Winter tyres & Tyre labelling re Wet conditions

whomitconcerns

So i went home the other night and mentioned to the brother that I had ordered winter tyres. He immiediately went your mad, they will be disaster on wet roads..I was curious about this and the ratings as most winter tyres appear to have poor wet ratings. Found the below which was interesting..they get wet tested at 25degrees...which makes no sense and no wonder they get such bad wet ratings....

Can this really be the case?

The testing process that tyres have to go through for their tyre labelling values is standardised, and with good reason. In order to have consistent results across brands this needs to be the case. However the testing across different types of tyre is also standardised, so summer tyres, all-season and winter tyres are all tested in the same way. This standardisation states that all tests should be carried out at 25 degrees Celsius! So a cold weather tyre that is designed to offer superior performance in colder conditions has to be tested in a temperature range outside of what it has been designed to perform at.

from http://whichtyres.com/2013/10/winter-tyres-tyre-labelling/

Anan1

That does sound ridicoulous.

whomitconcerns

thats what i thought...i couldnt find anything else to confirm/reject that summary though...

Kenny Logins

25 degrees? So the test results are pretty much useless for us?

whomitconcerns

The testing conditions for Tyre tests are defined in the below EU deceleration which seems to confirm the above...Experts around?

Appendix 5 of this http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/main/wp29/wp29regs/r117rev.2E.pdf

yes i had a few mins to search....the test takes place on the "Wetted track temperature average (oC) (from 5 to 35 °C)" and for standardisation this is taken at 25degrees, There is afaik no recognition of temperature differences.

Basically if you are testing tyres on 10th of July in Spain it could include winter tyres, summer tyres, all season tyres, etc....

whomitconcerns

ok it seems there was an amendment...

"....winter tyres tests should be performed at temperatures between + 2° and + 20 °C"

So still not much use as they are only meant to be any use below 7 degrees....food for thought anyway, if they get an E in an 18 degree testing condition for wet braking this is clearly irrelevant to someone looking at winter tyres..

visual

I don't think the tempture is that critical on winter tyres the soft rubber is still soft above 7 deg. I believe its more to do with the thread pattern.

The small slits in the tyre needed to grip and give bite on snow and ice would trap water and cause the tyre to aquaplan. Because these very small slits or feathering within the tyre thread can't eject water.

Rain tyre threads are designed to channel water out from under the tyre as you drive reducing aquaplaning and maintain better road contact.

The unknown is at low temp the rubber gets harder so how much does this effect grip in wet for summer or all weather tyres.

PyeContinental

I've fitted the same Vredstein winter tyres for the last two winters, and kept them on this year until around April, maybe even May.
The grip in the wet is incredibly good. It is almost comical how fast it is possible to go around roundabouts in the wet without losing grip.
I use them for the grip in the wet during Ireland's autumn and winter and spring and early summer, as much as for any snowfall that might arise.

I think I remember reading that they work best below 7 degrees C but I would imagine that it is only above 20 something degrees where their performance would not be optimal.

Tyre wear has not been anything different to normal all-weather compound, neither has road noise.

I would unquestioningly recommend use of winter tyres in Ireland, and I think we should probably all be using winter tyres for the majority of the year, only switching to all-weather tyres for the shorter "summer period" between May and October.

If you intend to get winter tyres then absolutely now is the time to get them, leave it later and they price can go up by as much as 50 Euro per tyre. It's always a good idea if you use winter tyres and you know you'll need them to get them before the Autumn.

Any snow tyre I had was great in the wet, mud, ice, snow with the exception of slightly poorer dry traction.

The difference in proper snow tyres though is amazing if we get snow they mean the ability to get out safely or having to stay home or risk going out and loosing traction that's if you can get out at all.

But you need all four tyres or it doesn't work properly at all. Some people skimp and put them on the front and in snow or ice you end up fish tailing. Bad idea !

I've got places with winter tyres where people have got stuck or can't get traction and see me pass scratching their heads. I've even given lifts to stranded drivers who were amazed by the ability to actually drive properly in snow.

