Winter tyres

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

Hopefully I could get your opinion on the winter tyres listed below. The OH has bought a second hand car that only comes with summer tyres and we need to get winter tyres pretty soon, next weekend hopefully.

Nokian have an A rating in wet conditions, the rest are B. I am just not familiar with the Nokian brand. Dunlop and Nokian are rated the quietest at 69 dB, Continental are the loudest at 72 dB. Is there much difference in 3 dB? All tyres are on steel rims and are within my price range. Your comments are appreciated

Nokian - €129.49

Goodyear - €161.13

Dunlop - €136.82

Continental - €142.70

dos30

Isabelle Mysterious Doe wrote: »

Hopefully I could get your opinion on the winter tyres listed below. The OH has bought a second hand car that only comes with summer tyres and we need to get winter tyres pretty soon, next weekend hopefully.

Nokian have an A rating in wet conditions, the rest are B. I am just not familiar with the Nokian brand. Dunlop and Nokian are rated the quietest at 69 dB, Continental are the loudest at 72 dB. Is there much difference in 3 dB? All tyres are on steel rims and are within my price range. Your comments are appreciated

Nokian - €129.49

Goodyear - €161.13

Dunlop - €136.82

Continental - €142.70

I got Michelin CrossClimate this time last year and have been very impressed with them
http://www.autofastfit.ie/205-55r16-94v-michelin-cross-climate/

Special Circumstances

Isabelle Mysterious Doe wrote: »

Dunlop and Nokian are rated the quietest at 69 dB, Continental are the loudest at 72 dB. Is there much difference in 3 dB?

This fvcks me up everytime - dBs are grand for electronic signals etc but audio is confusing for me. 3dB less is "half" the volume in linear terms, but our ears are not linear instruments.

Basically 3dB is noticeably more quiet, but it never seems like the 50% I would expect!

Under 70 is good, over 75 is loud in my rough experience although any of my "test" vehicles would have been loud enough anyway.

CiniO

OP, in what driving conditions are you planning on using them?
Is there going to be much snow driving?

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

CiniO wrote: »

OP, in what driving conditions are you planning on using them?
Is there going to be much snow driving?

Yea, we will be driving in snow quite a lot. I'll also be purchasing snow chains just in case we are caught off guard. Living in Munich at the moment so over the winter we will be travelling to the alps for some snow boarding & sledging. It's snowing quite heavily at the moment, but it's not sticking, so quite wet.

Alun

+1 for Nokian here. They're a Finnish make, and if there's anything they have a lot of in Finland it's snow

CiniO

Isabelle Mysterious Doe wrote: »

Yea, we will be driving in snow quite a lot. I'll also be purchasing snow chains just in case we are caught off guard. Living in Munich at the moment so over the winter we will be travelling to the alps for some snow boarding & sledging. It's snowing quite heavily at the moment, but it's not sticking, so quite wet.

In that case, out of the 4 you listed I'd go for Nokian's.

They will probably be best on snow.
Had a set couple years ago (bit different model though) and I was impressed with their snow driving abilities.

VeVeX

Alun wrote: »

+1 for Nokian here. They're a Finnish make, and if there's anything they have a lot of in Finland it's snow

You'd think that alright, which made it all the funnier when were caught cheating tyre tests.

http://www.autoblog.com/2016/02/26/nokian-tire-test-cheat-report/

CJhaughey

I have used a few types of winter tyres and have recently moved to All Weathers, Right now I am running Michelin Crossclimates, they have 18k miles done and are worn out, they started with less tread depth than other All season tyres that I used before and seem to wear quickly.
They also perform quite badly in terms of standing water, with the VSA light flickering often in wet conditions.
I personally wouldn't buy them again.
The last set of All seasons were Nokian All Weather + and they were a much better tyre IMHO, dealt with standing water better and lasted longer.
I recommended them to a colleague and he has been delighted with their performance.
Before them I had Continental TS850 winters and they were an exceptional winter tyre but not really suitable for all season use.
I'm not sure the Conti's are worth €20 extra over the Nokian

munchkin_utd

Isabelle Mysterious Doe wrote: »

Yea, we will be driving in snow quite a lot. I'll also be purchasing snow chains just in case we are caught off guard. Living in Munich at the moment so over the winter we will be travelling to the alps for some snow boarding & sledging. It's snowing quite heavily at the moment, but it's not sticking, so quite wet.

well, then consider getting proper winter tyres and a second set of rims. A garage will change your wheels and store the unused pair for about €60 per season, somewhere like "Pitstop" who are all over the city. (Note to house dwellers here: if living in an apartment storing a spare set of wheels is not so convenient, nor is changing the feckers every 6 months. I did it once and then it was too much hassle)

you could pick up a set second hand set of wheels / tyres on ebay kleinanzeige handy enough.

if buying new, then ADAC has the up to date test results here (in the strange german school marks system which is kindof like our university marking, where 1.0 is best, up to a 4 being a fail):
https://www.adac.de/infotestrat/adac-im-einsatz/motorwelt/winterreifentest_2016.aspx?ComponentId=274305&SourcePageId=6729

I had to replace 2 winter tyres in Ireland last year and got the cross climates (as thats all there was) and they are spot on. In the ADAC test they come out best in the all weather tyres, with best marks on not wearing too quick. I drove them in a few inches of snow when I got back and they had plenty of grip. Noise wise they are way quieter than my old Dunlop winter tyres.

I need to replace all my summer tyres fairly soon and I'm seriously considering just getting 4 cross climates and selling the rims that I have for the winter tyres, but its a hard step to "risk" heading to the mountains with what many would consider a compromised setup, even though a good set of all weather is probably better than a bad set of proper winters.