"More to
Well I ain't as young or agile as I used to be but I swap the tyres/rims here. Takes a couple of hours max from opening the garage to get the trolley jack and tyre/rims out to closing it again. And this is with a tyre/rim weighing it at about 30 kg. ie impossible to lift when near the studs and under a wheel arch. I have a bit of 18 mm ply with rollers underneath to rest the tyre on and align with the studs.
Winter tyres are for winter use only, using then in summer will wear then down much faster
you don't choose winter tyres just because a set are coming up for replacement
tim
Well I have a set coming up for replacement...
And it's winter...
Seem like 2 good reasons to experiment :)
I doubt I could do that these days without putting my back out for a couple of weeks or more.
You could go for all season tyres, which are a compromise between winter and summer tyres. They will suit most requirements in the UK.
It's needed on my car - if only to reset the "Service Needed" message.
If only! I'm 72 and not that agile - but I can still change a set of wheels!
I think it depends on when you last did it. If you're doing it regularly, you adjust for the slow deterioration. A couple of years ago I had cause to add a couple of memory chips to a single board computer. The sockets were there empty and waiting on the board, I'd sourced the chips from the US of A, they just needed inserting in the sockets.
After I damn nearly bust some of the pins putting the first chip in, I was consciously a lot more careful with the second one. When I thought about it after, I realised it was damn nearly 30 years since I'd last done it. Hand-eye coordination plus general muscle control gone down a bit in the meantime :-(
Very possibly. But this is still Britain where it rarely gets properly cold. It's just that I've seen this "below 7 degrees stuff" so many times before and can't help thinking it started off as -7 or 7F and has been mangled by a UK marketing department to try and make us buy winter tyres. Especially bearing in mind the average temperature in this country *is* 7C and yet we really only struggle for a tiny percentage of the year (and that's really only when the snow comes down.)
Eggsackly. If dealing with properly adverse weather, there's value in winter tyres but, for the majority of England & Wales, it's like carrying a parachute all the time - "just in case!"
We struggle because:
a) It's not snowy enough or cold enough to make it worth while having shitloads of kit sitting around in council garages for the one year in five when it's really needed.
b) Too often the temps are *around* freezing. That's the killer - you get ice and snow that's near to freezing point. Ideal for being slippy. Now if the temp would only drop to -10 and *stay* there, we could all get on as that would be like driving on packed sand.
My local tyre suppliers are a two minutes drive away and are family business who seem to be able to price match the big chains . They swap my wheels for free* so it's not worth getting grubby for.
G.Harman
OTOH on odd occasions I have cursed not havving any grip - like 2 years ago when I had to drive from Robertsbridge to Maidstone to get a new combi oven as it was our only means of cooking and the old one blew up.
This was December when it snowed heavily.
The A21 was compacted snow - only a couple of cars and a few lorries.
Argos or Curries or whoever at Maidstone where down a slopy road that had not been cleared - only just got out again - many didn't!
If I only drove in Britain, I wouldn't bother with winter tyres. They are, however, quite useful if you are touring mainland Europe during winter, as I often do. A few years ago we had -6C in southern France, on the Mediterranean coastal plain.
It really is 7C. However, that is the point at which *start* to give better grip than summer tyres. As you suggest, for normal British winter temperatures, it is probably fairly academic. However, in 1982, temperatures fell below -20C across much of the country.
In response to my complaint, I received a phone call from my insurer today - confirming that they have now added a note to my policy to the effect that I use winter tyres in the winter, and that I would no longer need to inform them every time I change over.
They also put it in writing, in an email.
Many thanks to all who have contributed to this - rather long(!) - thread.
Roger Mills explained on 23/11/2014 :
My insurer requires no such notification, as seems normal for many, but my suggestion if yours does - would be to tell them at renewal times that when it is appropriate for temperature, you will be fitting and removing them.
Roger Mills pretended :
My insurer requires no such notification, as seems to be normal for many, but my suggestion if yours does - would be to tell them at renewal times that when it is appropriate for temperature, you will be fitting and removing them.
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