I’m looking for technical help or recommendations on: __
So most manufacturers supply summer tyres as standard in the UK, right? Yet summer tyres are supposed to be quite poor below 7C (grip, cracking), so that covers about 4 months of the year on average.
Why isn’t the default All seasons tyres, which subjectively would seem the better compromise, being the best for wear and grip overall, assuming you only have one set, don’t track the car, etc?
I run 2 sets of wheels, one with summer and one with all season tyres. The all seasons are good though are more ‘squishy’ when pressing on on a warmer day.
Manufactures will order a set of wheels/tyres based on production output rather than final destination I guess, hence the standard fit out. Also the number of cars that get SORNED probably would weaken any argument for all seasons as standard fit too.
I take the same approach as Ian. On a more normal ‘daily’ you could indeed just run AllSeasons year-round. It’s what I do on my other car.
However, with an MX-5 you do notice the difference compared with a ‘summer’ tyre - in terms of steering feedback and turn-in precision, particularly in the warmer and drier parts of the year.
So with summer tyres on the MX-5 you just live with their worse than all seasons performance and longevity for 1/3 of the year when avg temps are below 7C?
Other than deep winter, you can run “summer tyres” just fine. Did so for years in my NB Hell, you’ve got stability and traction control to fall back onto!
That said, if you’re not one to lean too hard on your tyres, All seasons will be alright.
I have just replaced a set of Michelin pilot sport 5 with a set of Goodyear Eagle 6.
I will run these all year and just drive to the conditions when cold or wet. Having said that, both these tyres are significantly better in the cold and wet than the standard Bridgestone potenas were!
It depends where you live though so those people in the north or at higher altitude may need the 2nd set of wheels and tyres but I dont luckily!
Next time you’re in a supermarket carpark, have a wander around and see literally zero all season or winter tyres on any of the cars. Hardly scientific, but how many of them get around just fine.
Cracking can happen on AS tyres too; UV can go that, and read some reviews of say Michelin Cross Climates, and cracking (google it maybe).
Also, watch some/read some AS tyre tests with a ‘reference summer tyre’ in them too. Over 7 degrees, the summer tyre destroys an AS tyre, wet, dry, whatever (not snow of course). So you could argue an AS tyre might be better in 4 months of the year, as you commented (and even then not every day), but what about the other 8 months? You could argue you’re putting on a inferior tyre (in AS) for twice the length of time.
Maybe the winter/summer combo, changing wheels according to season is a better option, as AS tyres might be a joack of all trades, master of none.
Are you comparing new for new, or brand new Eagles -v- borderline bald Potenzas.
This is the thing I find pointless about about tyre reviews, it’s all fair and good saying “straight out of the mould, these ones are 5% better”…. OK, but what about after they’ve had 5000 miles put through them, for instance.
It would be no surprise that a set of news LingLong Ditchseeker Pro5’s are still better than bald 10yr-old, bald Michelins
Opening up a can of worms asking for analysis/comparisons to the ‘OEM Bridgestones’. I think it’s a kind of rite of passage to say one don’t like them. Personally I think s001 OEM Briedgestones are great on the ND, and bought them again.
For me the all seasons just don’t make sense unless you actually encounter icy/snowy conditions few times a year and you can’t cope with the summers only.
I own 2 sets of tyres for my ND. Sporty summer tyres and nordic friction tyres. I live in Finland, so roads are literally covered with ice and snow for 2-3 months/year. Winters get on when morning temperatures are sub-zero and ice starts to form on roads.
Yes, summer tyres are not optimal on low temperatures, but the grip just doesn’t magically fade away when temperature drops below that magical 7C. Actually they are still much grippier than my actual winter tyres (although all seasons are better on cold wet weather). Nevertheless I’d say that the real difference is grip on ice and snow. Summer tires are absolutely useless on those conditions.
And for the cracking. None of my summer tyres have had that issue for the last 20 years I’ve owned a car. The UV and old age is the main culprit for that to happen. If it was really a problem, we would need 3 sets of tires up here.
