Also, different makes of tyre tend to score better or worse in given situations. Tyres are rated with letter gradings for:
- fuel economy (rolling resistance)
- grip in wet conditions
- grip in snowy conditions
My wife's old car had tyres which were very good in the wet: if you hit a puddle, the car kept going straight without swerving due to one side being braked by the puddle. However those tyres were very poor in snowy conditions: trying to go up a gentle gradient on compacted snow, one wheel would invariably lose traction so the car would stop (aren't differentials wonderful!). My car has budget tyres. The car isn't quite as good as hers for keeping in a straight line if it hits a puddle, but can get up hills that causes hers to spin.
OK, so there's also the fact that they are different cars, but both are FWD and are of similar size, so the weight on the driving wheels is probably fairly similar.
That's only assuming you have made it that far in the first place?
I wonder if there are more crashed cars in the scrap yards with newish budget tyres than with well worn branded ones?
I'm not sure that is relevant as few tyres perform 'better' (in the wet / snow) with worn tread than with fresh ones. And how would you test for such things, sort of going round tyre places and finding 'just legal' examples of different brand tyres?
Erm ... ;-)
I'm not sure they are. They might be interested to get the best bang-for-buck re wet stopping distances (in England), but only general grip in the snow / mud, if they live in remote areas or 'likely' to be regularly exposed to either and it be inconvenient to them not to be able to cope?
Yup. That's why we are only really talking of 'all season' tyres here, not full winter.
But it only takes one wet related instance to ruin your life, one that
*might* have been avoidable for the sake of not knowingly running a tyre known not to offer good performance in the wet?
A winter tyre shouldn't be run in the summer for that reason but that's the 'whole point' of an 'all season tyre', that it can handle 'all seasons'.
However, if you look at the performance / comparison test graphs you will see it's all a compromise.
Most summer tyres perform better than (even) all season tyres in the summer (and why that's what we generally fit in the UK and use all year).
Most summer tyres perform better in the wet than (even) all season tyres.
Most 'all season' tyres perform better in the mud / snow than most summer tyres.
There will be exceptions to some of this and the likes of the Michelin Cross Climate do seem to be a good compromise, *if* you value the idea that they make keep you (and others etc) safer in a broader range of conditions than a summer or winter tyre, value such to the tune of £500 for a set of 4 tyres on a car that may have cost less than that (not that that matters from a safety pov).
I think most sensible / interested / aware people 'value' suitable tyres in the same way as they would general vehicle maintenance and good insurance and as is the same with most things, better costs more (but may save loads more in the long run).
When I buy tyres for any vehicle (especially motorbikes / scooters) I'm only interested in grip, especially in the wet (when grip is generally at it's lowest (in a way that any std tyre can resolve)) and am not interested how long they might (not) last. The same would apply if I was a motorcycle delivery guy because if I come off (because of poor tyre grip) and can't work because I'm injured, or destroy my transport, the 'saving' in a cheaper tyre then becomes expensive.
You only have to watch a bit of F1 to see that there is no overall "best" tyre. And, a tyre designed for the wet, when you need most grip, fails to grip in the dry.
All teams have the same tyre selection and are racing on the same track but different compounds suit some cars better than others. Even the different driving styles can influence the performance (and/or longevity of the tyre).
As you seem to be very concerned with the complex aspects of tyre performance, perhaps you should investigate those accidents in which tyre performance was a factor. The police collect these statistics and they may be online. They may help you with making a choice of tyre, when you pose such questions as to the road conditions at the time, the state of repair of the vehicle prior to the incident, the condition of the tyres, the speed of the vehicle, etc.
You need to decide what your priorities really are, such as cost, availability, performance regarding wear, noise, and grip, rather than asking endless questions to which there is no definitive answer. Getting your research methodology right is probably your best way of avoiding repeating yourself or adding extra requirements to your list as they are mentioned in the thread.
If the accident/incident was serious enough, there is a good prospect that a qualified police accident investigator will have written a report, which is likely to go into greater detail if there is any suspicion that tyre performance was a factor.
I think that this is an important aspect of T i m ' s research, as he is clearly unhappy with making a judgement using a combination of the various performance characteristics that are moulded into every tyre wall, the price, and the quality of the stearic acid used in their manufacture. Usenet anecdata will surely be trumped by official police reports, given his concerns with safety which would demand a comprehensive and authoritative approach.
And Speed. Most ordinary cars can easily exceed 100mph by quite a margin and have tyres capable of that speed. For people who stick to speed limits and rarely use motorways this means you are buying much more expensive tyres than you need for your usage. If you fit replacement tyres that don't match the OEM spec, then I think that is an MOT failure.
And in future they may be date coded so that after X years they must be replaced. Tyre compounds do seem to harden with age, especially if stored, even in the dark.
