As we have to travel in often hazardous conditions to salt and clear snow we have for many years fitted winter tyres, these serving two purposes of allowing us to travel and giving us a fighting chance of avoiding collisions with the majority of other road users who are clueless about driving in poor conditions.
We have used a variety of brands over the years from mid range to lower premium brands such as Bridgestone. We have been disappointed in the performance generally, done a lot of research using the ADAC tyre test tables which are contradictory in their findings and difficult to interpret.
Looking for recommendations, these must be for tyres that conform to the three peaks test and not M&S tyres and are load rated at a minimum 114.
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I use Michelin Cross climate tyres. I have done for ten year's. I'm amazed how good they are in the snow! Through snow drifts up snow covered hill roads. I liked them so much I had them fitted to my wife's golf.
OK they are not dedicated winter tyres. Because they perform so well I would imagine Michelin winter tyres would be even better.
Thanks, yes the michelin cross climate do perform well in tests. Narrowed it down to Michelin agilis alpin and Continental van contact winter but can't decide!!
Would be an easy choice for me. I Had a couple of different continental tyres on my hareem of bikecycles and I hate them, poor quality rubbish grip.
I had a set of winter tyres when I first started, and ran them for the first few years... they worked ish.... the problem were all the cars blocking the routes... literally get past one abandoned or stuck car, and youre up against the next - so decided to introduce a "duvet day"... it inevitably turned into a paperwork day... but was a lot more pleasant
yes definitely leaning towards the sub duvet option myself and couple of weeks in the canary isles to avoid Christmas at least but i guess some contracts include salting/gritting/snow clearance as required, my work vehicle is 4WD so same tyres all year round seem fine, after going to the trouble of fitting winter tyres chances are it's another mild winter with only a few days of snow, but it depends on the area i suppose
Thats so funny, i remember going between jobs through the outskirts of London in my Toyota Hilux a few years back when the snow started coming down real heavy, it litterly took me hours going around all the stranded vehicles, up kerbs, across verges, up and down steep snow covered inclines, i gave up going to the next job and headed home, when i got back to my home village the roads were completely empty because everyone else was stuck on the hills around it, Done paperwork for the next couple of days as really not worth the hassle of going out again.
yes the Michelin Agilis winter van tires are what you need. A proper dedicated full winter tire. I left mine on all summer and they behaved really well.
Another option is Nokian van rated winter tires, unstoppable on my 4 motion van. But don't leave 'em on through summer.
James, yes we don't keep winter tyres on all year. We did try to buy Nokian a few years ago but as we need 10ply ( 116/114 load rated) due to GVW struggled to source have just spent some time looking again but can't find any. If you had to choose Michelin or Nokian?