Anyone driven on just a pair of winter tyres?

I'd go with Matt on that one, false economy as instead of understeering into a crash, you'll just oversteer as the back end comes round ;D

Not being dramatic, just had some nasty experiences having done it myself. I now run winter tyres every year on a spare set of rims, to be honest winter tyres aren't just for snow, that's a common misconception. In most European countries when the temp drops below seven degrees you have to have them by law, frankly it's a joke given the density of population in this country that we don't have the same. Buy 'em and revel in the difference

Been looking at them too, just wondering howdurable they really are though.

from memory snow socks are similar to chains.

ie put em on, get unstuck, take em off, carry on

edit:

yeah, just checked one of those ebay adverts.

This ^ Say you get through a set of tyres a year, this way a set will last two

slightly off topic, but I recently bought a set of Goodyear Vector 4 all weather tyres for my polo. its not worth the hassle of me buying a set of summer and winter tyres as I only drive 2000 miles a year. not the cheapest of tyres, but looking at some reviews some of the cheaper all weather tyres have limitations in their usage. was also thinking of getting Hankook Optimo 4S tyres

ah cumon, I went through the 'snow' last year on a set of half bald part worns on a TD mondeo, and pulled a couple of stuck cars out, complete with drivers who have no idea how to drive in snow... It doesn’t get cold enough here to justify it, the N. Europeans get much colder for longer so it's a different matter over there, my family in Central France had to fit mud terrain tyres to their Defender last year as it kept getting stuck in the drifts...

My transit never got stuck either despite being fitted with those amazing solid rubber tyres with no lateral grooves at all...

I also live completely out in the sticks, up a long steep hill, and out local roads are never gritted so it's not like I'm sitting cushy in a big city..

we get at most a week of snow, can't see it justifies it really..

That said I do also own a Range Rover (and have done for the last 5 years) never got that stuck yet...

i see why people would take the precaution.... i only ever got stuck once and thats because my rear wheel got stuck in a hole i forgot existed!

last winter i went out at about 2am in the heaviest snow ive ever seen, main beams on and reag fog light on too and had a blast of a time.... really improved my confidence in the snow

i was purposefully making myself slide and learning how to control it, i didnt hit enything and was running 195/50/15 on my micra at the time.... didnt have a problem pulling me along

I think those saying 'we only get a bit of snow - it's not worth it' are missing the point of winter tyres. Driving on fresh snow is relatively easy. It's the cold, icy, wet roads that are worst, when the temperature is fluctuating around zero from day to day. That's when winter tyres come into their own.

Winter tyres and M+S or snow tyres are not the same thing. I do a lot of driving in northern Sweden and we use three different types of tyres (summer, winter and studded) depending on the season.

I bought a set of michelin alpin A4's last year and ran them on our volvo.

lemme try and describe the difference,. on summer tyres, the moment you lose grip thats it, the wheels spin up with no grip what so ever and your either going no where, or you aint stopping any time soon.

on winter tyres, its much harder to lose grip (the rubber's softer and the cuts (sipes) in the rubber literally sucker you to the tarmac/snow/ice. when you do lose grip, if your accelerating, it isnt a total loss of grip, it feels more like losing grip on tarmac, Ie that the tyres are still digging in and dragging you forward. I didnt bother trying to find out what happened when I locked the wheels under braking.

everything feels much more positive and controlable.

as others have said, yes its expensive, but you get to put your summer rubber away for 4/5 months and at the end of the day everything should last a little longer than normal as your only running each set of tyres during its optimal tempreture.

also, a word of caution, if you wanna go out buying part worn rubber, try and make sure its got at least 4-5mm of tread on it. winter tyres have given their best by the time the tread is down to 4mm, and indeed some countries don't even consider them to be winter tyres when they have less than 4mm tread on them

Evo have a nice winter tyres test in the mag this month, i;'m sure a couple of the other mags will be doing them as well, might be worth a bit of your reading time if your interested.

have a nice little video showing the difference between summer, all season and winter tyres on sheet ice