Few years back they tried to start selling those all season back here, but haven’t seen any discussion about it for while now. Mainly because nobody here actually saw the benefit to have separate tyres for the few months in autumn or spring. They aren’t that much grippier than summers on cold weather and they are not very good on ice or snow either.
So I would say they are perfect for people who just want to have one set of tyres and have few real slippery winter days per year. You’ll get by with them, but they are not particularly good at anything.
I think that is changing though. I notice a growing number of cars sporting all seasons.
I’ve used them for a few years now on our cars (wife’s Polo (Michelin Cross Climates) and my company car (GoodYear Vector 4 Seasons) as soon as they need changing for the first time) and they feel like a better compromise overall for just getting about. Previously I had summer tyres on our alloys and a set of steels with winter tyres on but that felt overkill for the East of England.
Having all seasons on an MX-5 all year though is probably a pill I wouldn’t want to swallow but then again my one is for leisure use only and doesn’t see a frost let alone proper winter conditions. If it was my daily drive… I’d probably run two sets of wheels - summer and all season.
I was actually going to put them on my up! gti, but went with PS5 instead (which I don’t like, actually).
I put CrossClimate 2 on a NISSAN ELgrand I had, but that soon turned into another fair(er) weather car, so was pointless.
I think if I had a Dacia Jogger/Bigster etc, pr a genuine 4X4, I’d probably put AS on them at the first tyre change. I can’t get around the fact though that from April to say Nov, they aren’t as good as premium summer tyres in literally any situation.
Some years ago I had Pirelli winter tyres on two BMW’s through the winter months. Those rear engined cars were awful on very light snow, but with the Pirelli’s on both cars were pretty awesome. The main dealer looked after them and put them on/off for £50 a year.
Until I bought the NC, and then the ND, the cars in between were all front wheel drive. As you might expect I had no trouble in snowy conditions.
As for the MX-5’s though, whilst the NC was manageable on its Kumho’s, the ND from new was hard work. (I got stuck for the first time in many a year last February on a small hill). If I am honest, and if I did not have to p/x it last summer owing to an illness, I would definitely have looked at another set of winter tyres going forward.
Still can’t get my thought process- right or wrongly- that AS are a jack of all trades, master of none tyre, inherently a compromised tyre. One often sees the argument that cars the UK should have them on when new, instead of the usual premium summer tyes UK cars come with.. But why would they put on tyres which are worse than the usual premium summer tyres they fit, in 8 or so months of the year, with longer braking distances in wet, dry, handling etc, over 2/3 of the year. And, in addition, how about over the 4 months or so when AS tyres are allegedly better, consider the many a Nov-Feb day where the temp is still 6-7-8-9+ degrees, with no ice or snow. i.e, shed loads of days depending where you are in the UK. Saying that, I’d guess manufacturers are primarily interested in rolling resistance to eek out every gramm reduction in co2 figures on their cars (hence zillions of new cars with ‘ECO’ this or that tyres on them), as opposed to the handling characteristics of AS or regular summer tyres.
To answer the question regarding their lack of popularity, I’d guess that’s because 99% of people don’t buy tyres online and get them fitted at a tyre place, but rather just turn up and say stick on whatever. I@d guess again that AS tyres are not all over a tyre fitter’s shop. Plus, in fairness, there aren’t 5000 ditch finder brand AS tyres around, like there are with summer tyres.
The Nano-Energy Toyos that M supplied on our new Mazda3 were essentially pants in all respects but one - they did not wear out soon enough.
Fitting Contis has given us a couple more mpg when averaged over the last few years now (ie more ECO), the roadholding is very much better, the road-noise is much. much less, and the speedo is closer to both sat navs and the dash cam in speed and distance readings. And at the time I bought these I was delighted to see they were significantly cheaper than another set of Toyos.
I assume the only reason M fitted Toyos is they were the cheapest deal they could find in Japan.
On my everyday car I don’t notice any difference with all season tyres in the non winter months, but the winter the difference is night and day.
On my everyday car I would only ever have all seasons after the scariest driving experience ever with summer tyres. In the snow I slid all the way down a hill at low speed, across a junction and just about stopped before hitting the curb.
