Mine isn't going to be touching the slushy, snowy, salty roads Jay. ðŸ˜
I was sceptical about winter tyres until I put some on my work VW Transporter a few years ago during a bad winter. The grip was unbelievable.
Enjoy your weekend 👌
Never bothered with them. Will be using mine daily through winter and looking forward to some loss of traction :drive:
I picked up some Minerva's for my VW Transporter yesterday. We had some cheap winter tyres on SWMBOs car and they make a massive difference even in the wet - so much more sure footed. Fitted on steels as a bit more robust in the winter but not an option for the 996!
Any car I have in winter has them. Must for us as temp is pretty much below 7deg for about 4 months of the year.
I live in southern Finland, and I just checked the statistics: we have - on average - between 115 and 130 days of snow cover per year, and in mid March, we have about 15-20cm of snow on the ground (in terms of volume, nothing like as much as snow Lapland or Canada). We also have plenty days when the snow melts, and then refreezes overnight, so we spend a lot of time on ice, or black ice, when there is no snow, but where there is frozen rain, or refrozen snow, or simply old ice. And it's alays the ice that gets you ... and on ice, summer tyres have no purchase whatsoever. At least not if you plan to corner, or stop.
As such winter tyres are not only a must but also a requirement, from 1st November to 31st March, and often later. To no-one's great surprise on here, I run studded tyres in the winter, but what I have learned from the warm wet winters, and the long dark sub zero nights: if I still lived in England, I'd want to run the mild winter (or continental Europe) tyres which are good in the cold and the wet, as well OK on the snow and the ice.
Mostly because it's no fun tiptoeing around in a sports car on summers when you could be having fun.
Thats exactly it. I prefer it to not be an issue i.e. get in the car and just go without worrying about routes etc.
Problem is you then have to worry about all the other people that dont have them crashing into toy.
I think winter tyres are great and will be as usual fitted to my wife's and my everyday cars, we have them due to elevation and likelihood of snow where I live but keep a Land Rover for extreme snow and the 911 stays firmly in the garage👌.
i love winters for that same reason as coulstar of sure fitting and not having to worry every time you go out.
the winters were great on my 997 c2S i had earlier this year and I was one of the only people out when we had a tonne of snow in the south. it was my daughters birthday too so I was taxi pick up for the kids too ;-)
now I have got the rear wheel drive C63 AMG estate (with over 500 bhp and no weight over the rear) they are an absolute must for me as the car was nearly trying to over take itself the other day in the wet and it was 12 degrees!!
its not just about snow and ice.....its about when the temps drop below 7 degrees and the summer tyres are running out of grip and braking performance.
I find the winter tyres argument an interesting concept. More people seem to be using them, but the requirement for them is decreasing!
They no doubt work well for colder and snowy conditions. However, the mean CET in the UK is barely reaching the type of temperatures that justify winter tyres in the recent few years. Last year we didn't even see a mean below 6 degrees (and that includes night time temps).
Don't worry, with Grand Solar Minimum (solar cycle 25) just hitting us we've got freezing cold winters for the next 33 years.
https://electroverse.net/nasa-predi...years-dalton-minimum-levels-the-implications/
Definitely depends on where you live for sure. If you live in a place where it barely gets below 6deg then the argument to use is not really there.
Where I live the mean temp is probably below that for around 4 months of the year so its definitely a factor.
It's not so much the average as the extremes that otherwise catch you out where they really make a difference. And when it does snow they make stuff that's otherwise undrivable perfectly civilised. I once drove my 635d between Cardiff and Newbury in the middle of the beast from the east. Pretty much everything was stationary in the hard shoulder/slow line whilst I held a 40mph average on 2-3 inches of snow on my own in the fast lane with no drama or traction control antics required for the best part of 100 miles. And that was on normal M+S rated winter tyres rather than anything really exotic/studded.
Whether or not to bother I think is really a question of:
- Initial set up costs of a second set of tyres/alloys
- Aggro of swapping over and storing twice a year.
If you can get round those two then there's no reason not to. They're better in the cold, wear more slowly than summer tyres in the cold, and save your bacon in extremis.
For what it's worth I would, hands down every time, always take a 2wd car with winter tyres over a 4wd car with summer tyres when the weather turns.
3 degrees outside here now! They work well and will be fitting them to my wife's car on Saturday😄
