I post on this topic often at this time of year : winter tyres. If you drive in snow or ice or rain, and/or in temperatures that are regularly below 5C / 41F, just get winter tyres. They're not a luxury item. They're not something that is only for "a driver's driver". Everyone should be using them.
If you don't believe me, take a look at Tire Rack's snow and ice tests of all-season versus summer versus winter tyres. All-season tyres are just not up to it. They don't work in snow, they don't work on ice, and they're not especially good in the rain. The rubber compound and tread design just isn't designed for slick or cold road surfaces.
Get summer tyres for warm weather, and winter tyres for cold weather and you'll massively increase your chances of not ending up on youtube in one of those multi-car-pileup videos.
I mean - as long as you're not texting or playing Pokémon go, or eating cereal, or reading or doing your hair or any of the other number of stupid things drivers seem to do now.
All-season vs winter tyres on snow
Summer vs all-season vs winter tyres on ice.
2 comments:
Could not agree more!
Talking of which, here's a nice challenge: try renting a car in Italy this time of the year (from any rental agency) and tell them you're going skiing/going in the mountains: you will get a smile, a performance set of summer tyres and a set of snow chains. If you're lucky they either fit or the road is clean enough so you can survive without chains.
Else you drive carefully with undersized chains mounted on 17" alloys and hope they don't break. Because the road is not that covered in snow enough to allow proper chains usage but not clean either so that you could trust t your luck with summer tyres alone....
I've recently had a different experience.
I've just returned from Germany. Had a rental car for the duration of my stay. They charged a 6 Euro per day option for winter tyres. :D It's not like they would have rented it to me with summer tyres, so I fail to see the point.
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