Hi guys wonder if anyone can help me out.

I bought a Subaru forester Sti late last year, lovely car but it was fitted with winter tyres when I got it (now have a second set of wheels with summer tyres on). These winter tyres seem to be expensive brand tyres by reviews I have searched for, but im having awful feel from them.

First off they are superb in the snow and icy roads, but today I managed a well pulled of drift around an island by mistake. Its dry and about 6 degrees so well within their range of operating temperature. But they have zero feel to them and very poor grip on this type of road. So much i dont want to use them.

Can anyone recoment tyre pressures as i think i have them set wrong, being at about 40 psi on the front and 35 psi on the rears. is this too much?

We have run winter tyres for years on several models of car for the last ten years. In Bavaria where we have driven it is a legal requirement to use them in winter and they must have at least 4mm tread if snow exists. Without exception they have all been brilliant and have gripped the road brilliantly. We have always run the manufacturer recommended tyre pressure and have had no issues at all. We have had cheaper brands and the so called premium brands and without exception every one has performed brilliantly and given excellent levels of grip.
Are your tyre pressures at Suburu pressures? If not haven't a clue

My experience is they don't grip anything like as well as a normal tyre in normal conditions. Hardly surprising, they're optimised for ice and snow.

Continental winter great in thè snow wet or dry

How old are they? I find once they age & go hard then they are dire.

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Originally posted by coyoteboy
My experience is they don't grip anything like as well as a normal tyre in normal conditions. Hardly surprising, they're optimised for ice and snow.

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I've always found that around the 7 degree point is when they start to feel pretty bad. One day last week we peaked up at 12 degrees and the car felt like it was on flats. As above they start to squirm and feel squidgy. I run ours at 32 psi which is the Audi recommended pressure for the size of tire.

Personally I use decent all season tyres as my winter ones - the logic being that our winters are almost never bad enough to really need full winter tyres, but are frequently in that in-between cold, wet, muddy stage...


They still lack a bit of grip and feel compared to summer ones when the weather is good, but not as bad as full winter ones.
So I've still got a set of summer ones on other wheels too.

[Edited on 13/1/2018 by mcerd1]

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Originally posted by sdh2903
I've always found that around the 7 degree point is when they start to feel pretty bad. One day last week we peaked up at 12 degrees and the car felt like it was on flats. As above they start to squirm and feel squidgy. I run ours at 32 psi which is the Audi recommended pressure for the size of tire.

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yes, running good quality big brand mud & snow tyres on my van and they do perform poorly in dry conditions (steering wander, road noise, less grip). However, amazing in icy/snow conditions. Will look forward to getting continentals back on in a month or so.

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/accessories-tyres/winter-driving-special/93097/winter-tyres-test-2017-best-tyre-brands-reviewed-and

I have hankook winter tyres on my c class Mercedes I’ve used them for two years winter and summer and they have superb done around 14k and rears have 5mm left and fronts around 6mm left never had a issue a very good tyre and quiet aswell .

I have had second sets of wheels and winter tyres for about 10 years now on both mine and the wifes cars. These have included a Focus, Zafira, Mazda 5 and Mini. They have been a mixtures of brands including Goodyear, Pirelli, Nokian, Vredestien and Continental.

I made this choice to always have them when our Zafira went from being a dangerous liability in the snow on a school run to 'nothing can stop us' (in normal English weather that is, including half a foot of snow, and still driving sensibly for the conditions).

I tend to swap over to them in November and back to summer tyres in March. During this period the average temperature is below the magically 7°C when these rubbers work best. I tend to set the tyre pressures as recommended by the car manufacture. I sometimes have to google to find this info but any car we have that is sold in Germany etc will have recommended winter tyre pressure for there

None of the winter tyres have as much feel as a summer tyre and they never will, the tread blocks have to flex to work. I never drive that close to the limit at this time of the year (but I am also not 'driving miss daisy' so its never been a problem for us.

A good customer of mine that I have known for years now uses Michelin winter tyres on his family car all year around with no safety concerns. He does work in the Michelin technical center in Ladoux and they like to have the feedback from staff but he wouldn't use them all year if he had any safety concerns about use in warmer weather.

Having said all that my Discovery Sport still only has one set up wheels whilst I am looking for a decent set of black 19" Land Rover wheels to put some winter tyres on but it does have Continental all season tyres on it at the moment which have been fine this winter.

based on my own experience I'd agree that most decent summer tyres on nice clean roads (wet or dry) probably have better feel and possibly even grip down to much lower temps than the magic +7°C that they are supposedly designed for (ie. in the 1 to 4°C temps we seem to get for most of the winter)

but if you live anywhere with a chance of some decent amount snow or even just a high chance of dirty / muddy roads then the summer tyres find there limits pretty quickly...


I frequently have to drive up a steep hill that is also an 'S' bend, over a bridge with no barriers/edges and has a very rough gravel surface (get it really wrong and your options are ending up in a field, a stream or the east coast mainline ) - add on a few inches of hard packed snow and on the last car these were the difference between hardly being able to move up the hill...

Summer

...and just driving up it with no problems at all

Winter


although I have to say my older cars (cheap little hatches) were never bothered about the snow, but they all had much narrower tyres with old fashioned tread patterns (the sizes tended to only be available in budget ranges even from good brands)
I know that some of the manufacturers offer winter wheel and tyre options that use smaller rim sizes and much narrower tyres than the summer options.


[Edited on 24/1/2018 by mcerd1]

Has anybody tried the Michelin Crossclimates?
They appear to be nearly as good as a very good summer tyre, and likewise winter tyres (except lots of snow, but down here we don't get much of that)

But real life reviews would be good

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Originally posted by cliftyhanger
Has anybody tried the Michelin Crossclimates?
They appear to be nearly as good as a very good summer tyre, and likewise winter tyres (except lots of snow, but down here we don't get much of that)

But real life reviews would be good

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Yeah, i’ve got cross climates on an e-class merc, brilliant tyre to be honest, not too buzzy/whiny on the autobahn and you can still climb slopes with snow up to scraping the bib spoiler, theyre great if you hit standing water at speed. Good at towing trailers out of soft fields. Theyre suprisingly ok in summer when pushing on in twisty roads baring in mind its probably a 2 tonne laden buss im impressed. The only thing ive noticed is they shave a couple of mpg avg off a tank and bits of gravel occasionslly get stuck in the treads but id buy the same tyres again. Better having these on an e class wagon than running a 4x4 for what i do.

quote:

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Originally posted by cliftyhanger
Has anybody tried the Michelin Crossclimates?
They appear to be nearly as good as a very good summer tyre, and likewise winter tyres (except lots of snow, but down here we don't get much of that)

But real life reviews would be good

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Thank you for the feedback re the crossclimates. All very encouraging.
I am half tempted to get a set a use them as winter trackday tyres on my spitfire. Can pick a set of 14" up from blackcircles for approx £175, not at all bad.

I've always found winter tyres to be awesome on snow and terrible on every other winter condition - cold dry, wet, or that slimy state the country lanes always end up in. It goes against what the manufacturers say about being best in all conditions below 7 degrees but that's what I've found.

I used to have to fit them when I lived in Germany and the Germans were so good at clearing snow that they were pointless.