Winter tyre recommendations

Cee-Jay-Cee

I think I'm going to put some winter tyres on the front of my wifes 2010 Auris this year but don't know whether to go for all-season tyres or full winter tyres. She only does small mileage (less than 8k kms a year) and all her journeys are short (1km- 8km) school runs and to work etc We live in Donegal and on high ground so we get snow/frost when no one else does. I'm leaning towards full winter tyres and going for a middle of the road brand but would like to hear recommendations from other people who have recently bought winter/all season tyres.

CrankyHaus

IME: FWD car with 4 good all-season tyres performs better in snow and ice than RWD car with 4 Winter tyres but driving style is the most important thing of all.

I used to get winters and change from Summers around November. Now I just keep all-season tyres on year round. I find it's less hassle and expense and I haven't noticed any less ability to negotiate winter conditions. Neither type of tyre is a panacea and you will eventually encounter conditions that cannot be safely negotiated by anything less than an off-road vehicle or a JCB. Really I just have them for that little extra bit of safety in frost and light snow.

The tyres I got were a good combination of value and quality:
Kumho KW27 Winter.
Michelin Cross Climate All Season.

CJhaughey

The best true winter tyres I had were Conti TS850 they have since been superseded but in my experience they were excellent, I drove them all year and didn't find wear excessive even in an Avensis T22 Diesel.
For all round use the favourite is of course Michelin Crossclimate but I found mine wore the shoulders a bit much.
Don't laugh but Nexen N-blue came very highly recommended in a lot of tests in Germany as All season tyres.
http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/Tyre/Nexen/N-Blue-4-Season.htm
They are very reasonable and I will be picking up a set for my wifes Impreza 1.5R for this winter.

Cee-Jay-Cee

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

I think I'm going to put some winter tyres on the front

A very dangerous idea and potentially a lethal one. Do some research before committing.

Cee-Jay-Cee

samih wrote: »

A very dangerous idea and potentially a lethal one. Do some research before committing.

I had a set of continental TS810's on the front of her car for the last 3 years but theyre gone sort of hard now and hence looking for the recommendation for something else as the Continentals are very expensive. She had absolutely zero issues or problems running the winter tyres on the front of the car.

I myself ran a pair of Yokohama IG21 IceGuard tyres on the front of my Mazda 6, theyre a proper winter tyre with a real soft compound and again I had no issues or problems. The only thing with them is that you could nearly see the wear on them in dry weather and so are suited to constant snow/ice conditions. I bought an Impreza RX for this year and will be fitting the yokohamas on it on all 4 wheels but i'll only be using it in snow/ice conditions.

If the rear tyres are good (which they are) then there is no problem running winter tyres on the front of the car.

ednwireland

I'm using firestone all seasons on my car used there full winter tyre previously this ones slightly worse on ice but about the same in snow.

I'd put all 4 on if I were you

Yep I live up a hill in Donegal as well so ice is generally more of a problem than lying snow, but worth having over summer tires

Cee-Jay-Cee

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

IIf the rear tyres are good (which they are) then there is no problem running winter tyres on the front of the car.

It's not true and also illegal. You get away with it if you drive carefully but eventually your luck will run out. Most likely when cornering in snowy conditions or going down an icy hill.

Zubeneschamali

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

If the rear tyres are good (which they are) then there is no problem running winter tyres on the front of the car.

Think about it for a minute. What is the point of winter tyres? You are purposely equipping the car to have better grip at the front than the back. Hello oversteer, loss of control, hedge backwards.

The only way you will have "no problem" is if you never drive in conditions where you need a winter tyre at all.

CiniO

Does the car have stability control system like esp?
Is your wife an expert in vehicle handling and has she spent hundreds of hours training skid recovery?

Unless answer to at least one of those questions in "yes" then your putting your wife in extreme danger by putting winter tyres on the front only assuming she'll drive on snowy conditions.

Cee-Jay-Cee

CiniO wrote: »

Does the car have stability control system like esp?
Is your wife an expert in vehicle handling and has she spent hundreds of hours training skid recovery?