Yes ... but not as catastrophically badly as a dry tyre in the wet.
The point is that there is no grippier tyre in the dry and with a smooth road surface than a slick. The ultimate example of that being the rear tyres on a dragster. The only point of 'tread' is to displace water and if there are gaps between the bits of rubber those gaps don't provide any grip at all. Plus, if the gaps big and the blocks small the tread allows the car / tyre to 'moved about', generating excessive heat and potential (early) failure.
In the wet, a slick will aquaplane very quickly, not because of the grip between the rubber and the tarmac but because the rubber isn't in contact with the tarmac.
True.
Indeed.
When I did the Extended Rally Experience at Brands you can do the thing you see on the TV where they 'set the car up' for a corner by wagging the tail out to go round a corner in the opposite direction (with the throttle or handbrake). ;-)
When Michelin stopped making the tire I liked, I couldn't really buy it any more. And in some cases, your car tire size is not popular, and the majors don't make tires in that size any more. That's how I ended up with Toyos on the other car - no alternatives at the shop. I read the reviews before I got them, and they were rated 3/5 by the reviewers, and that's exactly what they were worth. Sure, the deep treads of a winter tire, likely to pull through snow on my street just fine. But traction under all winter conditions... not so much. I couldn't trust those tires for the "black ice recovery test", because I'd be in the ditch on the other side of the road by then.
And the funny part is, you can be looking at two brands of tires, see they both nominally have sipes, and yet one of the sipes doesn't work worth shit. Which means it's got to be the compound they're made of, making the difference.
Availability is a sparse matrix. The tire installer will start by searching the catalog for the "exactly correct" profile. Once that search is exhausted, then they play the "but an X*Y*Z will also fit that rim" game. And then later, maybe you hear a scraping sound coming from somewhere, and you know that "no, that X*Y*Z solution does not work on this car". Or maybe you put 500lb of materials in the back some day, and you hear the scraping sound coming from the wheel well.
This is one of the reasons I buy tires from a dedicated tire shop. You get to observe them, doing the search through the catalogs, then through the computer, iterating as directed by the customer. Sometimes the guy will say something stupid like "I've only got three of those". I love comments like that. At a car dealership, you'd never get to hear all the failed search results when they're searching for a solution.
We had an engineer at work, who was a "tire expert", and if you brought the details of your car and rim to him, he could tell you what product on one of the web tire sites would work. This was also the same engineer who understood the company pension plan, and could tell you why the new pension plan was a loser. We call these "unexpected assets" at work, when you discover hidden skills like that. So if, say, I hadn't found the Toyos for the previous car, I would have been over to his desk for an "analysis". His first comment would have been "they don't make wheels that size any more", which means you're dealing with the tail end of production runs.
It doesn't take much to have cars off the road in the UK. Oddly quite often BMW's.
Driven a few times not being sure where the road went. One time as on the A1M near Leeds in the storm a week or so after the "Beast from the East". Thick driving snow, visibilty just a few tens of yards, road well covered no cat eyes or lines visible, no hint of tracks from other vehicles. Kept one side or the other running along the cats eyes at < 30 mph, hoping that there was no pillock doing 70 coming up behind me...
Another time over the tops from Teesdale into South Tyne Dale, hill fog, visibilty just few tens of yards, couldn't see from one snow pole to the next, no walls, couple of inches of fresh snow on road, no tracks, figured if it got bumpy I was no longer on the road...
Trouble is with chains you knacker your tyres if you drive on tarmac with them fitted. Be a right PITA in most of the UK having to put them on/take them off. Same with studded tyres. Fine if all the roads are deep packed snow though.
Used to but having run a worn out set of winters through the summer and not noticed any significant difference in wear rate don't bother now and run witers all year. Mind you "winter" in this part of the UK starts in at the begining of November and goes to end of April...
I'd try to do it a degree or so warmer but as you say the real killer is the wind. 0 C and much above 15 mph is enough to keep us inside, wind chill down to about -15 C. Worst I've had to venture out in was the morning of the Beast from the East, to turn the lights off on a car that had been abandoned on our forecourt. Not that windy (for here) only F6 to F7 just about making 30 mph sustained but the air temp was -7 giving a windchill approaching -25 C. Was well wrapped up and only out for about 5 mins but I now know what "chilled to bone means". Also discovered what white out means, fell over 18" deep ruts in the snow left by a tractor as I couldn't see them.
Most of the north from Leeds doesn't get real snow, it too low, you need a bit of altitude up on the Pennines of Peak District to get real snow.
Being 1400' on the North Pennines, we get real snow (about 6" lying outside ATM), so yes we run 4WDs mine has proper winters, her's what looks like an all season but guess who gets sent out when conditions are "bad". Not that I mind being able to play in the snow. B-)
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