Winter tyre question

[bigalan]

After hearing all about how this is going to be the worst winter for years I am doing the obvious thing: selling my Kangoo 4x4 and using my rwd Townace as my daily:-)

However last year it's performance in snow was... limited:-) Fun as it was slithering side to side for 20 mins to drive 15m I feel I may need to make a change this year.

I've found a set of winter tyres going cheap locally, but the auction.ends today:-/ The van currently runs 195 x70 14" but the tyres I've found are 175x65 14". What difference will this make? The Speedo is in km so I use a Sat nav for that. They are a little narrower but rally cars use.narrow tyres on snow too?

Any thoughts? Have an old car on snow as penance for a boring thread:-)

[stealthstylz]

They're a fair bit shorter (46mm overall) so it'll affect the gearing a bit, and the speedo will over read (read faster than you're going).

[Knugcab]

You should use as narrow tyres as possible in the wintertime.

[bigalan]

Oct 13, 2013 10:01:02 GMT stealthstylz said:

They're a fair bit shorter (46mm overall) so it'll affect the gearing a bit, and the speedo will over read (read faster than you're going).

Not too worried about gearing/speedo. Rarely take it over 60, and I use the Sat Nav as a Speedo to save mental breakdown calculating all the time:-)

[rallymantony]

Narrow tyres are good on cars but not sure if they will work to well on a commercial vehicle. The other thing to consider is in this country our main problem is ice more then the snow. With this in mind I would say a wider tyre may be better. I'm an ice instructor spending 3 months of the year teaching young (and sometimes old) rally, track and enthusiastic road drivers how to drive and handle cars on a frozen lake. Our cars have normal winter tyres (i.e not studded), so I have a little bit of knowledge about this. Hope this helps.

[bigalan]

Oct 13, 2013 18:19:48 GMT rallymantony said:

Narrow tyres are good on cars but not sure if they will work to well on a commercial vehicle. The other thing to consider is in this country our main problem is ice more then the snow. With this in mind I would say a wider tyre may be better. I'm an ice instructor spending 3 months of the year teaching young (and sometimes old) rally, track and enthusiastic road drivers how to drive and handle cars on a frozen lake. Our cars have normal winter tyres (i.e not studded), so I have a little bit of knowledge about this. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the tip:-) I've bought the tyres as they were a really good price. Hopefully they'll be ok (can't be worse than last year lol).The Townace is fairly light and never gets loaded up so fingers crossed.

They may not help on ice, but I'm hoping that even.for low temperatures they should make a difference. Although we are near Edinburgh we are a bit higher up and tend to get snow even when Edinburgh has none:-)

[Knugcab]

Oct 13, 2013 18:28:03 GMT bigalan said:

Oct 13, 2013 18:19:48 GMT rallymantony said:

Narrow tyres are good on cars but not sure if they will work to well on a commercial vehicle. The other thing to consider is in this country our main problem is ice more then the snow. With this in mind I would say a wider tyre may be better. I'm an ice instructor spending 3 months of the year teaching young (and sometimes old) rally, track and enthusiastic road drivers how to drive and handle cars on a frozen lake. Our cars have normal winter tyres (i.e not studded), so I have a little bit of knowledge about this. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the tip:-) I've bought the tyres as they were a really good price. Hopefully they'll be ok (can't be worse than last year lol).The Townace is fairly light and never gets loaded up so fingers crossed.

They may not help on ice, but I'm hoping that even.for low temperatures they should make a difference. Although we are near Edinburgh we are a bit higher up and tend to get snow even when Edinburgh has none:-)

On ice, studs are highly recommended IMO...

[kabman]

Oct 13, 2013 19:20:55 GMT Knugcab said:

Oct 13, 2013 18:28:03 GMT bigalan said:

Thanks for the tip:-) I've bought the tyres as they were a really good price. Hopefully they'll be ok (can't be worse than last year lol).The Townace is fairly light and never gets loaded up so fingers crossed.

They may not help on ice, but I'm hoping that even.for low temperatures they should make a difference. Although we are near Edinburgh we are a bit higher up and tend to get snow even when Edinburgh has none:-)

On ice, studs are highly recommended IMO...

It very much depends on the temperature of the ice. Most winters I drive in northern Sweden where winter tyres are mandatory and studded tyres are common. When the temperature gets low enough the snow is dry and relatively grippy. There's snow on the roads for six months of the year and it's much easier to drive when its -20C than when it's -2C. But in the UK, we suffer from wet snow, slush and wet roads when the temperature is around zero. The roads never get icy enough, or cold enough, for studs to be of any use. Skinny winter tyres with a compound that works below 5C are your best bet.

[Paul H]

IIRC, studded tyres are also illegal for road use in the UK.

[Deleted]

Good non-studded winter tires would be your best bet with the english climate, just don't get any "year round" tires, they are rubbish in summer and rubbish in winter Have driven on some Continental studless tires for the last 2 years on my 1977 Commodore, really impressed with them, especially as i bought them used 3 years ago

[welshpug]

you need to go taller if you go narrow on the width, for ground clearance as much as anything!

a 175 80 is the closest I can find, 75 doesn't exist, and 70 is a good 14mm drop (28mm smaller diameter!)

185 70 seems to be a better size, slightly cheaper and only a 7mm drop,

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