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Hyundai i30 - All season tyres uk - Grease_monkey

I'm down to below 3mm on my front tyres, sooner rather than later I will need to get them replaced. I'm tied between Summer tyres and All Season tyres. Are all season tyres really worth it in the UK?

Hyundai i30 - All season tyres uk - Ethan Edwards

Depends on where you are and how you use the car. Live in London and don't travel far then probably not worth bothering with. Live further out like me and do a 75mile commute five days a week, even during the worst snow..yeah probably couldn't hurt. What will make a difference whatever you choose is tread depth. Plus 3mm is safer. I have all season on my 4x4 and for me it's peace of mind. I've passed people scrabbling for grip on icy roads. So for me it's an if you want to get to work and peace of mind. Though you usually find your way blocked by others... in summary get them changed. Whatever you decide on. If you do decide on AS tyres, I believe its not recommended to buy two. You'll need four.

Edited by Ethan Edwards on 14/08/2021 at 00:17

Hyundai i30 - All season tyres uk - Engineer Andy

As Ethan says (agreeing you MUST get all 4 replaced if you wish to change tyre type), what tyres you need will depend on where you live in the UK as much as how often you use the car and for what purpose.

As a general guide, all-season tyres will be more expensive than standard (i.e. not high performance) summer tyres, roughly about 10-20% more for the most common (often cheapest) tyres size combinations like 195/65R15 or 205/55R16, but for less common size combos, they can be near to 30-40% more expensive.

The upside is obviously you get a degree of reasonable snow/ice performance as well as better cold weather performance compared to summer tyres, but they aren't as good as summer tyres the rest of the year. Some are particularly good in the wet even compared to summer tyres in warmer weather.

Some A/S tyres are more 'summer biased', i.e. much more suited to the weather of the South of England, some are 'intermediate, suited to the Midlands to North of England for the most part, and some are more 'winter biased', suited to Scotland and Northern continental Europe.

The most popular all-season tyres are:

Michellin CrossClimate+ (summer biased)

Bridgestone Weather Control A005 (summer biased)

Goodyear Vector AllSeasons gen-2 or 3 (intermediate)

Continental All Season Contact (intermediate)

Other brands are available, some cheaper (though still good in winter conditions, some of them not so good on the fuel efficiency/summer handling) and some much nearer to winter tyres, but not so good in the summer (they also wear quicker in summer due to the softer compound).

Often the intermediate A/S can work fine in Scotland if the area is one that doesn't get too much snow in winter. For areas that regularly get snow and quite a bit, I'd always recommend getting either the 'winter biased' all-season tyres (if you have no room to store the set not on the car) or better still (if you do have storage space) summer + winter tyres for each season.

People living around the London area normally don't get much in the way of really cold/snowy weather, but it can happen, occasionally. It really depends on how much you depend on the car and your budget, etc.

I used to have summer tyres fitted on my Mazda3 - I live in northern Herts, so I don't get that much snow, but occasionally do and needed to be mobile for work (and for shopping, living in a rural area), so changed to the Michelin CC+ about 3 years ago.

I've found them to be excellent, with negligable differnce in non-winter performance compared to the 6yo summer tyres they replaced. Unfortunately I have yet to need to drive on snow (only a few days worth in my area over the past 3 years) since getting them changed.

All season tyre tech has improved quite a bit in the last 5 years, meaning that the performance penalty outside of the colder times of the year is far less than it used to be, and their winter performance has got a LOT nearer to that of winter tyres.

You can compare the prices of summer and all-season tyres on the various Tyre dealers (I prefer Black Circles, but others are fine), but I'd also check the TyreReviews.com website - it gives aggregated tests/reviews from motoring magazines for tyres all over Europe and user reviews/ratings as well.

The site owner, Jon, is very helpful/knowledgable (an ddoes his own tyre tests - videos on YouTube/website) and will repond to questions via the Disqus comment area below articles.

Hyundai i30 - All season tyres uk - galileo

I have had Vredestein Quatrac all seasons on my i30 for the last 5 years, when we've had snow I have had no problem up the Pennine hills, driven past stuck 4 x 4s on the gradient out of our estate and find handling good on dry roads too.

185/65 R15's for the i30 are usually cheaper than Goodyear/Michelin etc

Hyundai i30 - All season tyres uk - Engineer Andy

I have had Vredestein Quatrac all seasons on my i30 for the last 5 years, when we've had snow I have had no problem up the Pennine hills, driven past stuck 4 x 4s on the gradient out of our estate and find handling good on dry roads too.

185/65 R15's for the i30 are usually cheaper than Goodyear/Michelin etc

When I was looking for A/S tyres, I found that the Goodyears, amongst the most popular/major makes were, with the Bridgestones, amongst the cheapest (not comparing to your Vredesteins), and with far less variation in the price premium over summer tyres across all the sizes than, say, the Michelins, which are reasonably priced for the most popular tyres, and quite expensive (along with the Contis) for the less popular (often fitted to more recently built cars) tyre size combos. The Goodyears look like they've increased in price a bit since then, nearer to that of the others.

