We run winter treads on our minibuses – as said above, they actually allow you to drive on snow and much better grip/braking in cold and icy roads. Well worth it and I plan to buy some after pay day for our car.

Snow Tyres vs mud/off-road tyres:

2 seasons ago, I was giving my aunt & uncle a lift to Chambery airport after they’d been skiing with us. It was late January, so usually the traffic on the roads on changeover day is OK (can be a nightmare in this area). On this occasion, we’d got just past Bourg Saint Maurice and had been sat completely stationary for well over an hour. Eventually, I heard on the radio that there was a broken-down vehicle blocking the road ahead and that it was grid-locked most of the way to Moutiers.

I decided to use a bit of local bike-shuttling knowledge, pulled a U-turn, headed back towards Bourg and dropped down onto the back road via Landry. Followed this through (moving at least, despite taking forever at each junction to get across the stream of ski traffic coming down from the resorts. This road follows the valley floor for about half the distance, then climbs up some hairpins, through Notre Dame de Pré and back down hairpins to the main road near Moutiers. It was snowing steadily and the back roads don’t get so much attention from the ploughs! With full snow tyres, I was fine. Plenty of other locals, taxis, transfer companies etc. were going the same way. Unfortunately, there were a lot of tourists in hire cars tagging along! The up and the across bits were fine, but once we started going back down the steep hairpins, it was carnage. There were cars in ditches, cars in the trees, cars crashed into each other and one guy doing a proper Italian Job “I’ve got a great idea!” number. By this time we were following a bunch of late-teenage Belgian kids who’d clearly been allowed to borrow Dad’s car for their ski trip. It was a Toyota Land Cruiser 4×4 kitted-out with what looked like full-on spiked mud tyres.

Eventually we came across a severely off-camber passage, covered in nasty-looking compacted snow and ice. Get past this and we were home and dry. Belgian Toyota went first – and slid straight off the road sideways, crashing into what was now a pile of other cars that had done the same. That’s 4WD, spiked mud tyres and a legendary off-road vehicle. I was immediately behind in my 2WD long wheel-base Renault Traffic van. Proper snow tyres though.

We cruised it, no worries.

Got to the airport at 1514. My aunt & uncle’s flight was at 1520. They let them on! They were passenger numbers 60 & 61 to board of a flight that was booked for over 120 people!

Funny reading through all the above… if you have ever used them you will know how good they are and therefore are happy to pay the cash and reap the benefits.

Those who have not used them tend to think they are not worth it because they can’t make that much difference… but they really do.

My 2p… I have used winter/snow tyres for the last 20 years because I drive up to the mountains most weekends in the winter. There was one year when I ran an Audi quattro when I thought I would not need them… but I was wrong and even with the quattro advantage a FWD car with snow tyres is better than a 4WD with lo-pro’s (I now run a FWD car). If you’ve bought a car for the long haul and don’t change cars frequently getting two sets of wheels makes sense, but I’ve also done it by changing the tyres over on one set of wheels as it’s not that expensive.

hey stevious, how you settling in to the motherland? If you are driving on the trunk roads you should be OK, they get cleared relatively quickly and when they haven’t you just need be canny and dont try to be stupid and drive a long way if it is tanning it down with snow. My folks live on a tiny steep road on the black isle which doesn’t get cleared by BEAR or the council, so they couldn’t get the car out for about a month last winter, so it depends where you are trying to get to.

A pal living in France recommended last year some sort of fabric cover that goes over the tyre and can stand short stretches of tarmac. He said it was most impressive gripwise and much easier to fit than chains. I can’t remember the name now but he said they were very inexpensive. A search will probably find them.

OP, I’d get winter tyres. Last winter we went upto Edinburgh to see friends and always took the scenic route to Moffat on the way back partly because I know my car (yes yes awd) but more importantly it had decent michelin Alpin winter tyres.

In the new few weeks I’m picking up some new winter tyres.

Put it this way – £200 spent or what price would you put on being stranded for hours in very cold conditions?

I’d love to fit a 2nd set of wheels with snow tyres to my car but at the moment its cost prohibitive (£1400 for wheels then another £1200 for winter tyres )

r-kid, have you priced steel wheels instead of alloys? look on mytyres as they do tyre and steel rim packages, and the steel rims work out pretty cheap. Obviously depends what car you have though!

I’d love to fit a 2nd set of wheels with snow tyres to my car but at the moment its cost prohibitive (£1400 for wheels then another £1200 for winter tyres )

Look for non-repaired tyre sets on Ebay.

