Adrian

Depends how you drive of course. If you attempt to drive in a hogh performance mode, dry road surface, with a road surface temperature of around 10-12C.
This is why it is important to read the testing of these tyres and the results. I have snow and ice tyres and they suck in the dry warm conditions.
Ciao,
Adrian
964C4

PS: By the way is a documented fact that summer tyres have a road surface temperature temperature degradation point of 7C.
I was considering asking one of the German motoring shows to translate one of their shows to English. This would open some peoples eyes. Obviously few people subscribe to Christophorus because they cover this every year. Does nobody here receive the Porsche winter packet brochures? My wife even gets them from Audi. VW and BMW do one, as I am sure do other manufacturers.

robmug

Thanks Adrian

With our fluctuating temperatures over here (we don't get months of sub 7C temperatures) we need to ask ourselves if sub 7c with summer tyres is a greater risk than over 7c with winter tyres...

Great to have this issue raised.

Nice to know that I have a set of 993 winter Cup2 alloys in the garage...just need some winter tyres

Adrian

Dear Rob,
The key issue is not ambient temperature. I always say Road Surface temperature. The outside air temp can be 10C but the road surface can still be frozen. On our weather forcasts here we get the ground temperature during winter. This helps us determine where we might find ice. If you drive in Germany at this time of year you will see warning signs at bridges made of steel and concrete. They say expect ice even though the air temp is above zero. Mind you reading the whole message is distracting because it is about 5 lines long.
However your nations road and car authorities has decided that this is not important. Maybe it is all those thousands of speed cameras keeping your speed down that helps.
Ciao,
Adrian
964C4

PS: I would have thought that the tyre companies would have been in favour of promoting winter tyres. It is more business.

slim_boy_fat

At the end of the day, i think if we needed winter tyres we would use them. We dont use therefore we dont need them. QED.

forklift

Cool, Norman Cook is on Rennlist!

JoeW

I can't speak to the need or non for winter tires but:

here, when it is 4 degrees (F) above freezing (or 36 F), the traffic reporters all begin warning of freezing on the bridges and exit ramps.

Last week, with temps well below 0 F (-23 C, in fact) the winter tires on my wife's Honda felt like they were ceramic. Of course in such temps it would have been a little reckless to be conducting braking tests but certainly the "feel" wasn't there. Because I used to be financially unable to switch to new tires at the appropriate time, I also know that when the temps get up to warm Spring levels, the winter treads start squawking like ruptured chickens. A friend of mine once ran an AutoX with them! They're very good for power oversteer J