Winter Tyre Information - info / threads / posts / vids
- Thread starter PawnSacrifice
- Start date
mark my words said:
There is generally no need to change pressures for winter driving or winter tyres, although it's worth playing around by a couple of psi to see what suits. Dropping pressures in the snow is a complete myth and will prevent the tread on winter tyres from self-clearing properly, not much chance so far this year though :?
Ewazix said:
The Icelandic boys deflate/inflate the tyres constantly up and down when they are hooning around in their very heavily modified specialised off road/snow 4x4s. All depending on type/depth snow underfoot. So can't be a complete myth. They really know what they're doing out there !
Ewazix said:
Thought part of the advantage of the snow tyres was that they didn't self-clean the snow, in fact they maintain a layer of snow better, as snow sticks to snow better than silica / rubber.
Anyway, just fitted my winters on the e86 and e61 - so I've not got 8 minging MV2s to clean and store
. Thinking of getting the Z's refurbed, but can't decide if I should add some colour to the mix - not sure what goes well with Monaco Blue :scratchhead: .The OP was asking about inflation of road going 'winter' M & S (Mud & Snow) tyres for a Zed. They are actually designed for 7 deg C and below surfaces to deal with mud, snow, ice and water, and work because the compound stays soft at low temp, rather than hardening like regular or summer tyres. They are specifically designed NOT to collect or get coated in a frozen crap (which is why regular tyres luck out on road snow).
Specialist 'balloon' tyres like those on the 4x4s you mention are used for deep fresh snow and drifts, they can be deflated to enlarge the footprint and spread the load. But there is NO advantage to deflating 'winter' tyres on a road car even in soft snow, it won't work, it will affect the handling and will cause uneven wear.
There are a lot of urban myths around winter driving and deflating your tyres is one of them.
Specialist 'balloon' tyres like those on the 4x4s you mention are used for deep fresh snow and drifts, they can be deflated to enlarge the footprint and spread the load. But there is NO advantage to deflating 'winter' tyres on a road car even in soft snow, it won't work, it will affect the handling and will cause uneven wear.
There are a lot of urban myths around winter driving and deflating your tyres is one of them.
Nah, mixed background including engineering and a lifetime spent tinkering, jawing or reading about cars. I saw this little clip today with an excellent winter Vs summer tyre demo, and not a mention of getting sticky snow on the tread or running on flat tyres :wink:wantanM said:
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/videos/featurevideos/275428/winter_tyres_vs_summer_tyres.html
Not so much an issue for us RWD folk who (I think?) all fit winters on all 4 corners rather than just the driven wheels, but a little story...
Someone I know with a FWD hatchback fitted winter tyres to their driven wheels only, keeping regular/summer tyres on the back. Last week, 2degC on a damp (not fully wet), lost the back end after overtaking a car on a short straight - the rear drifted out as they moved back over onto their own side of the road. Over-corrected before losing it completely and ending up on the verge and whacking a telegraph pole. Purely down to the fact that the fronts had so much more grip than the rear tyre, demonstrating quite clearly the importance of tyres with matching levels of grip. This week winters have now also been fitted to the rears...
Someone I know with a FWD hatchback fitted winter tyres to their driven wheels only, keeping regular/summer tyres on the back. Last week, 2degC on a damp (not fully wet), lost the back end after overtaking a car on a short straight - the rear drifted out as they moved back over onto their own side of the road. Over-corrected before losing it completely and ending up on the verge and whacking a telegraph pole. Purely down to the fact that the fronts had so much more grip than the rear tyre, demonstrating quite clearly the importance of tyres with matching levels of grip. This week winters have now also been fitted to the rears...
Ouch, that's a hard lesson... hopefully they weren't giving it the big one about having winter tyres before they went out.
Glad I've got mine on now, some days are a little warm, but mostly under the 7°, although to be fair it's only at speed that they seem a little floaty and that's at over 10°.
Glad I've got mine on now, some days are a little warm, but mostly under the 7°, although to be fair it's only at speed that they seem a little floaty and that's at over 10°.
Nah, no big talk beforehand! But I know exactly what you mean. Very hard lesson although to be fair to them they DID buy 4 winter tyres but had issues with one deflating, hence they'd refitted 2 summers on the rear while the deflating issue was sorted.PawnSacrifice said:
The temp hasn't been above 5degC her since I fitted mine - looks like I picked exactly the right moment to swap onto the winters, it even snowed the day immediately after I fitted them.
a11y said:
After the fun of last year I am actually now willing it to snow!
a11y said:Gaining experience!RichardG said:Yob!a11y said:
I'm very jealous
We had snow here today, but it didn't lie and now is all gone. It's unlikely we'll have snow here on Christmas Day, which is a real shame - my car will have all it's presents fitted before lunch, and then I'll have to go and test them... Though of course none of them are performance mods
On the plus side, the sky is now empty of cloud and a lovely winter blue, so the top will be going down when I nip out in half an hour to pick up the wide from the station
RichardG said:I take it you don't call your significant other this to her face?Bing said:so the top will be going down when I nip out in half an hour to pick up the wide from the station
Darn iPad keyboard... As it happens I don't, she's five feet tall and a size 8 
As for night-time top-down driving RickH - give it a go, it's ace, especially on a clear starry night. However it's not quite dark at 1530 down here, more dusk.