steel wheels for winter tyres

Blimey, swapping the tyres over every year is going to be expensive, and you risk damage / wear to the wheels / tyres every time you get it done. Think of all that balancing, fixing / removing weights, etc etc. Getting cheap steel rims is the only way to go.

Keep looking on Ebay - something will turn up.

It all sounds like a lot of expense and aggro. Do you have alloy wheels that you're keen to protect during the winter, or is it just a matter of tyres? If the latter, you might determine to drive just that bit more carefully when there's frost about. Try to find out whether these wheels are used on any other model, then contact specialist scrappers. Putting 'Renault car dismantlers' into Google is one way to start.

Why do you feel the need for winter tyres? - we don't get enough snow to really need that kind of thing, and I've always found decent quality tyres to be fine all year round.

If it's icy, it doesn't matter what tyres you have, you'll still find a lack of grip out there. This can be resolved by adapting your driving style to the conditions.

However the winter ones do grip better when it's just very cold, unlike say my last set of BF Goodrichs where you "knew" when it dropped below

4degC

Lets be honest - how often is the temp. below 4 degrees compared with how often it's above 4 degrees?

We're in the last week of November, and I think I've only seen one or two mornings this winter where it's been that cold.

Without knowing the geographical location of the OP, isn't that statement a bit sweeping?

Lee

I come from a country where winter tyres are considered essential for anything below 7 degrees. Last weekend, around Yorkshire reached -5. Case closed. Just drive a bit more careful equals the guy who had a few pints and says I'll just drive a bit more careful. Winter tyres are cold weather tyres, they outperform regular tyres easily. Also, there is much less wear, in fact new studies confirm that winter tyres below 7 degrees have about 20% less wear than regular tyres run at these temperatures. It's about safety, money and btw about driving to the continent occasionally.

Why is it the Scots have more than ten times the sales for winter tyres without getting much more snow on the roads? And why is it the Netherlands have a ratio of about 10% of cars fitted with winter tyres, when the England with about the same winter climate has below

1%. Pretty good discussion on this is to be found on But the best way to find out for yourself is to actually drive a car with winter tyres around your city for a while. I had a grumpy old Clio in this country till earlier this year, when I moved, I brought my six or seven year old winter tyres with me in order to see what went on. Surprise: I outperformed every BMW on roundabout starts because my car grip was like normal whereas other peoples' sports car just could not get away. It really is fun to drive winter tyres with a small car! Snow is only the icing on the cake. We had this snow fall last year, when every moron got stuck for three hours. We just put on the hazard lights and drove through in the middle of the road, home in five minutes. Too bad these tyres only work in winter ;-) Once English insurers figure this one out, more people will start swapping.

Being stuck on the M1 for 20 hours and then blame gritters for not getting through is not my idea of fun btw.

As for steel rims, I get the points mentioned in previous posts and go happily searching on ebay. Thanks for all contributions,

Fred

Sounds like a load of blurb written to sell tyres, to be honest.

Never used winter tyres, never needed them.

I live in the South Wales valleys, somewhere you do get very cold winters and a fair bit of snow - if it gets so bad that cars can't get through the snow, I'll dig out my old clunker motorbike and use that - it'll be far more effective at getting through stuff cars can't than a set of winter tyres. Odds are it won't happen, though.

Not to worry, believe what you want. The safety and environmental qualities of winter tyres independantly of snow are proven by a variety of road safety agencies all over the world really that have nothing to do with manufactures. I use one, possibly two sets of winter tyres for the life of the car. Financially not a big issue then to say the least. They are not a matter of personal opinion. 50% of all accidents in the UK during winter are caused by skidding. Adjusting the driving prooves to be very, very difficult for many drivers indeed. According to me you could use your bike without helmet because you only endanger your own head. Winter tyres, however, help prevent accidents that injure pedestrians and other road users. But the way we are going, litigations for this sort of thing are going to appear sooner rather than later because 10 road deaths a day are taking a heavy toll on the economy.

Oops, sorry for the rant. All I really wanted is some advice on whether or not to use rims. Advice gratefully received.

