Winter Tyres

mikestrivens

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 21, 2008
Messages
2,715
Reaction score
147
Location
Stockport
Your Mercedes
1995 W124 320TE, 1998 R129 SL500, 2016 Triumph Tiger 800 XCx
They would certainly make it easier and safer. I put Michelin Cross Climate on my E320 and they are brilliant all rounders if you don't want to go the whole hog and get another set of wheels/tyres.
 

Wighty

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 4, 2016
Messages
13,435
Reaction score
12,467
Location
Sunny Essex
Your Mercedes
W211/E320cdi/2009 and CLK200k 2009
Tell your son you would love to go but it's weather dependent . I use winter tyres and they are very good , but if no one else has them in severe weather then they all clog up the road ahead of you , so as ^ advice from Mike , all seasons are good but it's all a very expensive addition to the car for a family meet .
 

Andy.M

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 20, 2012
Messages
903
Reaction score
133
Location
Rochester Kent
Your Mercedes
2014 GLA250 Premium Plus, Night, AMG Exclusive Leather, Driving Assistance Packs COMAND DAB HK Audio
I used to have winter tyres for my CLC. Went everywhere almost like a 4wd !! Highly recommended :)
 

LostKiwi

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2006
Messages
31,328
Reaction score
21,575
Location
Midlands / Charente-Maritime
Your Mercedes
'93 500SL-32, '01 W210 Estate E240 (RIP), 02 R230 SL500, 04 Smart Roadster Coupe, 11 R350CDi
Likelihood of snow and ice to worry you is pretty slim. I don't think I've ever had a trip to Scotland called off for weather (and I used to regularly drive to the west coast due west of Inverness). I can only remember one trip in winter when there was any snow ( and there must have been a dozen or so) and that didn't cause any problems(and that snow was near Aviemore on the A9).
 

John Laidlaw

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 15, 2013
Messages
26,373
Reaction score
9,163
Location
Wirral
Your Mercedes
Land Rover Discovery 4
Winters work well on that car, if you get some you probably won’t want to take them off ! However as already said I’d recommend the Michelin cross climates very highly quite excellent!
 

turbopete

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 4, 2009
Messages
14,209
Reaction score
331
Age
48
Location
Spennymoor
Your Mercedes
2017 '17' Ford Mondeo 2.0TDCi ST Line X 180 (sorry)
as lostkiwi. besides, if you DO get snow, its unlikely to be for more than a day or 2 at the most.

try to add extra weight in the boot. perhaps not quite as good as snow/winter tyres but it certainly helps. its all ive ever done. mostly because its all I could AFFORD to do.
 

LostKiwi

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2006
Messages
31,328
Reaction score
21,575
Location
Midlands / Charente-Maritime
Your Mercedes
'93 500SL-32, '01 W210 Estate E240 (RIP), 02 R230 SL500, 04 Smart Roadster Coupe, 11 R350CDi
And the Scots are pretty good at clearing it.
 

keefysher

Senior Member
Joined
May 4, 2007
Messages
4,506
Reaction score
2,695
Location
Hampshire
Your Mercedes
W166 GLE350AMG Line 3.0 2017. BMW Z3 2.8 1998.
Without sounding harsh, why not learn to drive?? :eek::eek: Or take the train. That way you won't create carnage if the weather is adverse, which is what usually causes the issues we have when a drop of snow arrives. You are clearly worried, so avoid the driving.

Being ill prepared, ill equipped and incapable of driving in the conditions is not the best way to spend christmas is it?
 

turbopete

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 4, 2009
Messages
14,209
Reaction score
331
Age
48
Location
Spennymoor
Your Mercedes
2017 '17' Ford Mondeo 2.0TDCi ST Line X 180 (sorry)
Without sounding harsh, why not learn to drive

thatd be most people south of about York/Lancaster screwed then!!!

