Winters
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Anyone use winter tyres?

I run a supercharger and I don't care the TB is on the wrong side.
VEMS + 12 PSI + Liquid Intercooler = Small Bore FUN!

I am; just mounted them.
I run Vredestein Snowtracks.
Last winter I had to speed to weekend doctor with one of the kids in the night.
Road in our village had iced up but still good grip.

Used to run 'ordinairy' tires in winter but as it is our family car I don't take chances anymore, it being a heavy car, family inside...
And to be honest driving in Germany you have to have winter tires.

Dazed and Confused....

Yeah I have had mine on since October last year! I never got round to taking them off. They are michelins and have done 28000 miles and have plenty left!
I would certainly say they make a difference. They are great in the wet too

Did you drop a tyre size? And how did you check for suitability, eg weight of the car etc.

I know my current ones are xl load rated but I think that's due to the rather small side wall.

I run a supercharger and I don't care the TB is on the wrong side.
VEMS + 12 PSI + Liquid Intercooler = Small Bore FUN!

The garage advised these.
They also had high ratings in a winter tire test.
My summer tires are 17 inch.
These are 15 on steel rims.

Not sure about suitability, I have a V70 ll Ocean Race.
I guess ratings for instance for delivery vans could be different.

Dazed and Confused....

www.shag.no

graham, it may be worth checking with your insurance; I recall a few people in the press last year who had their policies invalidated because they were not running factory spec tyres - madness I know.

As for the tyres, I've not run them myself but when I looked into fitting some to the Golf last year, a fair few recommended the vredesteins as a good compromise between perfomance and cost

I must say the Vredesteins do wear quite fast..
As Vegar says; Nokians are a good alternative; wear is supposed to be less fast at cost of bit increased rolling noise.

Dazed and Confused....

I do...

I do infact use Vredesteins as well as my car was imported from Germany. In Norway whe have special Scandinavian winter wheels with even softer rubber.

The german specced Winter tyres did infact impress me, but are far from what we Scandinavians normally use.

If I lived in England I'd definitely own a set of these Continental ones ( No, not the brand) to use in winter. They behave quite well on dry tarmac as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_tires

Edited by Vegard on 30th Nov, 2012.

On 30th Nov, 2012 Vegard said:

Dazed and Confused....

As some context I drive an e60 520d on continental contacts with a stupid 19". The car handles great but then they are very wide tyres for is power level...

Well the car is fine in low temps even when it's wet. You can't really feel much difference to cornering.

However when the road has some ice let's say it's sub optimal. I think this is some part down to the tread pattern, which helps it track so well in the summer conditions.

So I decided to get my hands on some winters I have got hold of some nearly new BMW approved steels and tyres. I decided to drop to 16" rims as these in the reports seem to give the best handling and the tyres are cheaper for the future.

Tis will mean that all going well and fingers crossed for no tyre failures I shouldn't need to purchase new tyres until about April 2014! For my milage that's a life time.

Anyway can't wait to see how they are and if the car accelerates any better with less rubber on the road.

I run a supercharger and I don't care the TB is on the wrong side.
VEMS + 12 PSI + Liquid Intercooler = Small Bore FUN!

Not sure if people know; do rember that min thread in winter tires is about 4-5 mm. Anything under 4mm you are better of using your summer tires (if these have some proper thread on).
I replaced the 5mm thread fronts after having driven these in bit of snow and ice last week, difference is huge.

Dazed and Confused....

Well these are all 7mm plus so should be ok this winter, well I hope so.

I run a supercharger and I don't care the TB is on the wrong side.
VEMS + 12 PSI + Liquid Intercooler = Small Bore FUN!

i havent ever used winters as its another expence thats not needed imo for a few weeks of the year, but when there is snow on the road i drop the tyre pressures up front, leave the back as they are (nothing wrong with abit of a tail happy ride) and cruise arround nice and slow.

Drives
-Ford S-max Mk2 Ecoboost
-Rover 100 VVC #2 - track project

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