avoid the risk of not doing it when things change suddenly.

Exactly! A far better analogy than my one as well.

Risks encountered with fitting winter tyres too early
Slightly higher levels of wear
Slightly lower levels of grip in the dry

Risk encountered with having your winter tyres in the shed and not on the car
If it snows you could get stuck
If it snows you could have an accident
Summer tyres will wear slightly more in cold conditions
Lower levels of grip when it's cold, even moreso when it's cold and wet.

 

[loveshandbags]

Lower levels of grip when it's cold, even moreso when it's cold and wet.

I'm trying to 'wrap' up a bit on the tyre choice for the 15 inch size. Got offered a good trade in deal on a A500 of 6K on top of my own today - down from 7.5K last month so the gap is narrowing. Unlikely I'll be going for it.
Intially though I was stupid going for 15 as opposed to the much cheaper 14s but it's good to have the option of 'jumping ship'.

Choices come down to
15 x 175/60 cheap if you can get them - not much out there - appear good value & not much more than 14 x 175/65
15 x 175/75 not that cheap poor choice
15 x 185/55 dearish

(I bet that some guys out there might have preferred to keep their pretty alloys than the god ugly steelies )

Given the warm winter get the impression that the 'dearish' tyre might be the better option with a wider foot print giving better braking distance.

Robbed the youtube from the other Abarth section where there were using Contis. Didn't see it posted before - thought it might give some of the snowtrac3 'owners' a sense that they weren't 'stitched up'.

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/videos/featurevideos/275428/winter_tyres_vs_summer_tyres.html