How important are winter wheels and tyres ?

F

ferrelscent

Active member
 South East London
I have not driven a Z4 in winter, nor any other rear wheel drive car for that matter.

I'm on Elipsoids with Run flats right now. How worried should I be about wrapping it around a tree in winter ? Could I just alter my driving style for a few months ?

The question is a little bit academic, ..I have no room in my flat to store spare wheels.
 
Just do what I'm planning on doing, driving as carefully as I can :P

Maintain constant speed around corners and leave huge stopping distances.
 
ferrelscent said:
I have not driven a Z4 in winter, nor any other rear wheel drive car for that matter.

I'm on Elipsoids with Run flats right now. How worried should I be about wrapping it around a tree in winter ? Could I just alter my driving style for a few months ?

The question is a little bit academic, ..I have no room in my flat to store spare wheels.
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Driving with summer tires in the winter is asking for trouble ... take my word for it.

If you are planning to keep the car for some years I would recommend to get yourself a set of winter tires on wheels. You can always store the set at a friend or at BMW, most dealers have that system to store a customers wheels (at least here in Canada). Your best bet would be to check for a used set on the Internet, when people sell there cars they often sell the winter set separate.

Have a look at some of the video clips here (all season tires verses snow tires) that will give you a general idea.
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...eo&FORM=VDRE&qpvt=Tire+Rack+Winter+Tire+Video

Good Luck
 
Winter ("cold weather" is a better name) tyres outperform regular/summer tyres at temperature below 7degC. I found that out after researching online.

Considering the temperature rarely exceeds that in Scotland from start-Nov through to the end-March, they're looking like a no-brainer for me. Npt tried them yet, but I'll be running cold-weather tyres this winter for sure.

The only negative is that my Z4 will look like it's on pram wheels for a few months LOL:

4484178241_b11c8fa175_b.jpg
 
Rolf-Dieter, You're in Canada... it's no where near as bad in London.

I'm also in London and had the car this winter gone. That was one of the worst winters we had and I was running on normal tyres.

Just drive slowly and with much more caution and if you have the option of another car then use that.
 
...and I'm in Scotland (Falkirk) which is very different to London. I'm not even remote Scotland (I'm slap bang between Glasgow and Edinburgh) and still get very bad snow. Possibly something to do with my house being at an altitude of 160m above sea level though :roll:.

It's more the cold temp performance that interests me: "cold weather" tyres are a different rubber compound and should work better than regular tyres for a large part of the year up here in Scotland (but not so much London perhaps).
 
EVO mag ran a comparison with one of their longtermers and a borrowed Jag XF on track last year...

the winter tyred car was FAR better and they then ran the long termer on winter tyres for the season. Speaks for itself really. I will fish around and see if it is on their website.

me, I have the use of mrs gannets car which isnt terribly powerful and we coped last year and dont have the spare cash this year to do anything else.

edit: found it - EVO Winter Tyre test
 
i drove mine with stock RFT's last winter in 2+ inc of snow... not ideal but do able.. bit embarrasing getting overtaken by 1.0L FWD chav motors though :oops:
 
aquazi said:
i drove mine with stock RFT's last winter in 2+ inc of snow... not ideal but do able.. bit embarrasing getting overtaken by 1.0L FWD chav motors though :oops:
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+1 :rofl:

When I managed to get it off the drive anyway...
 
I think the answer to this all depends on which part of the country, how critical is driving the Zed every day and can you afford a second set of wheels and tyres for the Winter season and then store them the rest of the year??

I've driven the last 3 Winters in the Midlands and aside getting stuck for a moment or 2 and having some exciting moments (mainly self induced) then it's not an issue.

If I changed my reason is more to do with kerb protection of valuable 108's, corrosion and potholes being better handled on 17's.
 
Hi Phil, i was reading that summer tyres wear/break down much faster in -8c temperatures?

If i can get a cheap set of winters im quite keen to put them on my 2nd hand ellipsodes, also to prevent salt corrosion on my new ones
 
ranski said:
Hi Phil, i was reading that summer tyres wear/break down much faster in -8c temperatures?

If i can get a cheap set of winters im quite keen to put them on my 2nd hand ellipsodes, also to prevent salt corrosion on my new ones
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I'm sure that's spot on.
Not going to trawl the web weather but I reckon the temperature where we live probably didn't drop below -8c more than a few nights last year. For sure we had a few cold months, but not many times where it dropped that low. Even then my car is usually garaged at night.
 
Snow's a rarity here so I stayed on Michelin PS2ZPs. We did have lower than normal temps last year though and I'll have to say they do get a bit slippery at or below 0C/32F.
 
Pirelli state that as tyres in general get colder, their wear rate goes down... Seems to make sense to me. You just lose grip! Almost 200% life at 0 Degrees C!! Maybe because the driver is scared of the ice! :wink:

http://www.us.pirelli.com/web/technology/about-tyres/tyres-advice/tread-wear-func-temp/default.page
 
cj10jeeper said:
I think the answer to this all depends on which part of the country, how critical is driving the Zed every day and can you afford a second set of wheels and tyres for the Winter season and then store them the rest of the year??

I've driven the last 3 Winters in the Midlands and aside getting stuck for a moment or 2 and having some exciting moments (mainly self induced) then it's not an issue.

If I changed my reason is more to do with kerb protection of valuable 108's, corrosion and potholes being better handled on 17's.
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Yeah perhaps I should have been a bit more specific.

I'm in London, where,..as far as I know, it snowed last year and the year before,...but not for about thousand years before that !

On top of that I don't *need* to drive my car at all. So I've pretty much answered my own question. I just wondered if it would be totally undrivable on the runflats,..mainly due to a bit of a winding up I've been getting from mates.
 
Absolutely drivable on runflats in the cold. BUT you do have to take it a bit easier (no blasting out of a round about). Cold rain is ok, slush is ok, snow is not the best idea.
 
Im definitely getting a set of 17's with proper winter tyres, just in case it goes mad again! Trouble is down here they just dont prepare for bad weather really
 
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