My two rear tyres are due replacement, and I've been toying the idea of replacing them with all season tyres (and replacing the remaining two with all season tyres when they're due replacement - which will be a while away given they're only 6 months old).
I do a fair number of miles a year - usually about 20000 or so - and my main question is how long could I expect all season tyres to last compared to summer tyres? Am I going to be buying new tyres a lot more frequently, or do they have reasonable longevity?
My wife used to have Uniroyal Rain Expert, which performed well all year round without excessive wear. Not really all season, but handles most UK weather.
Winter tyres wear better than summer ones so I'd imagine a hybrid to perform just fine. Reviews and feedback from car nuts on the Michelin CrossClimates are very positive in all respects.
We've got Vredstein Quatrac tyres on a Polo that seem to be lasting well and were pretty good in the last load of snow and ice as well as being fairly fuel efficient for day to day use. Fairly reasonably priced.
I've been unimpressed with the Michelin Alpin winter tyres I've got on my Volvo - definitely not as good as the Nokian's I've had, which seem to be ideal for the slush/ice/mud mix that we get in winters and OK when the temperatures have risen a bit.
> - in my estimation winter tyres wear faster than summer - the rubber gets a bit soft if you run them through the summer. I believe the recommended temp to change over is circa 5C.
I wasn't recommending anyone run winters in summer. Nor is the OP intending to do so.
i use Michelin Cross Climate Climates - and have done for 3 years or so. i'm very happy with them as a winter tyre, and they last me abut 20,000 miles each - the fronts wear quicker than the backs, so i just swap them over after 10k or so...
The CrossClimate+ is what I was thinking of. It seems a good compromise for those occasional miserable days, like waking up to an unexpected 3" of snow in November that brought Dancing on Ice to the A5.
I got a pair of CrossClimate Plus put on the front of my car this winter (a pothole took out the front left of the old ones but they were close to needing replacing anyway). They were quite expensive but they were splendid in the snow. I drove for 14 winters on studded winter tyres in Finland, and obviously they're not quite up there for grip, but I was going up hills in Sheffield in the snow with ease that 4WDs weren't getting up and they greatly contributed to my successful season winter climbing this year! They are meant to grip better in the wet and cool but non frosty conditions too. Only had them for about 3 months so can't comment on longer term wear.
As I'll have a car with all season tyres one end and summer tyres the other end for most of this year, does anyone have any sage advice on which end should have which? My first instinct is to put the CrossClimates on the front (if only because they'll be a fair bit quieter than my current tyres), move the relatively new fronts I have to the rear and hope they need replacing before I have to worry about having less grip at the back than the front in next winter's snow. Any more educated thoughts?
I always find it staggering how few 'winter' climbers don't bother with fitting winter tyres, carrying a tow rope, shovel or anything else that would help you get to the climb in the first place. I had a lot of days this year where the combination of AWD and winters (primarily the winters) meant we got out when few others did. While I've got two sets of wheels on my car, one set with high performance summer tyres and another smaller set of rims with some proper snow tyres, the Cross Climates are a great compromise for most people.
> I've got two sets of wheels on my car
That's the standard thing to do in Finland, and the tradition is you always leave it in the autumn until the absolute last minute and invariably find yourself swapping the wheels in the dark and cold, by headtorch, as a soggy snowstorm begins, meaning there will be 20 cms of thick snow on the ground when you're trying to drive to work the next morning! Not a tradition I miss having moved back to the UK!
>... and the tradition is you always leave it in the autumn until the absolute last minute and invariably find yourself swapping the wheels in the dark and cold, by headtorch...
I'm coming out of my 8th winter living in the Alps and my tradition is still also that due to the beautiful weather we're having right now, I'll get my summer tyres switched onto both of my cars. The following week it will be guaranteed to snow.
I did it last year and like clockwork we had 30cm of snow on May 1st.
> I've been unimpressed with the Michelin Alpin winter tyres I've got on my Volvo - definitely not as good as the Nokian's I've had, which seem to be ideal for the slush/ice/mud mix that we get in winters and OK when the temperatures have risen a bit.
