Are winter tyres worth the money?

I’m a farmer in north Northumberland with over 30 years driving experience on all types of road, and off roading. Both winter and summer tyres have been tried. The difference between them in winter is marginal. What does make a difference is wether a car has rear or front wheel drive or 4 wheel drive. In winter, driving in 4 wheel drive gives the perfect grip (even with summer tyres and uphill). In my humble opinion, front wheel drive is second best.

By the way, traction control is next to useless.

So when considering winter tyres, my advice would be to not bother. Always buy a vehicle with 4 wheel drive. The number of times it will be used may be small, but like insurance, it will give peace of mind.

I do hope that Mr Rob Hull, senior car researcher, did not receive any gratuity for his appalling ill informed article.

October 25th 2012, dash-board thermometer reading 14 degrees C, though weather-forecasters predicting 7 degrees C by the weekend! Place your bets, mild or harsh winter?!!

I found this short video,produced by Auto Express and the RAC in conjunction with Continental Tyres, very helpful in my decision to fit Winter Tyres.

It was actually the second half of the video showing comparative braking distances on a wet road at +5 degrees C which I found most relevant to motoring in my corner of the UK where actual snow days per year are limited. Given that Continental tyres typically feature top 3 in most of the independent tyre tests across Europe, this video illustrates “the best” summer tyre against “the best” winter tyre. The additional 7m stopping distance required by the summer tyre at these temperatures on the wet surface
helps inform the debate from a road safety perspective.

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=elP_34ltdWI&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DelP_34ltdWI&gl=GB

Interestingly however, if you look into the “detail” of the results of Winter tyre tests which include a Summer tyre for comparison, on wet braking performance below +7 degrees a top performing Summer Tyre will out perform a lower ranking “winter” tyre in the wet (though, not surprisingly, the summer will not perform well at all on snow). My interpretation of these results is that you could inadvertently compromise your wet braking on the numerous rainy days of winter when trying to split a limited budget across 2 sets of tyres instead of fitting the best set of Summer tyres. Rain is the norm in the UK so we aren’t as alert to the potential dangers as when our world turns white and we are forced to drive more cautiously. New tyre labelling introduced next month (NOVEMBER 2012) will make it easier for consumers to evaluate wet braking performance: ‘A’ rating being the best.

If budget is less of an issue, the Auto Express / Continental video highlights that a good quality winter tyre will enhance cold weather safety over a good quality summer tyre. What price you put on that added safety is a matter of personal choice, however, I think the financial equation can be made reasonably cost neutral if:

1. You plan to keep the car for enough seasons to get the mileage out of both sets of tyres.
2. You have a second set of wheels to avoid the twice yearly cost of tyre change & balance.
(or buy a set and then recover most of their cost by re-selling them when you no longer need them).
3. You have loft/shed space to store the unused set to keep the rubber in good condition and to avoid
storage costs.
4. You are able to change wheels yourself (though a 4 wheel swap rather than 4 tyre swap shouldn’t
be too expensive at a garage).

It’s generally recommended to drop a tyre width size for winter tyres so, for example, 205/55R16s winters replace 225/45R17s summers. These smaller tyres are cheaper to buy than the larger summer tyres they replace. Also, summer tyre rubber hardens and becomes more ‘brittle’ in cold conditions so actually wears more quickly than the “softer” winter rubber. So, you are prolonging the life of the more expensive summer tyres and maintaining their tread depth to dispell summer rain i.e. safer wet summer driving as well as safer wet winter driving! Covering the same mileage on a combination of summer & winter tyres actually costs less in terms of the rubber cost than sticking to larger summer tyres only over the same mileage.

Add to that the fact that water and frost damage causes a significant increase in pot-holes during winter months, to which larger wheels with lower profile tyres are more susceptible to alloy damage which is expensive to refurbish (not to mention rock salt damaging the alloy paint finish). The taller side-wall of the smaller wheeled tyre offers the wheel more protection and also a more comfortable ride when the UK’s roads are in their worst state.

In summary, I believe that balancing tread-wear between quality sets of summer and winter tyres will enhance wet weather driving safety in both summer & winter, as well as giving you enhanced snow/ice mobility/safety should those conditions occur. Total costs over time need not be any/significantly more, though will require a larger initial spend up-front. All costs can be reduced depending on how much effort you want to invest yourself (researching and shopping for best prices, swapping & storing wheels yourself, etc) and how much you delegate to a garage.

8th March 2013, just 2 nights ago they were gritting the roads in my area, but from the forecast I think the majority of the frosts are behind us here on the south coast so have today swapped back to ‘summer tyres’.

I thought I’d reflect on the last 4 months and try to answer my own question (posted on here 25th October), and Rob’s:

October 25th 2012, dash-board thermometer reading 14 degrees C, though weather-forecasters predicting 7 degrees C by the weekend! Place your bets, mild or harsh winter?!!

My observations are made from my personal real-world driving experience here on the South Coast (typically one of the warmest parts of the UK), rather than Met Office stats. During this period (25th Oct – 8th March) the car covered 3,500 miles, representing 50% of its total annual mileage. Since 25th October, the vast majority of my ‘commuter time’ driving has been below 7 degrees C, with mid-day temparatures only rising a few degrees above.

During this period, we experienced heavy rain resulting in flooding and standing water on the road; frost, ice and snow – all conditions which ‘winter’ tyres have been design optimised for. Subjectively, the tyres felt reassuringly surefooted in all the conditions this winter threw at it.

