Recommendations for winter tyres

Standard tyres will be fine , we don't really have the temperatures to require winter tyres in the Uk its just a marketing gimmick.

I would suggest you put the car or tyre size in here:

Well I?ve already had a look but was really looking for personal recommendations from folk who?ve actually tried some.

Tim

Have you tried them?

It wasn't especially cold today, but it was notably easy to spin the wheels of my wife's car on (good quality) summer tyres, while mine (on winters) is fine.

I use winters every year as work can be a bit challenging to get to in bad weather. The difference is notable.

If you're driving only around town, on well treated roads, then yes, winters are probably not required. Go much outside of that and they're worth it.

FWIW, first ones I bought were Kumho- got a good deal. The last set were Pirelli Sottozero, which came with the winter wheels. Currently Conti WinterContact TS850. I ran the Pirellis through the summer too, to get a bit more life out of them when the tread depth was still comfortably legal but below what you'd want for snow. All fine and notably better than summer tyres below ~7-8 degrees. The Kumhos dropped off a bit above

I have run Michelin Alpin 4 and then 5s for the last four years, they are brilliant in all conditions summer and winter.

Since then Michelin have brought out their Cross-Climate tyre, which are an excellent choice too and I have tried one car with those on and they seemed just as good as the Alpins, the owner of that car (a late C-Max) is extremely impressed with them, having previously used cheap make tyres.

Anyone that says don't bother are very unlikely to have experienced how good winter tyres are, the improvement in cold wet weather grip is startling.

We're running Nankang snow marked all seasons on the campervan.

Seem to be wearing well, despite a number of longer trips in warm weather and I can barely notice any difference with the low profile summer tyres we had on it. (I swapped the rims for a size down when I bought the Nankangs, too).

The particular model we have is no longer available in the UK, but I can't see any of the current offerings being any worse.

I have a set of Michelin CrossClimates, these are all-season tyres that are legal for winter use in those parts of Europe that require winter tyres to be fitted in the winter.

do you people think maybe you have too much money for your own good?

^^^^This.

My Honda 4x4 came with Scorpion tyres (where do they get these names!) which were rated for Snow etc. They always seemed to do what was needed and I replaced them with the same tyres as they wore out etc. Not the cheapest but they seemed to be good. We live on an unadopted road, which is on a hill, and a s*d in the snow, even the drive is a pain in the proverbial due to the slope. The Honda always seemed to cope. We've yet to try the Outlander in serious snow.

I assume it is a small (lighter) van, or were you able to get a decent load rating?

I've not seen any 'Eastern' (I'm assuming they are Eastern) tyres which are rated for the heavier (more motorhome) load ratings (3.5T and up vehicles).

The range for larger, motorhome rated, tyres seems quite small and seems dominated by Continental and Michillin in large rims.

I'm considering uprating our motorhome from 3.65 to 3.8 (the chassis is rated for it) but it will require a change of tyres and (possibly) rim size to get the load rating, so knowing about a suitable other manufacturer would be useful.

Penny pinching on tyres is false economy which, hopefully, you will never learn from bitter experience. (I've seen it happen- although not to me.)

Indeed and you don't need to be a 'boy racer' to discover it, just a slippery road and some idiot who pulls out in front of you.

Decent explanation and comparative costs here ...

Also on that web site, just put "winter tyres" into the search box and you will get loads of hits related to readers questions.

This is about as small a campervan as you can get!

It's a Toyota Alphard V6, so started out as an 8 seat luxury MPV.

Probably weighs around 2 tonnes, so runs on XL rated car tyres. Some people put van tyres on them, but that destroys the ride and handling.

I ran my Mondeo estate on Cross Climates for a winter and summer before I s old the car. Gave me much more confidence when driving in poor winter condi tions and with the benefit of great performance in the wet. Highly recommen ded. Before that I had a set of 'full' winter tyres on a set of steel rims which I used to swap over every winter. The CCs avoided this hassle and per formed as well (given there aren't many days when there is snow on the road s where I live).

As you say until you have driven on snow in winter tyres you will have no i dea of the difference they make compared to summer tyres.

Yes (I have been happy with Scorpions too), but the only 4x4 tyres which fit the Yeti seems to be GeoLanders. They may be a reasonable option, but I've never tried them.

I'm running Michelin Cross-Climates all year round in Gloucestershire. There are quite a few places locally that get tricky in snow (not least the sloping part of my shared drive).

I also have the strong impression they cope with deep puddles better.