new tyres and XL markings

Do you really need winter tyres? Unless you're actually in the Scotlands or live down a steep farm track, this recent running about shouting about winter tyres is wildly overblown. Hang around any UK car forum and as soon as the temperature drops below 15C they all start behaving like they live in Iceland.

Yes. The XL thing is a random thing, some people apply to 94 and up, some 93 (which is a pretty bog standard weight loading really) and smells of marketing hyperbole, probably aimed at the Americans with adverts about how much more stuff you can put in your pickup if your buy them.

XL tyres have the same overall weight limit but should cope with being used at that limit better when inflated to higher pressures. this from the web may make it clearer: "Extra Load tyres are designed to be used at higher pressures than normal tyres. They have the same maximum load capacity as a normal tyre with the same Load Index but achieve this at a higher pressure. Normal tyres are inflated to pressures between 2 bar and 2.5 bar. They reach the maximum load capacity as specified by the Load Index when inflated to 2.5 bar (35psi) Eg for a Load Index of 94 this is 670kg. Extra Load tyres can be inflated to pressures up to 2.9 bar (41psi) and actually have a lower load capacity at the same pressure as a normal tyre with the same Load Index. To get the 670kg load capacity for a Load Index of

So average car driver does not need XL

All of your tyres are worn out, even the 4mm ones are so low as to be very below par especially when it comes to the real wet and cold.

I put a set of four Michelin Winter tyres on my Focus last year and the transformation was amazing. I removed them and stored them in the dark about April, and they will go back on in the next week or two.

It is not recommended to have only two winter tyres on a car due to the very different grip and handling at each end.

In message , Fred writes

Why don't you get a cheap set of steel rims from the scrappy and put winter tyres on them. Then you can put the 4mm rears back on the car in the spring. I've got a set of winter tyres on spare rims and if the weather doesn't get too bad before mid December, I should get a 4th year out of them.

Rubbish, they really do make a difference. They offer a lot more grip when temperatures are within a few degrees of zero (which is most of the time for me in winter) and when there is actually snow on the ground, the difference is like night and day.

And yet, I've survived 40 years of winter driving without ever using winter tyres. I don't doubt that they're better, but the vast majority of people manage without.

Tim

If you hadn't survived you wouldn't be posting.

We all used to manage without servo brakes, seatbelts, airbags, radial tyres, ABS, tubeless tyres.

I've also survived the past 40 years on the road but over the past 4 years I've been somewhat safer in the winter months than the previous 36 years. The only real additional cost is the initial purchase of spare rims.

Winter tyres improve the driving experience and safety, if you can afford them then they are well worth it, even in the South. Certainly I drove in deep snow on remould crossplies, but that doesn't mean I would want to do so unnecessarily now when something infinitely better is available and I can afford it.

You didn't survive 40yrs of driving in winter on modern tyre compounds.

I must've imagined all the traffic chaos and all the cars abandoned at the bottom of hills every time there's anything more than a heavy frost, then.

Yet, strangely, on winters I was quite happily bimbling up hills in a 2wd that many 4wds were failing to ascend.

I put winters on the MX5 last year - it got both of us out to work whilst almost everyone else was stranded. Including all the X5s and Q5s which appear to be popular around these parts right now.

The only time I had a problem was when I got stuck on a slope with sheet ice under a thin layer of snow - I'd parked in such a way that I could roll out of the space, but then someone parked so close behind me I had no room to do it.

Indeed. I had no trouble on normal tyres years ago, but my last two cars (on wideish, low-profile, "performance" tyres) were terrible in snow.

Last winter, on my due-for-replacement winter tyres (now replaced), I happily breezed past several stuck cars and vans stuck here

Plenty of brain dead folk on usenet. ;-)

Tim

I bought a scabby set of alloys from Ebay, identical to my summer wheels. My winters will go on in early November, and come off late March or early April, and I got 3 years out of them- they were still very legal but had lost their edge a bit in snow.

I think this is the real point. My previous car ran on 'All Season' tyres which were quite reasonable on snow & ice. On the current car I *have* to choose between summer or winter tyres, and the former are totally useless on snow & ice.

And the inconvenience of storage and potentially purchasing a set of wheels and tyres that you might not keep long enough to justify the expense.

Of course there have been times over the past 40 years when a bit more grip in winter would have been nice but the number of times when I haven't been able to get to where I wanted to *solely* because of my tyres I could count on the fingers of no hands.

Tim

Doesn't take too many numpties to cause chaos. Most folk manage.

I've done that too, just using good speed judgement and careful throttle control.

Tim

The problem comes if someone stops your progress - that's when winters can really come into their own.

Last winter I had wide, low profile (245 40) ContiSport tyres on my RWD car. Late one night, when it was down to 2C, damp and the road was empty I tried finding some degradation in performace going around a roundabout with my brain disengaged and the throttle buried and....

I can honestly say I wouldn't normally go round it that fast mid-summer when I'm feeling frisky. No tail out antics, no slithering, no DSC activity, just round we go.

I don't doubt they're better in snow but I've tried finding this performance loss "better below 7C" and I can't. I run half decent tyres, down to the limit and have long come to the conclusion that if I really, really, really need that extra bit of grip winter tyres offer then it doesn't really matter as I'll be departing the world in a ball of fire and noise of such cataclysmic proportions that it'll be heard in Hawaii.

Going about, day to day, pottering to the shops when it's a bit chilly? I think I'll manage to live within this restrictive performance envelope.

I'd me tempted to swap them front to back and wait for the unusually mild weather to finish. But it depends where you are, what sort of driving you do, what sort of tyres you have on.