Winter Tyres ????
 

Anyone left em on all year?
Had Uniroyal Rainsports on er indoors carlos fandango's were great all year round and fine in snow and ice.
I found some Vredestein Wintrac's stupidly cheap less than 1/2 the price of regular rubber and i'm bone idle cant be arsed to swap the wheels over.
So was thinking of sticking em on and leaving them on.

No, horrible choice! Winter tires should be taken off when the temperature is constantly above 7C. You will wear out the thread so fast the tires wont last anytime. Get a seperate set of summer and winter tires! Don't be lazy :)

bullethead, have you sorted a set of 4.6 rims for your car yet?

NO Bugger off....unless your giving me yours LOL;)

haha no chance i'm afraid, you got to get them, the summer is here!! lol

hello chaps , pip pip and all that . so nice to see you all enjoying this great board .
you can use winter tyres all year in UK , I do and they do not wear out quick at all provided you drive sensibly , I mean you can still cruise on motorways at speed but don`t expect them to last or behave like summer tyres if you corner hard cos they aint built for that nonsense .
tally ho pip pip .keep your chin up .

Don't do it ... a few hot days on true winter tires and you'll be down to the nubs.

Bingo! I hate when people don't take care of their car(s). Winter tires in winter and summer tires in summer, simple concept!

Depends what you mean by winter tires. If you mean a snow tread, then as Amacman points out, they aren't built for that and they won't handle well, but go ahead, just accept the increased noise and compromised handling and run them. They will wear out more quickly. If you mean a winter rubber compound, one designed for low temperatures, then as Boston points out, they will wear out very quickly on a warm day (You can measure the wear in days, not months).

If they have a true winter rubber compound, then the cut off point for using them is usually an ambient temperature of 7C, as Brit6 pointed out.

It just seemed like there were two different discussions going on in this thread.

look chaps , I don`t know if you are saying winter tyres wear out quick in summer because someone told you that . I doubt if you have proven your statements through personal experience because I have a 7 series on Pirrelli snowsport tyres for 20000 miles they have never been off the car , they have driven for 750 miles on mostly motorway on one continuous journey at high speed with a fully loaded car in summer time at 30 c temps and they still have 3mm tread on them at 6 years old .
I have a X3 with Avon Ranger Ice tyres , tootles around country roads all year , has covered 15000 miles on those tyres and they are stiil at 7mm .
so who is right and who is wrong in this debate .
drive like a nutter on winter tyres and they wiil squeal round corners but you can still move along at a fair pace with them , try it out and come back and tell me how they do .

I don't think winter tyres (ones that simply have a snow tread) wear out particularly quickly, they are just noisy and don't handle as well, but I do think that winter tyres made with soft rubber compounds as are being widely sold now do wear out quickly at higher ambient tempertures.

I don't know anything about the Avon tires, I don't think they are sold here.

I am familiar with the Pirelli tires you mention. That tire has been discontinued by Pirelli, and replaced with a newer generation tire that contains a more current rubber compound. I don't know how soft (if at all) the compound is in the discontinued tire, but probably not very soft given how many years ago it was designed.

I don't get my information from anecdotes, I rely more on technical publications. Pirelli themselves quote the 7C ambient temperature guideline on their website. They seem to accept it.

Pip pip, cheerio

For true winter/snow tires, the rubber compound that helps you grip better in low temp by remaining more pliable is on the top layer of tire only - not throughout - don't know how deep. Below this layer is standard all season compond.
Not familar with the tires that you mention but thiu is how it works for true snow/winters.

Yup, have personal experience too....I knew I was selling my 330Ci and could't be arsed swapping out from the snow tires that were on there so I drove it well past winter - rubber melted away in warmer weather especially combined with any aggressive driving.

3mm left after only 20,000 miles and we suspect they are not wearing out early? too funny. try 70,000 miles that I have on my Long Trails. if your winters are not performing as long as these all seasons then they are wearing out more quickly (or they are not being taken care of)

I expect these Long Trails to last for a couple more years minimum as now that they are 6 years old the rubber is hardening. no dual compound tires that I know of for autos, but motorcycles have had them for a long time.

if money is not the critical factor, drive them all year. enjoy!

PS as JCL points out, don't lump snow and winter tires into the same category, they are different types for different purposes. also, if you are wearing out the threads of your tires, you have already completely worn away the tread (these are not the same things) and are now running on the belts!!

well Boston you just confirmed driving aggressively will wear the tyre out quickly
they are not designed as sport tyres .
sprocket , 20000 miles is as much as any tyre designed for that car will last , summer tyre or winter tyre . suv tyres have a different construction and will generally last longer .
visit any racetrack and you will see tyres melting away . if you drive like that on a public highway you should be put away .

Which tires in this discussion are not sport/performance tires? Every one mentioned is sold that way by its manufacturer.

Naw, not the point I was making. In my case, with the winter tires that I was using, they wore down a lot faster in the summer than in the winter over similar mileage and driving characteristics.

Not really a problem leaving modern winter tires on all year unles you do performance driving (winter tires are rated to 210 kph in Germany). Anyway, after I broke my foot I left my Dunlop M2s on the X for one summer. They wore quicker than summer tires but not too badly. I spotted a couple of SUVs at my office using winter tires year round. We are living 38c/100F days for a number of weeks every summer and unless you are doing donuts in the car park you should be fine. Ofcourse summer tires will perform more adequately in the summer if you are driving more aggressively.

Also, I have had Michelin X-ice on my pickup truck for 30.000 miles now and I leave them on year round (as the grip on the rear is awful I need the extra traction). There is probably 5-8000 more left in'em. I am very impressed because I expected them to wear out in 15 or 20000. However, the performance of a Tundra V8 is not quite comparable to an X5....

If you get 70k miles out of a set of tires they are rock hard and extremely dangerous in the wet. I get rental cars with rocks on them like that all the time. No grip whatsoever and disgustingly dangerouns IMO. There should be a law against such tires.

Couple years ago I left my winter tires on throughout the whole year. Not a good choice, One day i was riding and my tire completely popped, aka i was riding on the rim. Not sure if it has to do with winter tires in the summer or not, but after that I take mine off in march

Thanks for advice Finally got another set of wheels and tyres. DONONE69 yes finally..
I'll get the wintracs for the wheels that are on there now and change em in november ish...

Fair point but winter here aint anything like your neck of the woods, done christmas in toronto and february in banff and thats f'in cold and our summer is pretty shite too. Ask the guys from north of the wall ;)

Haha, Well come on then bullethead, which wheels did you get??

What it should have ! Well almost got 4 star spoke 87's all 9 1/2's though new rubber under 500 sheets. So have to get some 30+ mm wheel spacers with the cash I saved.
http://i940.photobucket.com/albums/a...nel/X5/084.jpg