Had a scary drive down the A9 yesterday and it reminded me just how bad my car is driving on snow. Seat Leon TDI Cupra - 225/45/R17 tyres. Going to be doing a lot of driving up north in the next couple of weeks and in the following months so might be worthwhile putting snow tyres on if we have a decent winter.
Has anyone fitted snow tyres? Can I get away with just doing the front or should I do all 4? Recommendations and prices appreciated.
Cheers,
SC
Hire some chains? Can put them on/off as needed then.
I wouldn't bother...can't see it ever being worth the cost for the few days snow we have a year.
snow is not often enough to justify
Some Autosocks - http://www.autosock.co.uk/ - might be worth looking at.
I used mine for the first time in the Peak District yesterday. Came to a snow covered hill on the A515 (between Buxton & Ashbourne) that 2 HGVs and numerous cars couldn't get up.
Took five minutes to fit them (not bad in the snow/dark and trying it for the first time) and then easily sailed up the hill, even stopping & re-starting to avoid a Golf being pushed.
Big thumbs up for them. My Saab has 224/45/17 tyres and whilst I'd done reasonably well in the snow on them, I'd had a couple of hairy moments. The Autosocks made a huge difference in traction and control.
In the same way that UK councils don't buy many snow ploughs and snow blowers because it's not worth it, I don't buy snow tyres for my car.
have a look on these threads from last winter 
http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/winter-tyres-worth-it
http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/car-winter-tyres
My brother in wales uses the Autosock thing to get up a steep hill near his house and swears by them but not sure how robust they are fo long term use. Just ordered a set of them myself as well.
This one gets done every year. For what we get, and I live in Scotland, I don't think they're worth it.
I did 5 or 10 miles with the Autosocks on yesterday and had a quick look at them when I hung them in the garage to dry.
Couple of minor scuffs on the fabric but otherwise in good condition. You aren't meant to go above 30mph with them on and in theory you should take them once back on clear tarmac.
Q3: What sort of conditions can I use them in?
A3: They'll improve traction on any snow or ice - even in soft, deep snow, or in wet snow. It's recommended that you take them off when you get back to tarmac, although the reality is that they probably will be driven on tarmac during those intermittent tarmac / snow / tarmac / snow conditions experienced before leaving the snow for good. (The TÜV test included 50 kilometres at 50 kph on dry tarmac. AutoSock passed this "Misuse test", but of course tarmac driving is not recommended as it increases fabric wear very considerably.)
I wouldn't recommend the Autosock, or whatever they're called. Today was the first decent bit of snow we've had. By mid morning I had counted about 5 of these things that had deserted the car they were supposed to be helping, left on the carriageway. Not a cheap thing to lose.
Last year I used chains and they were great, fitted in a couple of minutes and very stable in the snow.
The problem with both the above is that they are great for the conditions they were designed for, and cr4p at everything else. The guy who was driving down the hard shoulder this morning will testify. The road was clear and he was using the Autosock things and was looking for snow!!!
This year I've bought snow tyres. They're not that much more expensive than normal tyres and are great throughout the winter, not just in snow. Pulled up the hill to get home this morning without spinning, no need to get cold and wet playing with chains. For the average snow conditions they are worth it. I still carry chains just incase there is too much snow, but I don't think that'll be a problem.
I had some years ago on a Mk11 Escort and was the only car to get out of our valley during the snow.
Maybe worth getting a second set of wheels so you don't have to pi55Around changing tyres at the end of the season.
Can one person fit those Autosocks on their own?
Buy some Colway snow tyres and fit them to a spare set of rims.
Yup, I fitted the Autosocks on my own. Park up - fit over top of tyre and pull down as far as they go. Drive forward a metre or so and pull over the tyre a bit more.
I stopped after climbing the hill I mentioned and the socks were securely fitted to both front wheels. On my tyres, the inner edge of the sock goes over the main tread of the tyre and onto the inside of the wheel. When I stopped in a pub car park to remove then, they hadn't moved at all. Taking off is even easier than putting them on.
The socks seen on the road might not have been fitted properly or people have gone over the recommend speeds.
You can't really not recommend something you have no experience of, can you?
I have 'wet weather' tyres on (Uniroyal something or others), all our minibuses at work wear 'wet/winter tyres' from Vredistien (sp?) as does my boses Honda 4x4 at the recommendation of Lix Toll. The Vredisteins seem superb in this weather and real wet/mud/filth/dodgy Scottish roads
As above, even in this weather proper snow tyres would be great, but how many journey's a year are in these conditions?
