Winter tyres

ezra_

Evening all.

About a month or so back, I realised that my rear tyres were pretty much on the blocks so went to get them changed. I had the choice of a chain (First Stop) or a local tyre guy, so I went with the local guy. The car is a 3 series, so they are run flats.

When getting the car serviced today, the mechanic asked me why I had winter tyres on the back of the car?

Turns out I was sold winter tyres.

Is this a problem? Is it a bit Irish for the tyre guy to just put them on and not mention it?

Front tyres are getting low so will be changing them soon.

bazz26

Winter tyres generally don't perform well in temperatures above 7c. I'd say you were sold a set that were sitting there in stock for ages or at least hopefully the guy who fitted them knew the difference between winter tyres and summer tyres when he grabbed them.

cpoh1

Are you sure they are not all season tyres or better yet hybrids of summer and all season like the michelin crossclimates?Whats the brand and model tyre?

ezra_

cpoh1 wrote: »

Are you sure they are not all season tyres or better yet hybrids of summer and all season like the michelin crossclimates?Whats the brand and model tyre?

What should I be looking for on the tyre? I'm only going by what the mechanic told me.

They are Michelin primacy 4 - temperature A

CJhaughey

Michelin Primacy are not winter tyres.

sumo12

ezra_ wrote: »

What should I be looking for on the tyre? I'm only going by what the mechanic told me.

They are Michelin primacy 4 - temperature A

Look for a snowflake symbol on the side of the tyre. That will indicate if they are winter tyres. If you're not sure, post a picture of the sidewall showing all the numbers and symbols and a picture of the tread pattern on the tyre and us geniuses will tell you soon enough

GTE

sumo12 wrote: »

Look for a snowflake symbol on the side of the tyre. That will indicate if they are winter tyres. If you're not sure, post a picture of the sidewall showing all the numbers and symbols and a picture of the tread pattern on the tyre and us geniuses will tell you soon enough

The snowflake also indicates a good All Seasons.

All Seasons for the win, I switched to them years ago. Hankook were great on my Golf. Continental All Seasons were excellent on my A4 too. There are a few options now for the current car, which is on cheaper summer tyres and is sliding around the gaff in a bit of damp.

VeVeX

bbk wrote: »

The snowflake also indicates a good All Seasons.

All Seasons for the win, I switched to them years ago. Hankook were great on my Golf. Continental All Seasons were excellent on my A4 too. There are a few options now for the current car, which is on cheaper summer tyres and is sliding around the gaff in a bit of damp.

No, the three peaked snowflake symbol means that the tyres are both reliable and safe for driving in snow and harsh winter conditions. It has nothing to do with all seasons.

grogi

VeVeX wrote: »

No, the three peaked snowflake symbol means that the tyres are both reliable and safe for driving in snow and harsh winter conditions. It has nothing to do with all seasons.

By your own testimony, it has a lot to do... A tyre wouldn't be an all season if it wasn't safe to drive on during harsh winter conditions...

GTE

VeVeX wrote: »

No, the three peaked snowflake symbol means that the tyres are both reliable and safe for driving in snow and harsh winter conditions. It has nothing to do with all seasons.

You're missing the point, all seasons tyres became famous as such, certainly around here, once they passed the tests that earned a tyre the snowflake symbol. They certainly became relevant when this happened. Twas certainly around the time of the introductions of the Hankook H730s.

So, all that for meaning the symbol is not exclusive to the Winter tyre segment.

corkgsxr

bbk wrote: »

The snowflake also indicates a good All Seasons.

All Seasons for the win, I switched to them years ago. Hankook were great on my Golf. Continental All Seasons were excellent on my A4 too. There are a few options now for the current car, which is on cheaper summer tyres and is sliding around the gaff in a bit of damp.

Quality summer tires do the same in winter as winter do in summer.

It's not optimal but it's fine. Stop being ridiculous

grogi

corkgsxr wrote: »

Quality summer tires do the same in winter as winter do in summer.

It's not optimal but it's fine. Stop being ridiculous

You're delusional. Winter tyre is summer is a bit to soft, but still perfectly derivable. Summer tyre in winter (in a true meaning of this word) is abysmal.

GTE

corkgsxr wrote: »

Quality summer tires do the same in winter as winter do in summer.

It's not optimal but it's fine. Stop being ridiculous

Zzzzzzzing. Ouchies.

Detritus70

corkgsxr wrote: »

Quality summer tires do the same in winter as winter do in summer.

It's not optimal but it's fine. Stop being ridiculous

Hi from Germany, it depends on the winter you're having. If you drive around where I am in winter with summer tires, you are guaranteed to crash, as well as having the blame shifted entirely or partially to you because you are driving around with unsuitable tires.
Of course an alpine winter is something entirely different than a winter in Ireland, where the actual conditions that absolutely demand full on "Matsch und Schnee" (slush and snow) happens maybe twice a decade.
But that's just the region I live in. Around Frankfurt, for example, you could go years without seeing snow.
I lived in Ireland myself and always managed on summer tires, but there were some iffy moments.

dastardly00

Getting back to the OP... So it sounds like the mechanic doing the service was wrong in thinking that the rear tyres were winter tyres? Bit worrying that the mechanic got mixed up

corkgsxr

grogi wrote: »

You're delusional. Winter tyre is summer is a bit to soft, but still perfectly derivable. Summer tyre in winter (in a true meaning of this word) is abysmal.

Buy a premium tire and come back to me. 95% of our winter is above 5 degrees anyway.

Cuddlesworth

CJhaughey wrote: »

Michelin Primacy are not winter tyres.

Summer tyres, meant for wet conditions. Seems perfect for ireland.

cpoh1

corkgsxr wrote: »

Buy a premium tire and come back to me. 95% of our winter is above 5 degrees anyway.

All season tyres are much better in our winters (under 12 degress) than summer tyres are.

All season tyres are just as good as summer tyres in the summer unless its over 25 degrees.

In summary we should be driving on good all season tyres in Ireland not summer tyres all year round (regardless whether premium or not).

GTE

corkgsxr wrote: »

Buy a premium tire and come back to me. 95% of our winter is above 5 degree

It would be good for you to buy a good intermediate all season like a Hankook and compare it with what I assume would be premium tyres on your car during the winter.

We have had this debate on this forum every year for over a decade now. The Great Irish Not-So-Winter Traction Debate of 2009 led me to take the plunge and have a go at switching to All Seasons when the time came. I was young and simply mad craic. Lets be boring and do some tests I said to myself*.

On colder, dry and wet roads the difference was night and day, in favour of the All Seasons compared to the Summers I had. I was able to do pretty good back to back testing, as best I could when I did this.

We have low to mid-range Summers being sold to people who do not give a ****e about this forum (most drivers on the island), and when they really need to rely on their tyres they will have broken traction a lot sooner than if they were sold mid-range All Seasons. And I am talking about a road biased Hankook All Season that came out over 12 years ago here, not the new models they have now.

I even remember getting a friends car changed over from Hankook Summer tyres to Hankook All Seasons (which were 7 euro cheaper per tyre as it happens). I drove the car there, did some hard braking and acceleration runs to see how the car performed. I noted what I needed to do in order to break traction and it simply took more to do it once the swap happened. All this on dry roads, at around 8 degrees (according to the road temp sensor on the N4 that evening).

*it actually was good fun to test this out when I could, the differences were significant.

Anyway, like Christmas the All Season tyre debate seems to come a bit sooner each year.