Winter Tyres

dobsdave

Living in Germany at the moment and apparently its coming to the time where cars etc have to change to winter tyres.
I've heard that if you're in an accident and the temp is less than 6 deg, you're not insured!.

Just wondered if anyone has used these 'winter' tyres before?

Would you notice a difference handling in normal conditions?

Just curious!

Alun

Yes, it's certainly common practice over there, although I have to say all the time I lived there (7 years) I never bothered, although it might depend on whereabouts you are and what kind of level of snowfall you would be expecting. I wasn't aware of any legal / insurance ramifications of this though.

DublinDilbert

dobsdave wrote: »

Living in Germany at the moment and apparently its coming to the time where cars etc have to change to winter tyres.
I've heard that if you're in an accident and the temp is less than 6 deg, you're not insured!.

Just wondered if anyone has used these 'winter' tyres before?

Would you notice a difference handling in normal conditions?

Just curious!

Fairly common in places like canada for poeple to have 2 sets of tires.... they normally only use the winter ones when it gets really cold... i was there for a few winters and never used winter tyres, and it was down below -30C at times...

They are made of a softer compound which helps if theres sticky snow, but if you find yourself on ice a slightly different tyre will not do much good...

If they weren't compulsory in canada, i would highly doubt they would be in germany...

peasant

There was a recent change in the law, very ambiguous, something like: If you're found driving with tyres "unsuitable to the prevailing weather conditions" then you can be fined.

The basic idea behind this was, short of making winter tyres law, to incentivise people to change to winter tyres if they lived in aereas where wintery conditions could be expected, or not to drive on summer tyres when there was a sudden outbreak in wintery conditions.

Insurances have now jumped on the bandwagon, and there were a few cases last winter where they dindn't pay out in accidents because the car didn't have winter tyres (and there was snow on the ground).

If you live anywhere where it's hilly or where wintery conditions are likely to happen (the further south, the more likely) it would be a good idea to get yourself a set.
They DO make a big difference on snow, not only in traction, but also in breaking distance. The tyre industry also wants to make us belive that winter tyres, due to their softer compound, are better on dry roads in cold tempereratures.

In the old days, winter tyres were very crude things, big thread blocks, noisy, sh*te in the wet, mediocre in the dry and they wore out in a flash.

These days, a good winter tyre can be driven in all conditions and other than slightly higher wear, you will hardly notice a difference.

Another thing is that some winter tyres may have a lower speed rating than your factory approved summer tyres. In that case you need to display a sticker on your dashboard, showing the speed rating/limit for your tyres. Failure to display that also carries a fine

Alun

peasant wrote: »

In the old days, winter tyres were very crude things, big thread blocks, noisy, sh*te in the wet, mediocre in the dry and they wore out in a flash.

I think that was also one of the reasons why I didn't use them (it was back in the early 80's when I was there) ... they pretty much only lasted one season as well which made the whole exercise quite expensive. They were also usually only available in ridiculously skinny sizes that looked pretty silly on my car at the time (BMW 323i).

I know now though from talking to people I still know there that it's pretty much the 'done thing' nowadays, maybe spurred on by the legal and insurance factors peasant mentioned.

peasant

I used to live in a mountainous area, and every winter there were several days or even weeks with snowfalls. Every now and then you'd wake up to a foot of fresh snow on the roads. They'd keep the main roads clear-ish ...but no way would I get caught without winter tyres.




From late October to early March it was winter tyres only

deman

Living in Finland, it's against the law to be driving with summer tyres between the end of November and the early March. The time varies according to weather conditions. Woke up this morning and there was a layer of snow. First thing on my list of things to-do today - Change the tyres.

E92

peasant wrote: »

Another thing is that some winter tyres may have a lower speed rating than your factory approved summer tyres. In that case you need to display a sticker on your dashboard, showing the speed rating/limit for your tyres. Failure to display that also carries a fine

Hmm I remember when I was in Germany last year(in the summer), I wondered why most of the cars have a sticker to the left of the drivers dash, with X km/h written on them.

When I went back there again this year in mid Feburary to the same family that I stayed with last year, I notied that the lovely 17" radial spoke alloys as fitted to their E39 520i were now gone and replaced with the ordinary 15 inch steel wheels(which were actually not steel wheels, they were alloys with a flush wheelcover but to all intents and purposes they're steel wheels).

I noticed how loads of cars were going around the place with small wheels and high profile tyres, and in the case of steel wheeels there were no wheelcovers and the alloys were non standard ones. It looked like the Germans had forgotten about car appearance in the intervening time.

The penny finally dropped that there was a very good reason and that was the winter tyres issue:D. Most cars have them, there are W211 E-classes all of which have alloys as standard and the look hideous because they often have naked steel wheels when the summer tyre season is over and they are equipped with winter tyres!

Our man in Havana

I take it they make bugger all difference in Ireland due to our wet all year round weather?

zilog_jones

Well the last time I saw any amount of snow here must have been at least 7 years ago, so I'd say there's not much point in getting them here (unless you're up on some hill or something).