Contact your car insurer if you are thinking about fitting winter tyres!

Finn,
Where did you get your winter tyres? I usually buy my normal tyres from ATS and pay about £50 per tyre. I do somewhere around 30,000 -50,000 miles on each tyre, depending on where it is on the car and whether I get a puncture or not.

Out of curiosity, I phoned ATS up just now, and they wanted £125 for Michelin winter tyres for my car. This seems rather excessive to me :shock:

I was very surprised to read that winter tyres are better at gripping than summer ones at temperatures below 7 degress C even on a dry road, and especially good on wet ones (never mind on snow!).

http://www.atseuromaster.co.uk/retail-customers-cold-weather-tyres.htm

Ally

Ally, my next thought was to wonder whether tyre suppliers would take advantage of the surge in demand and raise the prices. You've just answered that for me. I don't believe that they are more expensive for them to buy, as I'm sure I've read somewhere that they are also being sold (elsewhere) at minimal extra cost to the consumer. Gits.

I've got the Michelins (Pilot Alpine PA3) on my car and to be honest I am not happy with them on snow and ice. They are great for normal driving and even more fuel efficient them my summer tyres!!! But, for snow I've driven better.

It's a trade off, if you don't drive on snow/ice that often they will be perfect and they will for sure get you out of trouble. But living at 750m altitude in Switzerland plus a minimum of two trips to higher altitudes a week they will be replaced with something different when the time comes.

Check out mytyres if you are thinking of buying winter tyres, they give test results ie noise grip wear, and a competive price, which you can use as a benchmark.I had winter tyres fitted on our Audi by a mobile fitter far more competitive than any garage . Left them on all year no problems.
Goff

I had a set of 4 17 inch tyres fitted to my Seat Alhambra in November, when the standard tyres reached the end of the line. I enquired locally at the best regarded tyre company (not a UK dealer, but a local one who has been around for a long time and gets the best deals and availability) and they struggled to find any back then, mainly because I was told that the majority in the UK are bought up by the Polish immigrants who use them on their cars out of habit and legal requirements for driving back home.
I was also told that a batch of winter tyres is manufactured and distributed for the UK market, and no more are made. Therefore, when they're gone, they're gone. This is because historically we do not buy winter tyres over here.
However, manufacturers and dealers are now seeing an increased demand as road users finally become more aware and in tune with our European neighbours.

I was offered a Pirelli at £140 or a economy brand at £65. It was a no brainer. However, if you are buying premium brands like Michelin, expect to pay top dollar for any tyre generally. Do some research on the net at tyre websites, read reviews, and make an informed decision. I ran Sunew standard tyres from April to November, they handled excellently on the Alhambra, and I got 42000 miles out of them in that space of time. A friend of mine has Pirelli on his, and got 15,000 miles out of them - softer compound!

My winter tyres are made by Infinity and are called Inf-049 Winter Hero. In the past few weeks, I was able to drive on roads covered in snow and ice, where others were simply unable to get traction. It does not mean they will get by on anything, but the improvement was immense, especially when I got back in the wifes Golf GTI and found myself sliding all over the place on the same roads! The key issue with winter tyres is the softer compound and the increased water dispersement through the tread. They come into their own at temps of 7c and lower, and I have to say that in the wet, the seem to have an advantage in cornering and stopping over standard tyres. However, when temps rise and roads are dry, they have no advantage and will wear out faster. Therefore, I intend to change them back to summer tyres in March as they will most definitely not do the mileage that my Sunew tyres did this year: this was confirmed by the dealer. However, if it means I can work all winter long without any issues and get the mileage out of them up to that time, I will be more than happy.

One thing I have noticed, when temps are higher, is that the handling of the car seems to be affected. Its different on different cars, but with the Alhambra being larger than average and quite top heavy, I was getting the effect of the vehicle "swinging" more into corners, and had to back off the usual speeds I was used to doing on familiar roads. Again, according to the dealer this is normal, and drivers should be adjusting their driving style accordingly with winter tyres on I was told. I believe this basically means "don't drive as fast"!!!

Time will tell how mine hold up this winter, I will update on wear and usage if people find it useful?

Thanks everyone, especially Tony (that was a real essay!) :D

Our weather forecast says heavy snow for Thursday and Saturday night and I'm getting a bit fed up with this, so I am seriously considering buying some winter tyres. Getting around on our hills and bendy single track roads on snow and ice is really quite difficult.

I looked at Mytyres.co.uk and they wanted £131 for Michelin winter tyres, and about £100 for cheaper makes. AND, they don't fit them, they post them, so you have to either fit them yourself (which is a dreadful job) or pay a garage and our local one wants £12-£15 per tyre for this. It looks like Tony had a real bargain with his winter tyres.

I also had a look to see how much spare wheels for my car would cost, and they're about £60 each. So, either changing the tyres over twice a year or keeping a separate set of wheels, works out quite expensive.

If I paid £100 per winter tyre, and bought new wheels to put them on, it would cost me about £640.

Ally

Ally, you're not getting a good deal there at all, although I don't know what kind of car you drive and therefore what size wheels you have.

You should expect to pay around £80-£100 for an average branded tyre for an average vehicle (and I have had Golfs, Audi A4s, Seat Leon's, etc to compare).

I also looked at the possibility of buying a set of new wheels (alloys) with fitted winter tyres and this was coming in at around £450-£500, which bearing in mind you pay around £350-£400 for a new set of alloys is a steal. Ebay may be a good place to start looking.
Fitting tyres yourself is a no no, so buying wheels with tyres fitted is a god idea, but you'll need to pay £16 to have them balanced.

I found the best deals simply by using google to search for alloys with winter tyres fitted.

Hope this helps.

Oh and Ally, for what you are talking about in terms of bad conditions, hills, ice, etc I think you'd be well advised to invest in some cheap snowchains off ebay.