Unless answer to at least one of those questions in "yes" then your putting your wife in extreme danger by putting winter tyres on the front only assuming she'll drive on snowy conditions.

Please explain how having winter tyres on the front providing more grip to the driving wheels is dangerous? It doesn't make sense, yes I know having the winter tyres on all 4 wheels is preferable but I'd like to hear how having them only on the front is more dangerous than having summer tyres on during snowy/icy conditions. What you are actually saying is that it is safer to run summer tyres in winter than winter tyres on the front and summer on the rear.

samih wrote: »

It's not true and also illegal. You get away with it if you drive carefully but eventually your luck will run out. Most likely when cornering in snowy conditions or going down an icy hill.

Ha ha I love this board, I ask a question and people make up stuff to get their point across.

There is currently no legislation in regard to winter/all season tyres in this country so please indulge me and post the link to the law which says winter tyres on the front of a car is illegal.

CJhaughey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7xXDMkVFlE
Good video.

Cee-Jay-Cee

CJhaughey wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7xXDMkVFlE
Good video.

I know the benefits of having winter tyres front and rear.

If they wanted the video to be properly informative then they should also have done the test with 4 summer tyres on the car to show the equally huge benefit of having just 2 winter tyres on the front compared to 4 summer tyres.

The car with just two winter tyres on the front behaved very well considering she was driving too fast for the conditions.

Thanks for posting the video, it confirms by belief that only 2 tyres are needed.

JJJJNR

Your fwd car grips from the rear, the car will steer from the front and have no traction at the back, do you really want to go against what you think v what everyone else thinks.

For the sake of a couple of hundred euros just get them all the same for the sake of your wife and kids also, you dont want to be responsible for them ending up in a ditch full of icy water.

Cee-Jay-Cee

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

Ha ha I love this board, I ask a question and people make up stuff to get their point across.

There is currently no legislation in regard to winter/all season tyres in this country so please indulge me and post the link to the law which says winter tyres on the front of a car is illegal.

OK, it's bending the truth a bit but in Finland the law explicitly says that the winter tyres need to be on both axles and also the trailer has to have them if the car has them. There is a good reason why this is the case as other people have pointed out.

The laws of the physics are the same in Finland and Ireland regardless of the legislation. You are legally welcome to do whatever you want as long as you know what you are doing. Just trying to avoid other people being ignorant to the dangers of what you're doing.

CiniO

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

Please explain how having winter tyres on the front providing more grip to the driving wheels is dangerous? It doesn't make sense, yes I know having the winter tyres on all 4 wheels is preferable but I'd like to hear how having them only on the front is more dangerous than having summer tyres on during snowy/icy conditions. What you are actually saying is that it is safer to run summer tyres in winter than winter tyres on the front and summer on the rear.

It's actually pretty easy to explain.
On road covered in snow winter tyres provide much superior grip comparing to summer tyres (difference is actually huge - in case someone never tried).
So if your driving on summer tyres, you'll have very little grip. Taking a bend or turn slightly too quick (even 20km/h might be too quick for some bends) will very likely cause front wheels to loose traction and effectively cause car to turn less than you'd expect. It's called understeer and is relatively easy to correct. Even by braking and turning again at lower speed.

If you however put winter tyres in the front and leave summer in the back, then your front wheels will grip very well allowing you to take bends/turns no problems, but rear wheels wont have enough grip and will cause rear of the car to skid. This is called oversteer and once it happens is quite difficult to correct by someone with no previous experience.

Esp or other stability control system should be able to help a lot here. Or alternatively highly skilled driver with good experience of rally driving techniques .
That's why I asked if your wife was experienced in advanced vehicle control or if the car has esp.

Without that I would say it's very risky driving with your proposed setup, as chances of skidding rear summer wheels are very high.

I personally have massive experience of driving on snowy conditions, spend hundreds in not thousands of hours training snow driving and advanced vehicle control, and obviously I also driven car with your proposed setup (winter tyres front, summer rear).
And I would not recommend such setup uless you have esp and take it very easy, or driver is properly trained to be able to recover from any possible skid

Odyssey 2005

I've been using hankook all season tyres for years. Great in rain and our winter conditions.