Our Uniroyals are great in the wet - much more common weather = and have done well on a couple of -5 and snowy trips on the lochside road to work.
Driven vehicles in some foul snowy weather, still yet to get stuck or fail to get where I was heading. No I don't think they're worth it for UK winters we have now.
i have a 1000mile set of 4 225/45/17 Michelin Alpin's in my shed if you want them ? From last winter on my old Scooby.
£275 plus you pick them up
Quite interested in getting two wheels with winter tyres to put on Nov through Feb. They work well even when it's not snowy. They just too soft to have on all year.
cxi - MemberSome Autosocks - http://www.autosock.co.uk/ - might be worth looking at.
I've just been looking at these. Did you put them on all four wheels or just the drive wheels?
ive got gislaved euro frost 3 up front. they seem to grip well under braking and pulling off in all sorts of conditions seems to be fine.
64 odd miles of snow covered A9 today as a test! this included stops on daviot hill with standing starts. i dropped to 22psi before leaving and they worked fine (and before some donkey stops by to tell me that dropping pressure doesnt work - it works with me!)
stuartie i had 205/40/17 and i couldnt drive out of the north exit from aviemore heading north one year. couldnt climb up that brae! yours must be a nightmare and very dangerous even taking it easy. get a set of steel 15 inch with bigger profile tyres (to keep cost down of the winter rubber) 185s would be fun.
Lots of interesting points of view - cheers guys.
TLR - thanks for offer but I was thinking more "budget" and the drive up to get them might be interesting in itself!
The snowsock idea is an interesting one. Love this video showing just how easy they are to fit, even if you're a pretty lady (great bit of editing when she makes a complete arse of it)
If you've got the space to store a set of wheels at home then the approach our european neighbours use would work well - a spare set of steel wheels with winter tyres for the filthy, salty winter roads, plus summer tyres on your regular alloys.
Winter tyres work from about 7 degrees and below but wear horribly above that. Dedicated snow tyres will wear out fast on anything that isn't snow - and you're not going to want to swap over when you wake up and everything's covered. Keep chains or autosocks in the boot to go over the winter tyres for if you need to get up a steep ungritted hill.
Wouldnt bother TBH. Takes quite a bit to screw it up......
Winter tyres (not snow tyres as people are incorrectly calling them) are a soft compound tyre for use in temperatures generally below 8c and they offer fantastic grip on cold dry roads, work brilliantly on wet/greasy roads and work surprisingly well on gravel roads!
THEY ARE NOT JUST FOR USE IN THE SNOW!
Wouldnt bother TBH. Takes quite a bit to screw it up......
Eh?
I worked in Bavaria for 6 months and had access to some of the company's cars at evenings and weekends. From Feb to early April it was constantly snow covered & the winter tyres on the cars were a real eye opener. You could almost drive 'normally'.
I am considering getting some for the other half as she really has to get to work, whereas for me it is not essential if the weather is too bad. If I did get some, I'd probably get her a spare set of wheels to stick them on too.
Winter tyres yes. Snow tyres? No.
I put Nokian WR [mud and snow] tyres on my XC90 after hearing great things about them from other XC90 drivers.
They're now two years old and have done about 17k miles and the built in wear indicator shows they've still got 7 or 8mm of tread left of the 9 or 10mm that they come with.
At this rate they'll do about 40k miles which is simply stunning. They're comparatively cheap but not so easy to get hold of locally so I used Mytyres.com.
For a winter tyre I'm mightily impressed, but maybe they just suit that car particularly well.
I live in the NE Scotland. I have winter tyres which I put on for about 4 months a year. If your car has performance low profile tyres the differences are astonishing - especially in the snow but even when there is a lot of water on the road or it's cold out the softer silica tread compounds make a big difference. The downside is the extra drag (a few less mpg) and the extra noise (rumble). They also don't feel as good in the dry and you really shouldn't go above 70 (??????).
As to whether it's worth it... depends how often you change your car... and what price you put on your winter mobility. They are ace for getting up to the mountains in the winter, end of discussion. I used to run studded winter tyres but they became difficult to get hold off, and to be honest the modern silica ones are really good anyway.
From my experience a front wheel drive car with winter tyres will get on better through the snow than a four wheel drive with summer tyres... as long as you keep your right foot in check.
