Get Winter Tyres!

So, there I was in the Swiss Alps last week, and for two days in a row the main road in the village was blocked by a car with standard tyres on. The second time it was British and we helped them to (eventually) move it out the way. To be fair, the road was clear tarmac up to the village, and patchy tarmac/snow in it, so I could understand why they hadn't fitted chains.

Chatting to the English driver, I said that the problem was that all the other cars had winter tyres on, and that it's pretty much standard for Swiss and German drivers to have them: up to 30% shorter stopping distance - even on tarmac - in temperatures below 8 Centigrade, and obviously better adhesion in snow. Chains are really a last resort for steep inclines and/or icy conditions.

I said that although winter tyres mean your summer tyres last longer (i.e. it doesn't cost any more in terms of tyre usage), I could appreciate that most English drivers don't fell that they're worth investing in if they only use the car once every few years for a ski trip. "Oh no" replied the driver, "we come every year, at least once". I then said that it was probably difficult to justify when most motorways are kept clear - "Well, yes, but we came the direct route over the Jura. It was hell. And back in 2004 we only narrowly avoided a couple of accidents on the Autorote near Lyons in the snow. But it just doesn't seem worth the hassle of storing them, or switching them round each winter.".

These people always drove to the Alps, each winter. They changed their £20K car every 3-4 years. They could obviously afford the £100/year cost of swapping to/from winter tyres, and the capital cost of a set. So why don't they get winter tyres, and make their own journey safer and easier, and avoid the inevitable accident with a European who simply won't understand the logic of driving a car with summer tyres up a mountain in the middle of winter?

Strongly agree, and having had the worst (best?) snow and continued low temperatures in the UK for many years, maybe they will become more common?

I'm gonna hijack now tyres still up for grabs )

Surprised winter tyres are not compulsory!

Anyone know anything about tyres, what are all year tyres, they do not seem to be much more expensive then standard winter ones - about £20

I'm not an expert, just someone who has tried to find out a bit about the small patches of rubber that are in contact with the road (we hope). From what I have read and experienced, winter tyres have special addatives which makes them far more 'grippy' in low temperatures, that is, below 7 degrees C. They work better in the wet and have special small 'sipes' or cuts in the individual tyre blocks to allow them to flex open and grip surfaces like snow, ice and slush far more efficiently than summer tyres, and give better braking performance in typical winter conditions. The downside is that above this temperature, they tend to wear down more quickly than summer tyres and may feel a bit 'vague' when cornering at high speed. All season tyres, then, are a compromise. They offer better wet and snow performance than regular summer tyres, and will not wear so quickly in the summer months. These tyres I am trying to sell are in the 'All Season' category, but have a stronger winter performance than a lot of others in this class (look for the mountain & snowflake logo on the sidewall). For the UK, I think that these tyres are the most sensible type to use, unless, like a lot of continental drivers, you have a set of full winter tyres in the garage to swap out the summer tyres during the winter season.

Moving on to hire cars and winter tyres, we hired a car from the French sector at Geneva and were told they had run out of cars with winter tyres and had no snow chains. You can imagine how 'desole' they were.

We drove up to Val d'isere figgering we'd get some chains if it dumped; in the end, we had to leave the car anyway because the diesel froze while it was in the car park. :evil:

When you hire from the Swiss side, it's more $$$$ generally but the cars are compulsorily 'winterized' which means snow tyres and relevant additives to fuel and washer.