Quote:
Originally Posted by I Feel Old
I'm confused about the apparent conclusion in this thread that winter tyres are a necessity and that no one can possibly make it through a winter without them.
How did we all get on before this modern trend to change tyres twice a year? 
The cynic in me can't help but think there's a very heavy dose of marketing behind the fashion.  |
I do understand your point.
We have one car we own and one that we lease. The owned one has winters the lease one not. I could never get the lease company to agree to them. I drive it all year round and just take appropriate care. If we have plenty of snow then I will take the V60 with it's winter boots.
My theory is that as technology has progressed over the past 30 years we have demanded more and more from our tyres. More grip, less noise, better fuel consumption. Meanwhile fashion has pushed us into wider and wider tyres. My 1997 V70 T5 had 205.50.16s which were considered sporty tyres back then. Now 20inch tyres are really not uncommon. You will get tyres on an XC90 now which you could have had on a Ferrari 20 years ago.
So the combination of compounds to deliver everything that we want, plus the trend for wider and wider tyres has reduced winter performance. Plus of course driving skill is lower now as we have lots of electronics which get us out of dealing with under or over steer.
When the snow or ice comes drivers ard therefore less well prepared to deal with a skid, plus of course our roads are so much busier to any issues cause so much more chaos.
Winter tyres were always pretty common on mainland Europe but as you rightly point out we kind of resisted in the UK.
So as all the above has happened, we have looked to Europe and seen that winter tyres work well there and started to adopt. And of course the tyre manufacturers are more than happy to sell more tyres so they have helped the trend.
Finally dont forget that alot of the feedback on here is negative to 2 winters and 2 summers on a car. There is little evidence but I believe this is far worse that just driving carefully on 4 summers....