Hi Folks

Time for new boots on the car.

My fronts are probably down to 3mm which is about as low as I like to go. The rears aren’t a long way behind either.

I’m intrigued by these Michelin CrossClimate tyres. They seem to be making claims that you can have your cake and eat it. A summer tyre with good grip in the dry at warmer temperatures, excellent grip in the wet (which is important living in Scotland) and as good as an all season tyre on snow.

Sounds too good to be true

Does anyone have any experience of them.

They aren’t cheap but I tend to steer clear of cheaper tyres anyway.
If it makes any difference I drive a pretty powerful FWD hatchback

Goodyear Eagle F1 seem to be well liked on the Civic..

For general use:

test

For more sporty use:

test

Goodyear Eagle F1 seem to be well liked on the Civic..

They are what I currently have on my Leon and they are excellent most of the time, but they are useless in snow. (Which we do get from time to time)

I’m intrigued by these Michelin CrossClimate tyres. They seem to be making claims that you can have your cake and eat it. A summer tyre with good grip in the dry at warmer temperatures, excellent grip in the wet (which is important living in Scotland) and as good as an all season tyre on snow.

On my Mum’s car I had all-weathers put on a few years ago. We live in rural Scotland and our local garage recommended them as a good ‘all-rounder’. Work well on her little hatchback, for the 4k or so of pootling she does – and she doesn’t drive after dark and/or snow etc).

Myself? I run summer tyres/wheels (235/35 19’s) in summer and winter tyres/wheels (215/55 16’s) in winter.

Maybe if we were urban and/or didn’t need to travel all the time I’d consider all-weathers.

So far so good with Cross Climates for me, had them on for about 3 months. Dry weather seem all good, but I haven’t put a huge number of miles on the car in the time nor pushed it much to really see where the limits are. Can say for certain that wet grip is significantly better than the Conti Sport Contact 2s that were on before, they are on a 3 series and with my heavy foot it didn’t take much to get the back end feeling like it was losing grip.

We haven’t had any snow yet to know how they stand up to that, they were fine on the one frosty morning we’ve had so far, again much better than the Conti’s that were on before.

Goodyear Vector 4 Season Gen 2s are worth considering. They are far quieter than the summer tyres (Bridgestones) I replaced. Seem a bit smoother over bad surfaces as well.

Only used then on one morning so far where there was a bit of ice/slush on the road. They were absolutely rock solid. Not a trace of slip.

From the tests I have seen if you go with all seasons you lose a bit % of summer stopping performance but gain far better cold weather and ice/snow grip. The best all seasons can out brake some dedicate winter tyres on snow.

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/accessories-tyres/92873/all-season-tyre-test-2015-results-by-category

In the same vein as the Michelin Cross climate are Nokian Weatherproof. I fitted them to the Outback in November and they are stonkingly good in the wet and mud.
So I fitted them to the Panda too.
Highly recommended!

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/accessories-tyres/92865/nokian-weatherproof-tyre-review

I’ve had CrossClimates on for about a month, they seem OK but I haven’t noticed any difference in dry or wet performance than the previous tyres (Kleber Quadraxers, which are supposedly crap in the wet but seemed OK to me).

Having switched from a BMW 330ci to an Otavia Estate a couple of years ago I never really push the tyres (and there’s not been snow) so hard to say what they’re like on the limit.

Good Year Efficient Grip Performance on front of my Golf since March.
Had great reviews – fitter said ‘nice to see some decent rubber being fitted’ – not sure he was talking about the tyres either phnar, phnar 😉
Wearing well, seem grippy – no incidents to speak of – decent price.
Would buy again.

Put CrossClimates on all round a few months ago. Excellent tyres, very quiet, superb wet grip (lots of wet to test in recently) but as yet unable to confirm snow performance. There’s a you tube clip showing them driving up a ski slope, though, so they must be ace 😉

[video]https://youtu.be/2cgtmmtsqFA[/video]

They do seem to have made the steering a tad “softer” i.e. you need a little more lock for the same steering affect. Not massive, I suspect I only noticed because I was looking for it. But most all season / winter tyres will have a similar impact.