On a front-drive medium family hatch, the Continental Winter Contact TS830’s lost 1mm tread front; 0.5mm rears over these 3,500 miles (in a combination of town and open road driving). This compares almost identically to the wear rate for the Bridgestone Potenzas (a soft compound summer tyre) on the car. So the economics can stack-up, particularly as the winter tyres are smaller and so cheaper.

So, to Rob’s questions: are ‘Winter tyres worth the money?’ and ‘Are they being over marketed?’ One of the on-line pieces of Marketing material from a tyre manufacture showed an animation of 2 cars braking side-by-side in an emergency situation; the car fitted with winter tyres stopped, while the other car continued into the path of a lorry or left the road. At the time this did seem like Marketing hype, but when watching a couple of the tragic national news reports during the cold spell I realised that this marketing animation was in fact a sanitisation of reality where additional meters stopping-distance were vitally important.

Any credible road safety organisation will advise that having the best tyres for the conditions is about the best active safety enhancement you can make to a car. My experience of real-world drive-time temperatures during winter 2012 (in one of the warmer parts of the UK) has found 4 months of the year where ‘winter’ / ‘cold weather’ tyres are more appropriate to the cold wet conditions; plus the bonus of their additional ability on icy roads and during the week of snow.

I’m not sure if this video constitues Marketing Material, as it uses the facilities of a Tyre manufacture who want to sell you tyres, which they will advertise in the motoring magazine, but let’s hope the RAC bring a degree of impartiality to proceedings. It was actually the second half of the video showing comparative braking distances on a wet road at +5 degrees C which I found most relevant given that these conditions are what I’ve encountered most over the last 4 months. The additional 7m stopping distance required by the summer tyre at these temperatures on the wet surface helps inform the debate from a road safety perspective.

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=elP_34ltdWI&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DelP_34ltdWI&gl=GB

On reflection of the last 4 months of motoring, I think winter tyres are ‘worth the money’. How much money you actually pay will come down to your ability to shop around and negociate effectively with tyre retailers/on-line wholesalers whose pricing policy varies widely by customer and is flexible if you ask nicely!

March Update:

Well, I put the tyres on the car back on October expecting a short period of driving on them and yet, a week into March they are still on the car due to frost and (yet more snow) being forecasted.

I agree with with many points being made here..

– It is very little or no less mroe expensive to drive on these tyres due to ‘shared wear’
– Time to fit when fitted to a spare set of ‘runners’ is minimal
– That 4 tyres should be installed – I have used 2 in the past and change my outlook after reading up
– They do make a difference

Three week ago I was out near Bolton, 3 inches on snow lying on the road and cars were getting half way up, loosing grip and sliding all over the road on the way back down. Waiting for a clear run, I waited and then set off all the way up to the top without any issue whatsover.

I firmly agree that in the days where seatbelts, air bags and other critical safety features are added to cars, the most basic item (the part that keeps the car on the road) is completly left to drivers.

It annoys me knowing I have propper tyres for the application that I have to watch cars withot almost slide into me out of control, block the roads and cause of many accidents are allowed to take a car onto the road in an ‘unfit condition’ for the weather.

Insurance companies should be taking the lead (seen as though the government won’t) in reducing payouts on a vehicle involved in an accident to 50% or nill due to the fact it was on the road without suitable tyres for the conditions if the accident is due to ice or snow on the road at the time.

Having used winter tyres every October until Feb/March for the last 5 years, I will never change back to risking normal summer tyres at this time of year, I consider safety of my family and others more important than risking not using them.

It is time that Which, the goverment and insurance companies forced cars to have correct tyres for the conditions instead of articles like the ones written here claiming they are a waste of money, therefore putting lives at risk by not telling them the truth.

If you want to see just what a difference it makes, search YouTube for “Dunlop Winter Tyre comparison summer winter” and see just what a difference they make. There are plently of other videos on YouTube to watch from BlackCircles and MyTyres that are well worth watching that compare summer, all season and winter tyres.

The only time I got stuck this year was on a very steep incline where I had to stop to let a car coming the other way skid past out of control and I needed to drop a cupful of salt in the tracks to let me get enough purchase to set off again, took 15 minutes to get back on the road again where others were turning around and heading back!!! Need I say more?

I was in Glenshee the last week in highlands of Scotland in February, car park was full of snow and ice, accelarted to 30 and applied braked. ABS kicked in and the car stopped in less than 3 lengths where any other would have ended up at the bottom of the hill in the ditch.

WHICH, start telling the truth and stop convincing readers to save a little money and NOT lives..

This extract from Continental’s web-site is interesting, though I’m not sure it addresses the significantly longer wet stopping distances recorded in AutoCar’s test at 11 degrees C:

‘There is a slight trade off with stopping distances as a winter tyre does not stop as quickly in the dry as a summer tyre, however, on balance if it is not possible to switch tyres in the winter, experts say you are better off with winter tyres all year round. This is because the difference in stopping distances of summer tyres in winter is far greater than for winter tyres in the summer.’

Source:

http://www.continental-tyres.co.uk/www/tyres_uk_en/themes/van-tyres/winter-tyres/why-winter-tyres.html

Perhaps this is an area the Which? Research Team could investigate for consumers seeking optimum safety as well as economical motoring.

All this talk about not fitting winter tyres is absolute stupid! Winter tyres in winter is a must, and any excuse is rubbish. If you cannot afford to run your car properly, then don`t buy a car.