Nothing better than passing stuck four wheel drive cars with your bog standard two wheel drive car :o)
It's a bit like buying winter SPD shoes. You'll wonder how you got on without them, and they make your summer shoes last longer.
oops, ive exceeded 70mph on mine. i left them on all year and forgot. hardly worn at all but nice and soft compound gives you confidence on wet roads too.
steer clear of cheap tigars. they have a drop of plastic in the compound lol.
shouldn't exceed 70?
why the hell not?
I drive on winter tyres and don't hesitate to drive up to the tyre limitation. T rated is 118mph! I use H or V rated tyres & am in Germany almost every week & happily enjoy the autobahn 'limits'.
Winter tyres are just normal in countries that prepare for conditions seen in the UK in the past few days. If you think it's normal to get stuck on small hills, crash or sleep overnight in your car then winter tyres are perhaps no help...
Perhaps it's just easier to blame the council gritters?
As already mentioned a few times on this thread - they are also noticeably better when temperatures are under 8deg, particularly when wet.
Another vote for the winter tyres, although they should really be called 'cold weather tyres' to avoid confusion. Anything below 8 degrees and they will perform better than normal tyres. With regards to the speed, they should be fine at normal speeds as the tyres should have the same speed rating as the normal tyres. I think you are allowed to drop one rating for special conditions tyres, but unless you want a mud plugging tyre it doesn't appear to be necessary to drop a rating.
I have mud and snow tyres on the back of my rwd van, was about the only person in our street of 100 houses to not have any serious problems getting up the hill. I bought them to help my van pull its trailer in mud and grass so only have them on the rear. When I come to replace the fronts, they'll be replaced with winter tyres as well as I'd like to be able to stop safely as well as go!
I can tell they have more grip as on the front I have summer tyres, and try best as I could, I failed in my attempts to get any decent powerslides or donuts in a deserted snowy car park 
Just boring understeer and wheelspin.
Our Punto really struggled in the snow and ice, not sure if its because its so much lighter, but I was under the impression narrow tyres were better. It was so useless it took me 10 minutes to turn it round on the spot (literally, spin the front wheels and let them walk downhill rotating about the rear wheels) and another 5 to reverse it up 50 metres up the hill to a place of safety, away from the mayhem of the junction. It will be getting winter tyres on the front at least if we keep it for any length of time...not just for the snow, but because for 6 months of the year, its cold enough to justify it.
I do wonder why we dont like Germany etc demand drivers swap tyres twice a year. I mean- cost implications? Well it spreads tyre wear over two sets? Plus when you sell or buy a car you'd have the spare tyre set handed on.
The eco tyres (IMO) are lethal. I had some on my Aygo- great for two seasons but not so in Winter.
my autosocks arrived yesterday and i fitted them once i'd left the main cleared road. Took less than 5 mins to put on and i was very impressed, they got me up the steep hill to my house and then no problems turning accorss a steep slope on my drive. ALso used them this morning when i arrived at the car park. Thought i'd be ok as stuff had melted a lot, but i got stuck in the compacted icy snow trying to park. Put the sock things on and could drive again straight away.
Thumbs up from me!
The only real hassle is if you have to do lots of uncleared roads with long sections of clear tarmac in between as you'd be putting them on and off a lot. If you only need them for the beginning or end of a journey or to get up the odd hill then i reckon they're a good investment and you can just leave them in the boot all winter.
snow tyres are the best long term investment ever.
Im on my first set of Toyo snowproxes, 4 winters although this will be the last one on an Audi a4 Quattro.
I put them on in november and take them off in may. Ordinary tyres I get 1 year out of 20,000miles or so,I have had about 32000 so far on the snowproxes they are about 1/3 dearer than normal proxes but much much grippier.
The traction control light only really comes on when I give it the berries!
I also have a set for my transporter and again I have driven past stuck 4 wheel drives in the snow.
shouldn't exceed 70?
why the hell not?I drive on winter tyres and don't hesitate to drive up to the tyre limitation. T rated is 118mph! I use H or V rated tyres & am in Germany almost every week & happily enjoy the autobahn 'limits'.
But all the speed rating means is that a sample has been tested to 130mph without falling apart. It does not mean they are good at running at that speed for any length of time and give good grip and handling. I'd rather drive by feel and I have to say these don't feel great at much above 70-80... they feel fine and grippy but the rumble and judder begins not to feel great... which is all fine since I don't drive zee German Autobahns every veek 
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