Another vote for Goodyear Efficint Grip. Had them fromm new, deviated to Michelin, Bridgestone and Yokohamas, but none were a patch in terms of wear rate, all-round grip in all conditions and just the feel of the car. I have driven them in snowy conditions and they handled admirably, though in those conditions unless you’re on proper winter/snow tyres its more about how you drive the car – i.e. slow right down and do whatever you can to the best of your ability to maintain momentum and not induce loss of traction.

I have driven them in snowy conditions and they handled admirably, though in those conditions unless you’re on proper winter/snow tyres its more about how you drive the car –

You may be right. Or the Auto Express test that found all season tyres had 2 to 4 times more snow grip than summer tyres may be right.

Good Year Efficient Grip Performance

Had before (twice). Would buy again.

Have a set of Fulda SportControl on my Golf at the moment. Seem ok so far. Seem to be a bit less known in this country and relatively cheap for a name brand.

Enquired about Cross-climates, the tyre fitter recommended Vredestein Quadtrac 5. Quiet in use, good in the wet, waiting to try them in snow

If I lived any where where I thought I needed anything more than normal tyres and snow socks, then I certainly wouldn’t then go and buy a tyre that compromises every which way.

I went with the Nokian Weatherproof like Reuben.

Pointed them at some shallow floodwater last weekend and unlike the usual hard tug on the wheel and trying to hold the car straight, it just ploughed through like a small puddle.

They do look like the tread will wear faster than blutack but they are doing well so far, wife is still trying to do her best to scrub the little sticky out bits off the shoulders after 2 months and 3000 miles. 🙄

I couldn’t find them in the UK so used tyreshopper to deliver them to a local garage.

We’re going to ‘all seasons’ after these latest ones are worn down. My local self employed tyre fitter uses Nokian on his wifes Golf and says he won’t go back to summers and spare wheels for winter.

I did expect a mild winter after fitting the Nokians…so far its been true!

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I have driven them in snowy conditions and they handled admirably, though in those conditions unless you’re on proper winter/snow tyres its more about how you drive the car – i.e. slow right down and do whatever you can to the best of your ability to maintain momentum and not induce loss of traction.

That’s great, until you have to avoid that car sliding towards you, or have to brake suddenly.

Efficient grip are great tyres but I’m not sure I’d want to use them anywhere other than a smooth road in normal wet/dry summer conditions, and especially not snow, despite my being THE best driver in the world! A bit of mud on the road and they’re bleedin’ hopeless.

Thanks for the comments folks

I’m going to give the CrossClimate’s a try

So got the Michelin CrossClimates fitted on Saturday

Just as is started snowing heavily in Glasgow.

Impressed with them so far.
They definitely aren’t a full winter tyre, driving in snow still feels like driving in snow but with much better traction and control. You still need to be careful but you can make sensible progress without issue. If you push them in the corners they will ultimately slide, but they were pretty progressive and much better than standard summer tyres. I wouldn’t recommend them for an alpine pass but for 1 inch of wet lying snow on untreated roads they were absolutely fine.

Commute this morning was on wet cold roads mixture of motorway and city streets. Wet grip is superb, wet traction is amazing. The previous tyres (even when new) would pretty readily wheelspin in 1st and 2nd gear but these new tyres resisted wheelspin really well. They are also very quiet. Best tyres I’ve experienced in the wet

Time will tell how they work on warm dry roads (probably find out around May!) and how they wear but so far very impressed

Been using my Octavia with Goodyear Vector 4 Seasons around Glasgow the last few days in the snow. Far, far better than the previous summer tyres. Overall my fwd Octavia witth all seasons is better in the snow than the 4WD Octavia Scout with summer tyres that I was driving at work on Saturday. The Scout pulled away fine most conditions but unsurprisingly didn’t stop well. It sometimes skidded for yards on downslopes even when braking from 2nd gear speeds.

I’ll never fit summer tyres to my car again.

Iv’e had some Nexen NPriz 4s fitted a couple of weeks ago which are fairly cheap all season tyres to the 2 wheel drive Qashqai. They were brilliant, up/down in tonight’s Pennine snow, no trouble.
We had an old Discovery TD5 which had cheap summer tyres on when we bought it and it really struggled on fairly modest hills in the snow (embarrassing), so it just goes to show about having the right tyres.