Have been around a long time. But now it’s time for a name change.
Tyres for winter were known as Snow tyres in early days. From the nineties on. These tyres were developed to cope with better cars . So and better road surfaces. So away went the heavy tread patterns.
That were associated with the old snow tyres. In came the tyres with more and more refined tread patterns. Complete with sipes. To get rid of the slush and snow from building up in the tyres tread . Also, they were now much better in just wet, rainy conditions.
Tyre makers also introduced silica in the tyre compound.
Thus, to reduce the freezing affects when the temperature fell below 7 degrees,. This has helped cars drive in winter. Hence, with much better handling and steering,. Which keeps the car on a straight course when braking heavily.
Also a tyres pressure drops by 10psi when the temperature drops below freezing a fact that is seldom mentioned. Also winter tyres are better designed to be fitted on the vast range of SUV vehicles that have emerged onto our car market over the past 10 years.
The old tyre snow tyres would not have coped with the handling qualities of these specialised vehicles in winter time
They would have been too rigid and heavy on the tread pattern; it would have been like fitting heavy-duty off-road 4×4 tyres on to your SUV. They would have been very noisy and difficult to handle on a normal, dry road in between spells of bad weather.
Firestone winter tyres are now regarded as the old fashioned type snow tyres used in the late 1960’s
Now that we have the development of winter tyres
These vehicles act and can be controlled to a far better standard; you would not even know that you have had winter tyres fitted.
Pellon Tyre and Auto-centre offer car and van servicing and repairs to all makes of vehicles. We are not now members of Unipart Car Care centres and give a nationwide guarantee for all our work and parts.
A reader wonders if snow tires will help a Toyota Camry reach the top of a very steep hill.
Snow Tyres
In my opinion, the answer to this is a resounding YES. Hence, this type of pick-up truck do not grip the road very well at the best of times. As a result of owning a Nissan Navarre, I lost the thing on a few occasions. Even in the summer on a wet road.
I fitted a set of winter tyres (snow tyres), and the truck was a different animal in summer and winter.
For this reason, snow tyres are not just for SUV vehicles? Therefore, in my opinion, snow tyres and winter tyres are the same thing.
Because, in the past, we always associated snow tyres with being very heavy-tread tyres. Thus, they look more like today’s 4×4 tyres used for mud and slush. Especially on farms and in fields.
The new breed of winter tyres are far from this and have to combine good grip in bad weather along with the ability to drive down motorways.
In fact, I believe that these tyres were first developed in Germany for the drivers who could speed down the motorway‘s and then have to climb up mountains to get to the ski resorts in ice and snow. Usually in their BMW or Mercedes.
Snow Tyres
The old-fashioned snow tyre would be too noisy for this because of the lumpy, heavy tread pattern.
The car would also have been difficult to control with these heavy tyres fitted. Anybody with an old-fashioned 4×4 vehicle that is equipped with heavy-duty M&S tyres will tell you how bad the vehicle is to handle and the noise that these types of tyres make.
This is certainly no good for the modern car that needs to be driven at speed and still retain the safety aspects that a modern winter tyre will give them. The ideal time to fit your car with winter tyres is from October to Easter, although the year before last gave us an exceptionally cold spell with heavy snowfall at the end of March.
In general, though, this is the best time period to fit your winter tyres (snow tyres), when the temperature begins to drop below 7 degrees.
Firestone winter tyres are now regarded as the old-fashioned type snow tyres used in the late 1960.
Although I am writing this article in early November
There are signs that we may be running out of certain-sized snow tyres, This is because winter tyre production is based on last year’s sales figures, and once a certain-sized tyre has sold out, that is it until next year.
Most tyres for winter use are pre-ordered by the countries that have to fit winter tyres by their countries laws, and that leaves the rest for the remainder of Europe to scrape over , including us here in the UK.
Bridgestone Tyres has set out a list of 16 good reasons to fit winter tyres and I thought it would make good reading for our customers and readers.
Snow Tyres
Snow Tyres
“1. Winter tyres perform better in winter conditions like frost, snow or ice-covered roads 2. Winter tyres have shorter braking distances, better grip and improved steering performance on snow- and ice-covered roads. 3. Winter tyres offer greater safety when travelling in winter conditions. 4. Summer tyres are simply not suitable for driving on snow or ice 5. In certain countries, driving on appropriate tyres in winter conditions is required by law and can be sanctioned if not followed.
6. These fines can be much higher if you disrupt traffic because your car has the wrong tyres. 7. Winter tyres are made using a special compound and tread pattern to make them more suited to cold weather. 8. Not even the most advanced car technology can compensate for tyres which are not suitable for the road conditions. 9. Modern winter tyres are just as comfortable and can be as quiet as summer tyres. 10. Winter tyres provide significantly higher levels of safety, even in highly changeable autumn weather.
11.At low temperatures, even when there is no snow, summer tyres become less efficient 12. Even 4×4 vehicles need winter tyres in snowy and icy conditions. 13. All-year tyres typically do not perform as well in winter conditions as winter tyres but are still more effective than summer tyres. 14. Statistically, in central Europe, if you add up all of the days where it was wet, icy, frosty or snowing, you have 185 days of winter weather each year. 15. Modern winter tyres cost more or less the same as summer tyres. 16. Fitting winter tyres saves you money because you aren’t using your summer tyres and are extending their lifespan”. Pellon Tyre and Auto-centre offer car and van servicing and repairs to all makes of vehicles.
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