A car for winter driving?

[baggins]

Robson, the issue most of us have in the UK (bar the Scotish highlands and the Peak district) is that we only have a couple of days of snow per year on average, so it is very difficult for most of us to justify the cost of winter tyres. Also, due to the lack of demand, winter tyres are far more expensive in the UK and the range is pathetically small.
My good lady has a new peugeot with all weather tyres, after a blow out, she had only a choice of 2 similar tyres, both over £120 each.
Paul; have a look at the Peugeot range with the traction control system, her old 2008 was great and the new 3008 didn't miss a beat in the recent snow we had here. (check out the video (if you can find it) of Honest John taking a 2008 up the Tamworth snow dome, pretty impressive)

 

[johnnytheboy]

Are you sure it’s the seat and not rubbish tyres?

I would not get winter tyres just for the front as suggested above as you will have no cornering traction on the rear of the car, you’ll have traction to get you going but less on the rear, it’s a recipe for disaster

 

[Duggie Bravo]

I believe that Winter tyres are supposed to be better when the weather drops below something like 10 degrees as normal/summer tyres lose some of their traction at lower temperatures. So they should be better in Winter period not just in the snow.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Robson Valley]

I wonder: do you ever see "all-season" tires? We can't run them in the winter here but they do have very wide and very fine sipes
that make a winter difference. For a few snowy days and the mud in between, they ought to be just right.

The difference in the rubber compound between summers and true winter tires is considerable.
That you pay the earth for next to no choice doesn't surprise me very much.
What's available on the continent? Lots of choice?

Plus, most brands here have crushed walnut shell in the rubber as traction compound.
Turned out that the old and popular tungsten carbide studs did a lot of road damage and
performed like ice skates most of the time.

My 3/4T GMC Suburban is running the 454 cid engine and 4x4. I have to really pedal it softly and
keep the wheels from spinning. Very good winters are essential.
As true winter tires are required by law here (Oct31 - Mar31), the makers have been unable
to hold us to ransom for prices, the demand is just too great.

 

[johnnytheboy]

All season tyres are becoming gmuch more popular here due to country’s like Germany mandating winter tyres, they are legally allowed to use all seasons as long as they are stamped, tyres are stamped with a snow flake for winter tyres or M&S mud and snow tyre, all season tyres are carrying the ms logo to make them legal. Now they are becoming popular in Germany we are seeing allot more of them in the UK at much cheaper prices. I bought maxxis all seasons for the van and they were very reasonably priced

 

[Janne]

You guys should try fully studded wintertyres.
Fantastic. Studs are great on ice, the coarse thread on snow and slush.


Winter tyres should be narrow. More pressure per area.
Also something I used to do back in Sweden was to have 4 bags of coarse sand in p,astic bags in the boot.
More pressure on the diving tyres, useful to use to get traction if I got stuck. Which happened from time to time.

 

[santaman2000]

PauI_B, I'll agree with most of that last post. One or two days a year just don't justify either the cost of snow tires or the storage space for them the rest of the year. The only thing I'm not sure about is whether anybody reviews cars' performance in wintry conditions. I haven't looked but I imagine somebody must?

 

[Nice65]

it is the technique not which axle, front or rear, is powered.

The reason so many cars are front wheel drive is a much cheaper and easier manufacture.

Remember, when a car increases speed, the front rises and the rear squats, as the weight vector is moved to the back. More pressure on rear tyres, less pressure on the front tyres.

The weight is naturally on the fronts in most cars, you're talking about putting bags of sand in the boot to increase weight to the rear tyres. This simply gives the backend more momentum if it should get away from you. Not only that, but a car being driven in slippery conditions needs care, I can't see acceleration being extreme enough to raise the front much, and it certainly won't be a sustained acceleration if conditions are dodgy. It's a simple fact that fwd/AWD/4wd vehicles are more controllable in slippery winter conditions.

The same argument applies to Jonnytheboys suggestion that grippy fronts make the road tyres on the back a recipe for disaster. Not so, the fronts will pull you in the direction you want to go if driven properly. In bad conditions you will be driving very carefully and just letting the rears follow, especially in snow where the tracks are carved by the front wheels. 2 winter tyres are fine on most vehicles, it's the driving traction that's important. If the back end goes, or the front loses traction, then you're not doing it right.

 

[Robson Valley]

The imbalance with different pairs of tread patterns, front and back,
alters the symmetry of design enough to void your insurance here.
A pair of winters on your driving wheels alone is inadequate.

 

[Janne]

Same tyres on all wheels. Old rule. Fresh thread.
Minimum 3mm in winter.
Nice65, my dad drove like that for 60 years. Myself for 20. One ‘ditch visit’ for me. And we had snow and ice between November and March-April.
Extra weight on rear ( for rear wheel drives) helps when you start driving. If you have a powerful engine, you start in 2:nd gear.
Rear wheel drive cars only, both me and dad.
I have never owned a front wheel drive car. 4x4 yes. With engine in front, or engine in rear.