A good thing about using Nokian tyres is that some years ago they switched over to their rubber being derived from corn oil, and they have their production in Europe still, so they're up there when it comes to being green and ethical. They used to make general mountain bike tyres, which is how I came to learn about them using corn oil. They unfortunately only make studded tyres for bicycles now though.
Edit: It actually isn't corn oil, the magazine I read got it wrong, but they are 'none aromatic oils' which make them as eco-friendly as tyres can be, and being from Finland, decent enough in the cold and ice presumably.
> As I'll have a car with all season tyres one end and summer tyres the other end for most of this year, does anyone have any sage advice on which end should have which? My first instinct is to put the CrossClimates on the front (if only because they'll be a fair bit quieter than my current tyres), move the relatively new fronts I have to the rear and hope they need replacing before I have to worry about having less grip at the back than the front in next winter's snow. Any more educated thoughts?
Good question. Danger with having better grip at the front in snow is you may well lose the back end before you feel loss of traction or steering at the front.
It's easier to start correcting understeer when the front starts to lose grip than it is to recover from suddenly losing the rear and having to start steering into the skid to correct it.
In fact I seem to recall someone whose garage refused to fit different (winter and normal) tyres front and rear.
> In fact I seem to recall someone whose garage refused to fit different (winter and normal) tyres front and rear.
I imagine it's on the same principle as only having chains on the driving wheels, but to less of a drastic degree when it comes to handling? One might as well have things uniform when it comes to traction.
I already swapped the summers back on last weekend in the hope I could bring about the return of winter. Sadly it hasn't worked!
> I wasn't recommending anyone run winters in summer. Nor is the OP intending to do so.
I ran my winter tyres all through last summer with no problems whatsoever. The reasons being (a) the 'summer' tyres were close to worn out, (b) I wanted to fit all-season tyres, and (c) I still had a set of winter tyres with a decent amount of tread left on them. So when I swapped the 'summer' tyres off in autumn 2016 they stayed off, and I ran the winters through until last December before having the all-seasons fitted (Goodyear Vector 4season G2s, just to buck the Michelin trend on here). The Vectors coped brilliantly with the road conditions which accompanied the Beast from the East parts I, II and III (though you're never going to feel like your cornering on rails in 8" of snow!)
Winter tyres don't suddenly try to throw you off the road come the summer. The rubber compounds used for winter tyres performs better (stays more flexible) than 'summer' tyres at temperatures below about 7°C, plus the tread pattern is better at displacing water and finding grip on snow, ice and slush. But they work just fine on temperate dry roads too.
IMO any tyre from a recognised brand on the market today will be perfectly good, unless you are driving like a homicidal idiot. Different tyres won't behave the same, but none of them are actively going to try and kill you so long as you look after them.
Halfords specify they will only fit them in pairs, but don't say you need to have four. Like I said, I've only got them on the front of my Ford, and they were still great. The back always slides in ice and snow sooner or later - particularly when you handbrake it! - but I didn't notice any big problems this winter. On Easter Monday we were coming over the A66, in heavy snow, head for one more winter route in the Lakes. It was snowing really hard but had only just started. There was no one else around so I braked just to see how slippy it was and the back started to go then, but I was probably doing 50 so I was pushing my luck. I stopped braking and it straightened up fine, and I'm not sure that it wouldn't have done the same with crossclimates on the back anyway. I could easily skid my old Ford in Finland even with all studded tyres. Frozen lakes are the best for that although large empty car parks also do the job.
We have winter tyres on our Volvo V50 but just on the front. We have had a lot of snow this winter and I have not had any problems.
Nokian tyres. They mostly sell to the former USSR it seems, from googling about them. They get 4 and 5 star reviews generally and sell summer tyres too.
> A good thing about using Nokian tyres is that some years ago they switched over to their rubber being derived from corn oil, and they have their production in Europe still, so they're up there when it comes to being green and ethical. They used to make general mountain bike tyres, which is how I came to learn about them using corn oil. They unfortunately only make studded tyres for bicycles now though.
> Edit: It actually isn't corn oil, the magazine I read got it wrong, but they are 'none aromatic oils' which make them as eco-friendly as tyres can be, and being from Finland, decent enough in the cold and ice presumably.
Hasn't that been stipulated in EU Regulations for all tyre manufactures since 2010?
I've no idea.