It’s easy to think that winter tyres are irrelevant for UK drivers, because of our largely temperate climate, but this is far from correct. Winter tyres are in fact the best possible preparation you can have for driving on snow, and can make your two-wheel drive more effective than a 4×4 with summer tyres.
As evo.co.uk explain, ‘winter tyres make snow-covered roads feel like wet roads do on summer tyres’.
To determine which winter tyres you should be using during this cold spell, the website has tested a number of options in a range of conditions including wet, dry and snow. In case you’re worried about the thoroughness of the tests, they were conducted both in chilly Sweden, close to the Arctic Circle, and in the Contidrom in northern Germany. Test cars were the front-drive VW Golf and VW Tiguan.
The winner, based on the tyre which received the highest overall score after both objective and subjective handling tests, was the Continental ContiWinterContact.
Evo.co.uk describe it as ‘responsive, stable and predictable in all scenarios’. In silver medal position was the Michelin Alpin A4, which the website reported handled excellently in the wet and ‘has no real weaknesses’.
Last on the podium was the Dunlop SP Winter Sport, which acquitted itself very well on the snow and in the wet but lost points for general on-road performance.
And the one to avoid? According to the website’s test of 9 tyres, the bottom-scoring contender was the Linglong Winter-Hero Radial 650, which was described as ‘floaty’ in snow, ‘treacherous’ in the wet and ‘sloppy’…in the dry. Lovely…
Do you need some winter tyres for your car? Call Diamond Alloys on 0845 370 8881 or email us direct and we can arrange and fit them for you.
To read the full, and engaging, review for yourself, visit here.
Follow