If there is one thing I refuse to skimp on and that's quality rubber for any car I drive !

whomitconcerns

thanks pye, i based my order for the vredersteins based on a number of reviews that included people saying good wet performance, the way I looked at it was one slip in winter could cost me a LOT more than the cost of a set of tyres, will need new summers next year anyway.

My driving is mainly between dublin and west wicklow so can be a lot of untreated roads and I didnt enjoy the car on the icy roads the odd mornings last winter at all.

mad..I have them ordered they arrived in UK last night will be here tomorrow and I intended getting them fitted around mid november,

whomitconcerns

whomitconcerns wrote: »

thanks pye, i based my order for the vredersteins based on a number of reviews that included people saying good wet performance, the way I looked at it was one slip in winter could cost me a LOT more than the cost of a set of tyres, will need new summers next year anyway.

My driving is mainly between dublin and west wicklow so can be a lot of untreated roads and I didnt enjoy the car on the icy roads the odd mornings last winter at all.

mad..I have them ordered they arrived in UK last night will be here tomorrow and I intended getting them fitted around mid november,

What tyres did you get ?

muckwarrior

+1 to everything Pye said. I have Vredsteins too and I'll be putting them back on very soon.

whomitconcerns

Vrederstein wintac extremes. They are going on an A6 s-line. Saw some good reviews so went with these

CiniO

From my experience, winter tyres always provide worse grip on wet roads compared to summer tyres. Even at very low temperatures below 0.
If I didn't drive on snow at all, I wouldn't put winter tyres.

Obviously if you compare goodyear winter tyres to wanli summer, this might be different.
But similar brands, summer tyres seem to be better on wet roads than winter ones.

Magical 7 degrees borderline is rather marketing thing IMO, to force people to buy winter tyres even if they don't need them (never drive on snow).

whomitconcerns

cheers cinio, and i am guessing that you would have plenty of experience using them on polish roads. Indeed I used them on Romanian roads last winter and found them brilliant.

But what intrigues me is that they are a legal requirement in a lot of countries from November to march, those countries still get crazy rain showers..if the above is true then there should be a higher rate of crashes due to the 100% prevalence of winter tyres. But I have never come across such a statistic

CiniO

whomitconcerns wrote: »

cheers cinio, and i am guessing that you would have plenty of experience using them on polish roads. Indeed I used them on Romanian roads last winter and found them brilliant.

But what intrigues me is that they are a legal requirement in a lot of countries from November to march, those countries still get crazy rain showers..if the above is true then there should be a higher rate of crashes due to the 100% prevalence of winter tyres. But I have never come across such a statistic

It's just my personal experience. I'm not trying to convince anyone that I'm right.
And yes - I've been using winter tyres every winter for the last 14 years since I drive.

Surely at higher temperatures winter tyres become very bad - grip is greatly reduced at summer temperatures, both on dry and wet roads.
I never used winter tyres in the summer, but borrowed a car from a friend who had winter tyres on it during summer, and at about 35 degrees, car had very little traction.
So this would explain subject of this thread that winter tyres are awarded worse wet grip than summer tyres, as difference at high temperatures is very noticable.
The lower the temperature, the less noticable the difference, but still I'd prefer summer tyres than winter for driving on wet or dry roads, in cold days.
Maybe at extreme low temperatures - like -20, -30 winter tyres become better. I don't know - I've never tried driving summers on such conditions.
But 7 degrees borderline IMO is purely marketing thing, to force people to buy winter tyres, even if they don't really need them.

Real difference is on snow, or slush, or mud, where difference between winter and summer is really big and noticable straight away.
On road with compacted snow, on summer tyres you might feel unsure at 20km/h, and you might easily do 100km/h on winter tyres without any bother.

Zubeneschamali

I lazily left Winters on right through this summer. Grip is a little worse than the last summer tyres I had, but that's in wet or dry - they aren't rubbish in either- unlike summers on snow.

corkgsxr

Fifth gear tested new normal tires, new eco tires and partworn winters on a water spraying special low traction surface for emergency stops.

The ecos seemed to go on and on
Normal tires stopped much faster
The partworn winters stopped in almost half the distance of the normal.

Looking at that it would seem lunacy to buy ecos

whomitconcerns

wow... all seasons V summer v winter on ice...

whomitconcerns