honestly I used to see the news when the weather was almost a 'national disaster' yet the sprinkling was so thin it did nothing more than 'grey' the road (not even a proper covering) down south, yet the morons couldn't work out that taking that 60mph dry weather corner at 60mph in those conditions was going to end in tears! or to drive a bit slower and leave a bigger gap. nope, cars falling off the road EVERYWHERE.
meanwhile, at the time (about 2010 IIRC) I was up north, getting on with things like we do up here. Ford Puma, no winter tyres, dig the car out, drive to where I needed to be (getting a few strange looks as I wasn't in a tractor or 4x4) the only way I could. admittedly, having the weight over the drive wheels helped (as did much wheelspinning at times, digging its way up hills)
 

L John

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 24, 2013
Messages
2,860
Reaction score
553
Location
UK
Your Mercedes
W204 C350 Petrol Elegance
I found winter tyres are excellent, I have a set on stored wheels so easy to swap over.

OK I'm going to put this video up again as it's what convinced me. Before seeing this video I refused to accept them as I considered myself a capable driver and always said the driver is the main part of the equation. It probably still stands but the fact is snow tyres do grip better below around 9 deg C, not just better in snow/ice. They just excel in the slippy stuff
 

John Laidlaw

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 15, 2013
Messages
26,373
Reaction score
9,163
Location
Wirral
Your Mercedes
Land Rover Discovery 4
I think again we forget these are not just snow and ice tyres. They are cold weather tyres and the rubber compounds used (higher silica etc ) suit cold weather better. This is fact. I travel fairly regularly up North to places on the NE coast (Helmsdale) where even there we’ve hardly seen much snow over the past 10 years or so, however cold damp, wet, partially icy weather is what will catch you out with summer tyres, especially if/when you have to stop in a hurry.
Like Pete I’ve experienced being in a Ford in the heavy snow and passing 4 x 4s on the road (my case it was an Escort), but that was in the days of skinny tyres ..
Nowadays with wide low profiles and summer compounds there is a real danger in certain winter weather conditions not having winters on.
I was as cynical as the next person until I started using them - my first set were on the C180K and I’ve had them on every car since from November- April
This subject gets covered every year!
 

LostKiwi

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2006
Messages
31,328
Reaction score
21,575
Location
Midlands / Charente-Maritime
Your Mercedes
'93 500SL-32, '01 W210 Estate E240 (RIP), 02 R230 SL500, 04 Smart Roadster Coupe, 11 R350CDi
I think the point is that for a single trip is it worth the expense of a second set of wheels/tyres?
Granted for a repeated and regular trip then yes perhaps but from what we've been told this is pretty much a one off for Christmas.
 

Wighty

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 4, 2016
Messages
13,435
Reaction score
12,467
Location
Sunny Essex
Your Mercedes
W211/E320cdi/2009 and CLK200k 2009
I'm a big fan of winters as well and change both cars to a second set every November , but it all depends on your budget , if the op wants to spend the money on some all seasons when he next changes his tyres for safety reasons that's all well and good , but to buy winters /wheels for a few hundred quid for a Christmas Day visit is a financial one off that most of would have to weigh up carefully .
 

John Laidlaw

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 15, 2013
Messages
26,373
Reaction score
9,163
Location
Wirral
Your Mercedes
Land Rover Discovery 4
I think the point is that for a single trip is it worth the expense of a second set of wheels/tyres?
Granted for a repeated and regular trip then yes perhaps but from what we've been told this is pretty much a one off for Christmas.
Which is a good point- in this case I’d take the train!
 

Andy.M

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 20, 2012
Messages
903
Reaction score
133
Location
Rochester Kent
Your Mercedes
2014 GLA250 Premium Plus, Night, AMG Exclusive Leather, Driving Assistance Packs COMAND DAB HK Audio
Agree, expensive option for one off use.
As John said earlier though, winter tyres do work well on a CLC.
Ours had the bigger wheels (17 or 18" cant remember!) and even in cold wet conditions it wasn't particularly good.
One particular concrete slope we use, it couldn't get up with out a good run up!
Stuck the recommended 16" winters on it and the transformation was unbelievable.
Not only that, the ride was that much smoother as well, driver win as James Corden would say :)
 

