what tyres for irish weather

O

ocarros

Sunday Drivers
I know nothing about tyres so all help appreciated. I currently have bridgestone on the car (215 / 55 R 17 94V) and whilst I've found them good in the dry and wet, they have been useless in the snow. The tyres have been on the car about 18 months / 14,000 miles and still some tread on them. I drive about 150 miles a week on decent roads but the access road to my drive is steep, gravelly and often wet. My own driveway is even steeper - about 30 degrees.

When I come to change the tyres (I'll be changing all 4) what do people recommend? The car came with yokohama geolandar's and they had little grip in the wet so am not interested in those. Are all season tyres the ones to get? Can I use winter tyres all year round? Budget is €75 / €100 per tyre.
 
Suppose it depends on what car you have, where you live, what roads (surface condition) you drive most, how many km per year etc. Some of the best winter tyres you can get are made by Nokian, with tyres able to do 270kph on ice / snow... and at a fraction of the cost of some other "big" brands out there. Nangkang do a very reasonable Winter / All Season tyre with a good price / performance ratio.

Some examples:

For the Subaru Impreza I have two sets of rims, one with summers for all out summer grip and one with full winter tyres (not studded as studded not allowed in Ireland). That said if driving relaxed you wouldn't notice the difference, but on a more "spirited" run you would see significant additional grip with the summer tyres in summer conditions.

A4 Avant Quattro 3.0TDI S-Line I also had two separate asets.

Volvo V70 2.4T (front wheel drive) ran winters all year round. Although only front wheel drive, with the addition of the winter tyres it was still more than capable to go over the Wicklow Mountains military roads without issue (like Sally and Wicklow Gaps) during the winter with a few inches of snow.

A6 Allroad I ran winter tyres all year round (air suspension made it a very comfortable car but very lack luster handling so no improvement with summer tyres during the summer as could never push the car handling wise anyway.

Hyundai Tuscon Jeep (4wd) we ran winter tyres all year round... was perfect. Never too hot in Ireland to cause any significant extra wear or less grip... better in the wet then summer tyres and only thing that has sufficient grip in winter conditions like snow and road surfaces below 10 degrees Celsius.

Jaguar X-Type (front wheel drive) been running winters all year round. Current tyres have about 40k kms on them. Backs are like new and fronts are now just over half way worn so about 3.5-4mm left on them. So the wear is not excessive using winter tyres - contrary to what a load of people would have you believe.

The reasonable wear on the winter tyres during the summer is mostly due to only moderate temps and lots of rain in Ireland. Only thing is that winters make a bit more noise on the road, but with the cr@ppy "tar and chippings" roads around where I live you wouldn't notice that, only would notice it on the likes of the M50 and other motorways. You need to increase the tyre pressure by about 10-15% over what the normal tyre pressure index for that car states (e.g. if it says 2.4bar run them at 2.7 if winter tyres). If you do not do this you will have grip issues and additional wear issues (winter tyre side walls are softer due to softer tyre compound and hence need some additional pressure to perform similar to summer tyres vis-a-vis side loading during cornering etc).
 
Thanks for that Keadeen. Lots of good stuff there. I'll check what pressure my tyres are at in the meantime
 
Everyone has his own opinion:
Goodyear eagle f1 lm on third set and very happy. As budget had vredestain vorti also happy with them.
Some say michelin pilot sport are best at the moment and uniroyal rainsport as budget option.
Potenza are factory on most subaru
 
Have rain sport on car at moment very good in wet and dry able to push them more in wet than Pirelli ones I have on other wheels which are good in dry and be a bit careful in wet plus the rain sport are a smoother ride


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Michelin Pilot Sport 3 on my Legacy, pretty happy with them so far for normal driving. Can't comment on snow and ice performance as the car is safely parked up. Way quieter and more comfortable than the jdm bridgestones they replaced though.
Would love a set of winter wheels and tyres too
 
Eagle F1s brilliant used them for years

Defo recommended

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Have had Michelin PS3 on the legacy and found them very good also had 235/40/18 on the s204 found them great but a little expensive. Have Bridgestone re001 on it now and there very good but gone so thinking either Goodyear eagle f1 or michlen pilot sport 4 but f1 nearly 100 euros cheaper for 4
 
:plusone: great summer tyres mentioned there and are (or would be) ones I'd run too.

For the winters (tyres I have ran and liked the price / performance):

Best winter tyre (for Irish / most EU conditions) and had them on several cars:
Nokian WR A4 (had the predecessors).
Some interesting reading on their website... LINK

Great value (€€€ vs performance) winter tyre:
Nankang Snow SV-2 (and they just brought out the version 3 of that).

And on the Jag we are running the all seasons of Nangkang called: All Season Plus N-607.

BTW... have a good look at the info on the EU stickers... try find a tyre with wet rating of A-C in summer or C-E in winters. Also note that sometimes a particular model of tyre could have B in one size, but E in another size for the same make/model of tyre. Note that the wet rating for winter and summer tyres are not in line with each other. What I mean is that a D, or even E, wet rating for a winter tyre will still give a better performance in the wet, and especially driving through standing water to prevent aqua-planing, then a B or C summer tyre.
 
Just my own experience but.

I’ve used continental wintercontact tyres for a few years. Not cheap but seem really good.

One thing which I only discovered recently is that to really perform you need a lot more thread left compared to a summer Tyre. Had one set for 4th or 5th year (on a Santa Fe and then sorrento) and when used in snow before Christmas just didn’t seem great even though there was a lot of thread left. Ended up needing to get a new Tyre and bit the bullet and bought a full set on advice of Tyre guy ( who was not selling me the tyres)

Got the same tyres again, but difference was like night and day next time I used in the snow. Have heard that the tyres don’t perform as well when aged and most manufacturers seem to say they should be replaced after around 4 years regardless of thread so Drop in performance could have been due to that.

As regards driving in the summer, I find they have no feel but I always swap back to summer tyres eventually
 
Uniroyal rainsport 3 on 2 cars here savage tyre and no problem in the snow...and cheap as chips
 
Rain sport 3s holding up well last few days cutting in nice where on wheels when bought them. at the moment I would buy again had Yokhama on car when bought it great in dry as for wet don’t like being thrown too hard
 
I payed around €63 each for my rainsport 3 tyres
Be hard to beat them for the price
Really good tyre in wet and dry .
 
Not winter tyres but had bridgestone duellers suv tyres on qashqai ,pretty expensive and only C rated for wet. Went for Cooper tyres this time almost the same price but A rated for wet.Happy with them so far. Not sure if the mileage will compare.
 
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