 

[Paul_B]

Thinner tyres, more pressure per area? That was kind of my suspicion. The seat has wider tyres than the old Astra. It could be a factor but there's something else going on.

 

[gonzo_the_great]

Mine is a series one landrover Discovery. Though most of that age are starting to suffer from the tin worm.

But very little stops it. A couple of years ago, I woke up to a whiteout, but had a few trips out to do. I attached the steep hill be my house, as I could see that at least one car had been up it, seeing the tyre tracks. Half way up the tracks stopped, si I did wonder what was going to happen. But the LR just plodded on up there, not even noticing. That was with road biased all terrain tyres and not even bothering to engage low ratio or diff-lock.

I would expect any of the replacement models will do just as well. Though I'll keep mine runnning as long as possible. As I don't trust cars with lots of electronics.

For mud or snow, 4wd is your friend. And the bigger wheels will distribute the weight and smooth out rough surfaces. (Which is why old waggons had such big wheels.)
If you use all terrain tyres, you are good for snow or mud. Though the deep tread mud plugger types can be bloody noisy on road.

 

[daveO]

Back in 2006 I bought an old Honda Prelude. It was a bit too expensive and wasn't in the best condition but the girl selling it was pretty and I thought if I bought it she'd go out with me. A few weeks later the car had polished up lovely but she'd dumped me. Luckily though I had a phonecall from another attractive young lady who was a friend of a friend and needed a lift to a local farm to feed her horse. It was snowing heavily and her car wouldn't move and she thought I had a 4x4. I agreed to help but she was a bit dubious when I picked her up in the Prelude, but we got to the farm with no problems and the horse was safely fed and put to bed. Sadly the Prelude started to struggle in the snow on the way home and I was forced to adandon it in the local pub car park. I offered to fuel her up in the pub with food and alcohol for the walk home and we stayed there until closing time. We're married now even though she did ask how I managed to drive the car home the next day with no problems. So if she ever asks tell her winter tyres are temperamental things

Anyway back on topic; I had an Alfa Romeo 156 sportwagon that was great in snow with just winter tyres on the front. Heavy diesel engine and good chassis balance. Even without winter tyres it did well. The only downside is that most of the electrics stopped working when it was cold...

 

[Janne]

Wonderful post, it put a big smile on my face, DaveO!!

 

[Macaroon]

Excellent story and well told

 

[Robson Valley]

Good Morning! About 6" new and -2C since last evening. Just a light touch, 4x4 and dance off to work.
There ought to be some BCUK award for winter accounts such as Dave0 has related.

 

[snappingturtle]

Winter tyres would be good, and combined with a slim rim, say a spare set of steels, saying that thou I have driven pretty much all my cars at some point in the snow, the best one was a MG-B-GT V8 it was a bit like trying to wrestle a fish but never got too far out of shape.

 

[Janne]

Was it one of those last production ones?

 

[daveO]

Winter tyres would be good, and combined with a slim rim, say a spare set of steels

A top tip then is to buy a car that has steel wheels available second hand cheaply and don't get anything with huge fancy brakes that only fit under alloy wheels. I think quite a few cars these days only come with alloys which makes having a spare set expensive.

 

[johnnytheboy]

The weight is naturally on the fronts in most cars, you're talking about putting bags of sand in the boot to increase weight to the rear tyres. This simply gives the backend more momentum if it should get away from you. Not only that, but a car being driven in slippery conditions needs care, I can't see acceleration being extreme enough to raise the front much, and it certainly won't be a sustained acceleration if conditions are dodgy. It's a simple fact that fwd/AWD/4wd vehicles are more controllable in slippery winter conditions.

The same argument applies to Jonnytheboys suggestion that grippy fronts make the road tyres on the back a recipe for disaster. Not so, the fronts will pull you in the direction you want to go if driven properly. In bad conditions you will be driving very carefully and just letting the rears follow, especially in snow where the tracks are carved by the front wheels. 2 winter tyres are fine on most vehicles, it's the driving traction that's important. If the back end goes, or the front loses traction, then you're not doing it right.

The problem is they won’t be driven correctly, the driving and braking you get from a front driven axle with snows on will give a false sense of confidence when it comes to cornering etc, so yes if your careful it would be ok but I don’t think it’s wise to dispense that advice on a public forum. It’s the same theory behind what axle to replace tyres on if all tyres are the same size and it’s always put the new ones on the rear. Any old timer will tell you the front but modern research from insurers and tyre manufacturers all come back to that being wrong. Statistically there are more accidents where the driver looses control from the rear and is unable to regain control than from the front.