[Bonefishblues]

Originally Posted by Turbodave

Again, so many variables... you can't compare "winters" and "All seasons" as a crap winter may be out performed by a good all season and via versa. You'd need to get granular and compare X winter tyre to Y all season tyre in back to back tests.

Winters are good in snow but being honest, I've run Dunlop Ultragrip 8 and also Nokian WR4 up here in Central Scotland so hardly the Alps... and I wasn't impressed by either and felt the marginal improvement on fresh snow was quickly negated by their rather uninspiring performance in frosty, icy or worse still, damp conditions. In fact in the latter I think both were crap.

I've run Vredsetein Quatrac 5 in all conditions, 10" of snow and a wet, cold lap of the Ring and felt they outclassed the above winter tyres in every sense. I've currently got Vredestein Quatrac Pro on one car, Cross Climates on the other and again have driven all year round, snow included and my conclusion is I wouldn't buy Cross Climates again as I find their lateral grip in snow or slush a bit lacking, they let go before the Quatracs do but granted, are marginally better in dry, warm weather.

Being fair, I think most of us would struggle to note significant differences between the top five summer, winter or all season tyres in the real world but we'd notice how bad summers are in the winter weather and how bad winters are in the summer. So yes, swapping between both makes sense if you want to eek out that last morsel of performance at the extreme ends of the scales but I don't and nor does swapping / storing wheels appeal, hence, all seasons.

...but winters are a lot less bad in summer than summers are in (proper) winter weather, of course!

...but for most people, most of the time, a good AS is simply 'fit and forget'