I was in the new Aviemore retail car park the other day and a noticed the soft roader next to me still had their winter tyres on and I was wondering when it was the best time to remove then for summer so I did some digging.

This article on the Oponeo web site was quite informative with reference to data from Continental and Goodyear. Not quite a scientific white paper but quite informative, I liked the nice pretty pictures. Now they are trying to sell you tyres but the data is interesting.

I pulled the data off our weather station to see when it was last below 7C. It has hit below this for a couple of nights this week but in general has been above 10C for the last month or so. Highest temps hit 30C a couple of times, on average much warmer than last year so far!

I was surprised how bad the all season tyres came out for summer use. That is what I use on the landrover but I do need them for mud on the farm track and crossing the fields.

[www.oponeo.co.uk]


Graeme



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 16.39hrs Thu 21 Jun 18 by WindyMiller.

No mention of fuel consumption in the above article particularly.

Because of injury, my car was essentuially immobile for 3 months between March and early June. After two week's driving again in the warmer temps with snow tyres still on, I switched to summer tyres, and there's been an immediate 10%plus improvement in fuel consumption.

I've never noticed this before to such an extent, because the snow tyres normally come off end of April/early May.

yup, 2.0TD Smax on Nokian WRD4s, 52-ish mpg on those vs 54 ish on summers. kinda noisy too, but they make a sensible family hauler look slightly more badass so i'm keeping them on

I tend to stick them on around the start of December and take them back off around April time.

I put mine on in Octoberish and off end of Mayish. Interestingly I'm getting poorer mileage on the summer tyres. MPG had crept up to 49mpg on the winters as the car got older (Its now done 10k miles). It had its first service and I changed it to summer tyres and mileage is down at 45mpg. Not sure whether that's says more about the summer tyres or the quality of the service from John Clarke.

Keep on all year, did not notice change in fuel consumption. They do wear more quickly, best to over inflate. Lasted 4 years, don’t do that much mileage or drive down south in summer, and were the cheapest Chinese.

If i was cruising aboot like a granny I'd stick with winters aw year..

I just leave the winters on all the time and use my other car as much as I can when the weather is good. I get 16MPG on LPG and sadly no tyre seems to make any difference, the joys of a 2.5 ton 4X4 with CVT tranny.

I remember seeing a while back a note on winter tyres on the Continental (tyre) web site - they basically recommended that if you had one set of tyres only, it should be a winter set on all year.

And I heard from an employee of one of the main supermarkets who told me that their online shopping vans in Scotland have winter tyres on all year

I’m not saying that either is the best option of course

Many a Grannie would be upset if you accused them as driving as sedately as me!

Basically when the temp is regularly below +7C....swap over...


Having said that I decided to swap mine over this year now as I was doing the full service, new brake discs etc...etc...

& the other day we had +23.4C!!..WTF in October & last week we had +3 to +5C..???

someone is having a laugh...

---That was not a fall, I intended to do that!---

Get used to it - the jet stream is whipping about like an unattended hose, we'll either get heat or storms dependin on what side we're on.

I was just thinking again about tyres when Shona's brand new replacement land rover broke down with in 18 days and returned for a second replacement. They did not even argue they just said we will get Land Rover to get you another one. You just could not make it up!

The loan car is an all singing and dancing discovery and surprisingly has a set of the next generation all season tyres which have a snow flake and leaf emblem on them. Haven't taken it down the farm yet so no idea how they will perform off road. Maybe we should just keep this one as it seems to work and not gamble with a third new one.

Anyway was reading this article www.evo.co.uk/features/13761/best-winter-tyres-2018
Quite up to date 2018 but does not have the tyres we have on the loan car.

And for anyone that is interested, just pulled the data off the weather station back to December 2016 to see the average temperatures here in Aviemore. It shows graphically when the temps are below7oC, best time for winter tyres.

Graeme







Edited 1 times. Last edit at 17.14hrs Fri 12 Oct 18 by WindyMiller.

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All winter tyres should come with a golf attached if the west coast is yer place unless yer a excuse is owning a farm, wee man syndrome is no excuse for a jeep! Audis are awright for cairngorms as it's mostly straight roads.

Best was when the wee girl phoned to ask how we were getting on with one of the other loan cars, a very shiny Jaguar RS sports, I replied I had trouble getting the sheep in but it was ok I got one in the front and two in the back. She paused and laughed nervously...was I joking?