Would not consider getting winter tyres for either car despite living in a reasonably rural part of the Highlands. I do accept that if you are driving on snow they would make a big difference, but

1) unless you are actually driving on snow you don’t need them
2) it doesn’t snow on that many days (actually settling on the road)
3) IME the council are pretty efficient at ploughing and gritting all main routes plus any roads designated for school buses, fire engines and ambulances

Even last winter there were probably only 5 days in total when having winter tyres would have made the difference between being able to go out and not.

When the roads you are using are clear, winter tyres are noisier, increase fuel consumption and reduce cornering grip

Edit – /dons fireproof jacket/

When the roads you are using are clear, winter tyres are noisier, increase fuel consumption and reduce cornering grip

i’ll agree with the first two points (but only marginal increases) but in cold temps on snow free roads i think winter tyres give more grip.

but in cold temps on snow free roads i think winter tyres give more grip

No they don’t. Winter/snow and mud tyres by definition have much deeper treads with wider grooves than normal tyres. When cornering on snow free roads these treads will flex significantly reducing your actual mechanical grip. Amount of mechanical grip is directly proportional to amount of tread in contact with the road

view from my front door on tuesday this week ….

landlord has warned that when it snows with us IT SNOWS – and they did so before we moved in …. i dont care where there is a will there is a way – cant get the car out ill run/ride 5 miles to the station … if the train isnt going i wont be going to work simple 😉

basically it goes up as you see – does a sharp u turn and goes uphill again. Thats the only way out of my drive in a car and it wont ever be gritted or ploughed as we live at the end of a dead end.

have a mile of this style of dirt track before i hit a B road that wont be gritted till i reach the village ! – think ill put snow tires on the van !

No they don’t. Winter/snow and mud tyres by definition have much deeper treads with wider grooves than normal tyres. When cornering on snow free roads these treads will flex significantly reducing your actual mechanical grip. Amount of mechanical grip is directly proportional to amount of tread in contact with the road

ah but the rubber in normal tyres hardens with cold temps, whereas winter tyres use a softer compound which is more pliable at low temps and grips better. Well thats what a lot of the literature online says! I dont really rag it around in winter or summer though so i cant say i really notice the limits of cornering grip so i might be wrong.

Trail-rat if we lived in a similar location then I would seriously consider winter tyres. My point is that 99% of people aren’t that rural and therefore don’t need them.

We live about 150m up a steepish rough track until we hit a minor road, but it’s a school bus and emergency services route so gets cleared. The track itself we sorted out with a couple of hour’s shovelling

“No they don’t. Winter/snow and mud tyres by definition have much deeper treads with wider grooves than normal tyres. When cornering on snow free roads these treads will flex significantly reducing your actual mechanical grip. Amount of mechanical grip is directly proportional to amount of tread in contact with the road “

winter and snow and mud tires are mutually exclusive ….

snow tires will be deep open treaded and possibly spiked with soft compound, mud deep open treads with normalish compounds

Winter tires are just car tires with slightly more open treads but with a soft compound that works better in low temps …

of course this does depend what tires you buy …. i was looking at some for the van on blackcircles and reading about the different types there. Its deffo just winter tires i want , snow tires wouldnt be great in this country – just get some chains if im desperate to get out the drive !

i agree for sure – 99% of folk dont need them – but the ammount of beemers and mercs i saw stuck in aberdeen last year – what people do need to do is think “is this journey really neccessary”

i purposfully took the bike and stuck to the pavements last winter as drivers in the snow are **** dangerous(more so than other times) … i saw a car screaming up NAD and up to the rear of a traffic jam – careered into a tree at about 40mph as he slid down the road trying to stop !

ah but the rubber in normal tyres hardens with cold temps, whereas winter tyres use a softer compound which is more pliable at low temps and grips better

I agree, but after a mile or less on cleared roads, your tyre rubber temperature will be well up to the point where it ceased to be an issue, and the other factors are then more important

Horses for courses.

I’m at nearly 1000ft therefore snow tyres on an astra is the only way forward. 😆

Captain, I think that you have been in your office too long as last year the majority of roads in the highlands were an issue. True that when you stay on a link road like yourself it might have been looked after but the reality was that the rest of us were sliding about on our way to work on a number of occasions. Good practice for car handling 😯

The fort to Inverness road had more landslides than major snow I seem to remember but I’m old and addled so I could be wrong.

crash_gav, I completely accept that there were some slidey days last year. My point, and to answer the OP, is that for the majority of people there was only a real problem for a few days as pretty much all adopted roads were cleared within a couple of days of significant falls, at least round our way. If you absolutely 100% have to get places on the 4/5 days when there is snow on the road, then winter tyres well worth it – otherwise not