The definitive winter tyres videos

peasant

Ok...for the purpose of these videos, let's all assume that we actually do get snow in this country...mmkay?


My car is 4WD, I don't need winter tyres
oh yes, you do

My car is FWD, I only need two winter tyres on the front
oh no, you don't

This is a handy thread to refer all the questions to in the future.

koutoubia

I just watched the second video last night (watched the first last week).
Two winter tyres and two summer tyre seem to be absolutley lethal.
At least with 4 summer tyres you wont get moving too fast but two winter and two non winter gives you a false sense of confidence.
They are a must watch video really imo!

ednwireland

winter tires on ice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWwK7kx7V44

koutoubia

koutoubia wrote: »

I just watched the second video last night (watched the first last week).
Two winter tyres and two summer tyre seem to be absolutley lethal.
At least with 4 summer tyres you wont get moving too fast but two winter and two non winter gives you a false sense of confidence.
They are a must watch video really imo!

Pretty much what happens also when you have two barely legal ditchfinders in the rear and new rubber in the front, only worse again.

CiniO

Vidoes perfectly show how much more grip winter tyres provide compared to summer tyres in such conditions.

However I still wouldn't be going crazy about their marketing techniques trying to persuade us to change for winter tyres only when temperatures start to get below magical 7 degrees.

My opinion is as follows.
Driving on snow - winter tyres are a must.
Driving during cold dry or wet weather - ideally allseason, but summer tyres will do.

I think for most of the drivers they are overkill in Ireland. But if you live in the hilly coutryside and rely on the car every day, winter tyres are a surefire way to ensure you can continue living normally when the world around you keeps sliding to ditch. And every few years there seem to be a weather event where almost everybody in the island could do with them.

joujoujou

samih wrote: »

[...] But if you live in the hilly coutryside and rely on the car every day, winter tyres are a surefire way to ensure you can continue living normally when the world around you keeps sliding to ditch. [...]

100% agree.

And experienced the thing underlined above during 2010 winter on my way back home in The West, being the only one able to go up the hill.

carloscorreia

Something I wasn't expecting - summer tyres have better breaking distance on cold weather (-4C) without snow than winter tires

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJsV2ORMsms

CiniO

carloscorreia wrote: »

Something I wasn't expecting - summer tyres have better breaking distance on cold weather (-4C) without snow than winter tires

Not surprising at all.
I was saying that here for years, that winter tyres wouldn't be any better than summer tyres on dry or wet surface even in freezing temperatures.
My personal experience seemes to confirm it.

I wasn't expecting though so much difference in braking distance as in this video.

Winters have kind of slighty mushy feeling in them which means that even when they have lost the grip they still steer and the behaviour stays somewhat same on dry, wet, snow and ice making them really predictable handling tyres in changing conditions. Predictable = safe even when the summers would in some conditions performs somewhat better. But you can count on the summers to perform indefinitely worse when winters just keep on going.

It's that unpredictable handling that gets you in trouble for example when you hit a bit of black ice without realising that the road is not just wet anymore.

monkeybutter

Surely Tyre temp is going to have an effect on performance

It might be 5 degrees out there, but what temp will my tyres be running at?

aaakev

That guy does good reviews, the video below was the decider for me to get the michelin crossclimate on my wifes mondeo last year after tyremaster recommend them to me. They were unbelievable in the snow last earlier this year, they felt like they always had grip and i was able to get up a big hill near my house that some lads in x5's were struggling on.

These tyres are great in the summer too, have great grip for cornering and breaking, very little road noise and a very comfortable ride. Iv recommended them to everyone and a few have got them since and no complaints from anyone

https://youtu.be/YO0zyQh2l3M

(If a mod could embed the video for me that would be sound, dont know how to do it on the phone!)