Ahh the great debate - All Season Tyres

Technical Area Wheels, Tyres & Brakes
2

 Well, decision time has come, helped partly by a nail in one of my Summers which are all down to 3 - 4mm anyway so they won’t be going back on next spring. So I’m looking to replace them.

And due to their age I’m unlikely to get more than 2 Winters use out of my Winter tyres - which while I could just “use up” by keeping them on next Spring, they do have a lower-than-recommended speed rating for Summer use.

So the decision is - a new set of warm-weather tyres next Spring or try some all season tyres - partly because of the age of my Winter rubber, and partly to get away from the oh-dear-its-a-chilly-spring-or-autumn-morning wobblies that all of the Summer tyres I have so far had suffer from.

I’ve got all the recommendations/experience of Summers from Kumho/Goodyear/Yokohama/Toyo/Uniroyal from this forum and/or practical experience thanks, what I’d like to hear from is anyone who drives all-year-round and has used all-year-round tyres - on day to day roads, not on the track (I won’t be doing that, tooling around various bits of the UK admiring the scenery with the roof off is more my style!)

Especially for example

GOODYEAR VECTOR 4 SEASON

VREDENSTEIN QUATRAC

MICHELIN CROSSCLIMATE

PIRELLI CINTURATO ALL-SEASON

KUMHO SOLUS KH21

And any others of course

Preferably omni-directional (so I can keep a matching spare) - size is 205 50 R16, its a 1.8 mk3

Ta ever so - Richard

3

Michelin Cross-Climate are supposedly a summer tyre modified to work adequately in winter (most of them are the other way around).

I’ve bought them for my daughter’s Fiesta. I also have Goodyear 4 seasons on my wife’s i10.

Both excellent tyres but I am not sure how they would work on a sports car. If was going to try it, I would try the Michelin.

4

Correct me if I am wrong but the cross climate only came out this year so you have not used them in bad weather as yet to test them.

5

Reviews here:

http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/Tyre/Michelin/CrossClimate.htm

and here:

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/miscellaneous/2015-02/michelin-crossclimate-tyres/

 

6

I have no doubt the Michelin is a good tyre, however the Honest John “report” is just a journalist who has been taken away, with a bunch of others, given lots of nice food and wine and been spoon fed Michelin marketing material. 

Any “report” that states Cold Weather’ tyres are infinitely safer than summer tyres not just in snow but whenever the temperature drops below 8 degrees centigrade. is going to be nonsense. 

7

OK…Heres another:

http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/Article/Michelin-CrossClimate-launched-is-this-a-game-changer.htm

So…if its nonsense…Whats the ‘Real’ story?

8

True, but I have read reviews by those that have.

My main concern is that normal weather performance should be excellent, with any useful improvement in wintery conditions (over summer tyres) being a bonus.

Some might say I was being a little over-cautious here in the home counties - but then if buying new tyres might as well cover all the bases.

9

I remember when a tyre was just a tyre! 

10

 

You’ve just said what I was thinking!

11

The real story will be buy some and see how you get on with them. What are you expecting from them and what do you want to do with them? That is the point. You have to decide if that is right for you.  

Read any tyre manufactures literature on any tyre that they make and it will tell you it is brilliant at everything. Last year it was 7 degrees, now it is 8 degrees, pretty soon it will be tyres for sunny days and tyres for night driving. 

My point is making a statement of being infinitely better the minute the temperature drops below 8 degrees should see us all dead the moment the sun goes down. If you need all season tyres, get some. It is like a trainer is neither a football boot or a ballet shoe. If tyres were brilliant at everything there would only be one tyre. 

12

Perhaps tyre manufacturers are moving it that direction. It makes perfect sense as the technology develops to develop a tyre that can cope with ALL conditions

13

 

Just a thought, maybe it would save some expensive experimenting,  perhaps

contact with MX5 owners in Scandinavia, Holland, Germany where winter/all season

tyres are commonly used would remove some of the guess work.

Does anyone on the Forum have access/contact to our European MXer’s?

Meanwhile I’ll continue with Bridgetone Potenzas on the Mk3 Sport until Spring when

I’ll fit some Kumho Ecstas.  (The Potenzas have loads of tread, the wife’s Fabia will

be treated to the Potenzas to replace her Dunlops)

Keith

 

  

14

but surely, that’s exactly where we were before, no one, until a few years ago, in the UK ever contemplated different tyres for different seasons.  No one gave it a thought… So in fact its been a backward step, so far as the tyre consumer is concerned, we now have to consider changing tyres to suit the weather, with all the extra cost that entails, that’s not progress.  But, oh, hang on though, of course, if a tyre manufacturer can convince you that you will suffer if you haven’t got the correct ones on for the weather then its a bonus for them…  Personally I think its just another consumer rip off and an excuse to sell more tyres…

 

15

 

Yep.  Full circle!

16

As someone who has two sets of tyres for each of our cars, I cannot agree

BUT

If a manufacturer can come up with  a tyre that is as good in winter conditions as a winter tyre and as good in the summer as a summer tyre, then isn’t that progress?

They are close at the moment, but  a few years away yet

17

 

Then you are very lucky to have (A) the money to buy them (B) the space to store them.   There are a lot of members who don’t.

18

Yes. I am

I’m also in a good position to say how good they are!!

BUT …the point I’m making…If there was a tyre that did both competently and not a compromise (Present All Seasons tyres…IMO), I would have it 

19

we were a few years ago when family cars run on 155/65/13s but as tyres have got bigger and lower the issue has grown hasn’t it…

 

20

 

Don’t get me wrong Chris, I’m not having a dig as I am in the same position as you.

BUT

The point I was trying to make is that there are lot of members who are not as fortunate as us and so we shouldn’t take the two set option as being the norm.