Wheel spin in snow/ice

[Mr Cholmondeley-Warner]

I noticed that even on the car with only two winter tyres, the other two wheels had all-season tyres on them. Now halve that grip again ....

[TripleS]

I think there is much more danger there, because they are not even thinking about this subject and they are unaware of the extent to which they are being disadvantaged.

I thought this, this morning, that I was glad I didn't have the grippy stoppy tyres as the guy behind would never be able to stop in the distance I could .... so if I did use the brakes I'd be bound to brake no faster than the muppet behind anyway!

I must admit I hadn't thought of that particular situation, but what you say is true. No doubt winter tyres give us a better chance of keeping out of trouble if we misjudge something, but my preference is for learning to live within the limit of grip - whatever that limit might be.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

[Porker]

That's all very well Dave but here in darkest Essex I've had situations where there's no grip whatsoever. Even using every trick I know (handbrake as a limited slip diff. and all the others) I got stuck in a very modest "valley" in the road the other day and had to be towed out by a passing Landrover. It was so slippery that the car was spinning its driving wheels with the engine idling but still remaining stationary.

Winter tyres - I have a set on order....

P.

[Gareth]

my preference is for learning to live within the limit of grip - whatever that limit might be.

That's pretty much what I've always said and I still think it applies. My direct experience has been that winter tyres move the limit such that some impassable roads become passable.

The small valley that Porker became stuck in? I went along there the following morning and thought nothing of it. Then I drove the road another four times during the course of the day and the only issue I had was trying a hill start. The hill start didn't work, but after rolling back a couple of yards and not even all the way down the hill, I was able to get going again.


Added ...

I have another example closer to home; our drive! It's really just a concrete front garden, but it's where we park our cars so we call it a drive. Hanna's car has been mostly stuck on it during the recent icy conditions. Oh, she could drive it off and onto the road but she wouldn't get it back. Our immediate neighbours are in the same situation and they've been parking their cars on the road, if they've moved them at all. On the other hand I've been able to drive on and off the drive with very little difficulty.

There's a slight slope on the road outside our house, so slight that you'd never think to call it a hill except when it's icy. Hanna's car got stuck at the 'bottom' about 30 yards from our house in the December icy conditions. On the other hand, our other car with winter tyres has had no such bother.

The tyres have meant the difference between mobility and no mobility.

[TripleS]

OK, I accept some of what you say, but bearing in mind the amount of driving I need to do, and the areas in which I need to be driving, I don't feel that winter tyres would be worthwhile for me, and it is, after all, a matter for the individual to judge.

I don't propose to make any further comments on this topic.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

[Nanuq]

Buy a 4x4.... They're great. My Shogun and I have spent days pulling people out of ditches, dropping off food etc to neighbours and chewing through 80L of fuel in 25o miles!

[Renny]

what sort of winter tyres are you using, and how did you arrive at your choice?

Vredestein Snowtrac 3 - <snip>
I picked the narrowest tyre / smallest wheel combination recommended by the manufacturer, ordered steel wheels in that size then picked the higher speed rating tyre, so I have H-rated winter tyres instead of the standard V-rated summer tyres on a car that anyway can't go faster than 129 mph. Incidently the wheel / tyre choice resulted in less unsprung weight!

Gareth,

where did you order your wheel/tyre sets from?

[Gareth]

where did you order your wheel/tyre sets from?

I ordered steel wheels from my local Skoda dealer - I wanted to be sure that the wheels fitted over the calipers as I was going down a size. Once checked I ordered the tyres from Camskill, then took wheels and tyres to one of my local tyre places to get them fitted. Finally I put them on the car in the cold and dark a few days before the west of London December snow fall, smearing some copper grease on the hubs in the hope that the wheels would come off more easily.

[waremark]

I have spent the last week driving round a ski resort in a Defender. Could not see a mountain/snowflake symbol on the tyres, but they certainly seemed to do a good job going up and down steep snowy and icy hills. I had one sticky (or not sticky enough!) moment, when I did not leave quite enough braking space coming to a flat hairpin and slid a bit - but ok within the available space. (We had fantastic ski conditions)

[Renny]

I have spent the last week driving round a ski resort in a Defender. Could not see a mountain/snowflake symbol on the tyres, but they certainly seemed to do a good job going up and down steep snowy and icy hills. I had one sticky (or not sticky enough!) moment, when I did not leave quite enough braking space coming to a flat hairpin and slid a bit - but ok within the available space. (We had fantastic ski conditions)

That sounds like my ideal ski holiday. Was it your Defender, or was it part of the "package"? We're heading off to Tignes next month, but not with the Discovery I'm planning a driving/skiin trip to the Alps maybe at Christmas.

Anyways, back on topic. I've noticed many M+S tyres for 4x4s do not have the snowflake symbol which only seems to apply with the more specialist winter as opposed to M+S tyres. Although the more open pattern on All-Terrain tyres does seem to work better than both closed road-biased tyres or very open block Mud tyres. A lot has to do with sensible 4x4s having relatively narrow tyres for their weight and evenly split transmission of drive..

[YorkshireJumbo]

I have another example closer to home; our drive! It's really just a concrete front garden, but it's where we park our cars so we call it a drive. Hanna's car has been mostly stuck on it during the recent icy conditions. Oh, she could drive it off and onto the road but she wouldn't get it back. Our immediate neighbours are in the same situation and they've been parking their cars on the road, if they've moved them at all. On the other hand I've been able to drive on and off the drive with very little difficulty.

There's a slight slope on the road outside our house, so slight that you'd never think to call it a hill except when it's icy. Hanna's car got stuck at the 'bottom' about 30 yards from our house in the December icy conditions. On the other hand, our other car with winter tyres has had no such bother.

The tyres have meant the difference between mobility and no mobility.

We had a similar problem with the drive to our group of 5 houses. We live up an ungritted country lane with a slight hill, with a sharp turn onto our longish drive which is on a steeper hill - you can't really get a run-up. I only got halfway up in our FWD automatic locked into 2nd gear, so I thought I'd try reversing up. I couldn't even get started on the slight hill on the lane, forward or reverse and in the end had to drive back to the crossroads at the bottom, turn round and drive up again. I did this 3 times before getting up, so it was very much the hill-start that was impossible, while maintaining momentum was the key.

After that, I pumped up the tyre pressures. This was to reduce the contact patch - as I discovered while cycling on ice abroad, tyres grip much better with higher pressure - would you rather cross ice on spiked shoes or skis? This is one reason why SWMBO's Yaris on skinny tyres got up the hill every time without a problem. I then decided to clear the snow/ice off the drive so that I'd have a better chance next time, and 2 of our neighbours Range Rovers on wide road tyres failed to stop when they saw me and sailed past me down the drive with their ABS activated.

I also switched the tyres front to back, because last autumn the tyre fitters insisted that new tyres should always go on the rear, and said they would refuse to fit new tyres on the front for safety reasons - something to do with people coping better with understeer than oversteer. I'd rather have the grip on the front tyres to keep moving.

WRT to mixing tyre types, last year we had to use chains on the fronts while driving off the mountain after skiing, and had a small oversteer moment on a couple of hairpins at very, very low speed. Differing grip levels definitely affect the stability of the car...