Fred

I've never used winter tyres either. However, in my travels I've noticed that people in countries with colder winters do use them- Finns, Swedes and Germans to name a few. I'd guess they know what they're doing.

Mind you, I'm not convinced enough to go out and get winter tyres for any of my cars; there's a reason that we don't on the whole use them in the UK- we don't *really* need them since our climate is a little more temperate, if there was an easily made case for them you can bet your bottom dollar that they'd be pushed at us by Kwik Fit & Co.

Also sprach snipped-for-privacy@nohotmail.com (Fred):-

What proportion during the summer - and more importantly, during wet spring and autumns?

So you'll never understand then!

Doesn't matter. 87.23% of statistics are made up.....

In message , SteveH writes

My Mondeo has a two stage temp warning. The amber light comes on below 4 degrees and the red light comes on below zero degrees.

The last 4 days I've driven to work (Thursday to Sunday) I had the red warning on for the whole trip. This was at 6.30am.

Windchill.

My VFR has an air temp. sensor on it, the temperature drops significantly once I'm moving.

My volvo doesn't.

I'm not sure where the sensor is on my car but I would imagine that its out of the air stream. The light comes on when I get the car out of the garage and before I get moving.

Also sprach snipped-for-privacy@italiancar.co.uk (SteveH):-

It won't cool below ambient unless it's moist.

I don't think doing what the average is doing is necessarily the right thing. But that is certainly typical for the UK, to always prepare for the average rather than the extreme.

But listen, I think there is more to this winter tyre than meets the eye. I tried to get winter tyres locally and went to between five and ten places, kwikfit, smaller & larger places. They all laughed me off and said you do not need them. I knew beforehand that e.g. all registered continental dealers in this country can get winter tyres by way of a phone call. In other words: I was willing to spend upwards of

250odd quid to get winter tyres. One firm repeatedly offered tyres that I knew were summer tyres yet they insisted that these were the tyres I was asking for.

Even assuming for a moment that I am a looney European who cannot forget old habits, I think all these firms have no clue how to do business. Do they expect me back any time soon? I hope not. Needless to say that their summer tyres were more expensive than the online source I found for very good Michelin winter tyres. But that is another matter. The internet makes life so much easier these days.

But this happens to me all the time. The other day I wanted to inquire about a new car only to be told by the salesman that I cannot afford it anyway. He did not even try to sell his wares to me when I told him my initial budget. I took his advice, forgot about his make and bought another car somewhere else. I am willing to spend money in this country on quality products and get told that the cheapest surrogate would serve me just as well. All the stores sell the same stuff because they cater for the average customer, that's true for electricals as it is true for supermarkets or children's toys. They stock the same stuff and compete over prize only. And when you go to a small place, all they can do is sell the same stuff as the big stores for 50p less (or sometimes 50 pounds more mind you). In part this could be explained by the fact that UK shops are much more chained than say German ones. And central command defines company policy rather than well trained salespeople on the ground. The irony is that in so many categories the UK is more expensive than the continent probably exactly because these stores are all franchises rather than the life line for an individual family. In that sense, UK fitters and the lot probably know what they are doing. As long as they can make nice profits with a relatively low stock diversity, they will not change their habits.

All this is to say trusting UK companies to be innovative about their stock is NOT good advice in my opinion. Besides, the case of Netherlands: Same winter climate as the UK, more winter tyres because the industry ran a campaign to raise awareness of fitters before they made a combined effort to reach the consumer. Historically, Germany had a much lower winter tyre uptake than now. I still remember laughing at all the tourist cars driving or rather skidding through the Alps with no winter tyres. This changed when the Road Safety Council started a campaign in the 80s. Of course snow influences the uptake of winter tyres, but it's not the only factor. Any Scot here? Do you really get so much more snow as opposed to say Yorkshire in order to justify your notably higher uptake of winter tyres? Besides, the rumour that winter tyre are no better or worse on ice than summer tyres is just plain wrong. The German ADAC (the equivalent of the AA) has done extensive testing using an ice rink and found massive differences even amongst winter tyres.

Fred