EmilysDad

Senior Member
Joined
May 8, 2012
Messages
12,120
Reaction score
5,664
Location
Bury Lancs
Your Mercedes
ML350
I was an apprentice at Rosyth in the 80s, so drove from there to home & back again loads of week ends. Since then I've driven to collect EmilysMum's aunty at Christmas & take her back in the New Year. Never even thought of fitting winter tyres ..... never even heard of them when i was an apprentice. Admittedly a lot of those journeys were in my MKIII with its massive 165 tyres :rolleyes: but more recently in my R Class.
We're talking southern Scotland ...... not the outer Hebrides
 

keefysher

Senior Member
Joined
May 4, 2007
Messages
4,506
Reaction score
2,695
Location
Hampshire
Your Mercedes
W166 GLE350AMG Line 3.0 2017. BMW Z3 2.8 1998.
I'm sure I've posted before. Many years ago I qualified as a Polymer scientist, thats rubber & plastics. Oh the irony of 'Polymer', many units, bank notes. There have been narrow snow tyres for eons, developed for military type vehicles, just so as anyone googling wants to.

If you remember in respect of car tyres there was an incident involving Neil Kinnock, the then Leader of the Opposition on the M4 where a tyre blew out.

At the time I was the technical expert for a large industrial conglomerate who had a specialist division operating in the global mining, quarrying and materials handling industries. There was a perception aimed at us by competitors who were producing steel cord products, that could not compete against us on technically difficult projects like 52Km long systems, very steep gradients uphill and downhill, underground, tight radius curves etc, big boys Engineering toys. We were subject to a barrage of 'catastrophic failure' claims due to corrosion of steelcord as our competitors were actually suffering from. You watch 7500tones per hour at 30 m/minute have a pile up, it's messy, very messy. So my job was to disprove the 'catastrophic failure' claim, and improve the product beyond reproach. Long story short, where competitors were employing carcinogenic adhesive compoundss to attempt to improve bonding to steelcord, that didn't work. I developed a different material and process driven solution, that ensured interply and intertersal bonding was unbreakable mechanical and chemically to then prevent ingress of moisture and subsequent corrosion of the steelcord. As my compound suppliers were also supplying the tyre makers, a technology transfer was done and the materials and process was used to produce car tyres, still to this day. This exponentially reduced tyre blow outs through delamination.

A while later we had a requirement to operate a long distance belt conveyor at -40 to +40 celsius and around very tight horizontal radius curves c140m, where before the tightest was c3000m radius. I developed compounds to manage that. The challenge was not to use conventional reagents that would leech out in the temperature range. Yes it included partial replacement of cheap filler with silica, and a change to carbon black particle size and few other bits. Remember unit cost per Kg was a key requirement as clients run by accountants won't see the time of operational life and availability, only the cost per metre of product. That again was transferred to the tyre boys and initially large plant type tyres, then the advent of 'winter tyres'.

Despite all my knowledge and empirical testing, I'm unconvinced of winter tyres usage in the relatively mild climate of the UK. I use chains in snow :eek: Of course if it means waiting an hour or 2 for roads to be cleared, I'll have another coffee and wait.
 

EmilysDad

Senior Member
Joined
May 8, 2012
Messages
12,120
Reaction score
5,664
Location
Bury Lancs
Your Mercedes
ML350
Without sounding harsh, why not learn to drive?? :eek::eek: Or take the train. That way you won't create carnage if the weather is adverse, which is what usually causes the issues we have when a drop of snow arrives. You are clearly worried, so avoid the driving.

Being ill prepared, ill equipped and incapable of driving in the conditions is not the best way to spend christmas is it?

I remember on the early 80s, the Pompey area coming to a complete halt due to about 1/4" of snow fall .... ;)
 

JBell

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 9, 2011
Messages
14,845
Reaction score
7,186
Location
Torquey
Your Mercedes
C350 CDi Estate (GAD Edition)
However as already said I’d recommend the Michelin cross climates very highly quite excellent!

Last time I skiied in France most of the cars had them as opposed to winters
 


Chris Knott Insurance, see oursticky posts here!
www.ckinsurance.co.uk
Top Bottom