For example, the CC+ for my OEMs (205/55 R16V, very popular tyre size across many new Focus sized cars from late 90s therough to the mid 2010s) costs around £70* but the very similar 205/60 R16V in CC+ if fitted to the newer gen-3 and 4 models of the Mazda3 cost £108* from the same dealer - 50% more expensive.

* Cost without fitting (£10 - £15 on average)

Note to the OP - price of tyres are in raw terms similar or even less than 10 years ago - often it's because people have changed cars from one shod on popular, standar/higher profile tyres like the 205/55 R16 to another car shod on 18in rims and low profile tyres that the cost of replacement tyres to them has significantly increased (the latter often costing £120+ for summer tyres and £160+ for all-seasons) - +50 to 75% more than the 16in ones (same rolling diameter).

Hyundai i30 - All season tyres uk - Grease_monkey

Thanks all for the replies. I never took into account that i would have to replace all 4 tyres for All Seasons. I have decided to ditch the idea of changing to All Seasons and have brought a pair of Uniroyal Rainsport 3's instead from Camskills.

Hyundai i30 - All season tyres uk - brum

Thanks all for the replies. I never took into account that i would have to replace all 4 tyres for All Seasons. I have decided to ditch the idea of changing to All Seasons and have brought a pair of Uniroyal Rainsport 3's instead from Camskills.

There is nothing wrong at all about fitting just a pair of all seasons. So long as tyres match on a per axle basis you can safely mix all seasons and summers as indeed mixing directional, asymmetric and standard tyres.

My recommendation would be to fit the new all seasons to the rear. Generally it is accepted that fitting new tyres should go on the rear, on the basis that this minimises the chance of the rear losing grip under heavy braking and the car spinning round, a situation that inexperienced drivers find hard to control and get out of, rather than the front losing traction which in comparison is easier to control. More a problem you'll only experience with old cars that don't have ABS, stability control etc that modern cars have as standard. Or drive inappropriately in bad wintry conditions.

All seasons in general have better grip in cool wet conditions we have most of the time in the UK and imo are a better tyre to have rather than the traditional summer tyre.

New cars come fitted with summer tyres, on my fwd cars when the fronts are worn out, I fit new all seasons to the rear moving the half worn rears to the front.

Before we get the usual string of replies saying my advice is dangerous, my only comment is I've been doing this for decades and never had an issue, experienced wierd handling or other BS claims people make about mixing tyres.

Hyundai i30 - All season tyres uk - movilogo

Usually fit same type of tyres to all corners suggestion comes from having the right amount of grip during braking.

I fitted all season tyres previously but then in South East did not make much sense as all season tyre worn out faster. So now back to summer tyres.

I read the idea about fitting new tyres at the rear but somehow could not accept it. For me in FWD cars fitting the newer tyres at front seems better idea and I follow that principle.

I think if you don't drive like lunatics it hardly matters what tyres you fit where as long as you are not mixing up drastically different types of tyres.

Hyundai i30 - All season tyres uk - mcb100
I’ve been using 2 all season and 2 summer tyres on FWD cars for years, and swapping front to rear in October & March/April.
I wouldn’t mix Summer & Winter, but with a relatively small difference in grip levels between the tyre types I’ve never come across any instability.
If you are geographically in a region that would benefit from the extra traction an all season tyre would give on a regular basis - altitude, latitude, lack of gritting in the increasingly rare cold winters - your situation may be different.
Hyundai i30 - All season tyres uk - badbusdriver

Irrespective of personal experience regarding the behaviour of a car with summer tyres at one end and all season at t'other, I'd be interested to hear how insurance companies viewed this practise.

Not sure at all as I've never looked into it, but my suspicion is that they'd take a dim view of it. Which of course would only become an 'issue' were you to be involved in an accident and they refused to pay.

Because of this, it isn't something I'd do without clarifying what my insurers thought of it. Indeed, that is the reason I recently bought four Uniroyal Rain Expert tyres for my van (which had all season tyres all round) rather than just replacing the two worn all season tyres.

Hyundai i30 - All season tyres uk - Alby Back
I've got into the habit of putting full winter spec tyres on my E Class estate every November to April. Makes a heck of a difference in proper winter weather. It does, under normal circs, cross the Alps a couple of times each winter, so it seems sort of worth the effort.

I also put 4 "all season" tyres (Crossclimates) on my wife's Qashqai a couple or 3 years ago, we no longer have that car, but while they did a perfectly good job of being tyres, I can't say I noticed any difference from them as far as winter grip was concerned over the Summer spec Bridgestones they replaced.

I can just about remember from when I was a small child, that my dad would put winter tyres on the rear only of his Zephyr around November time. Obviously I can't say whether that was a good idea or not, but he was a high mileage driver, and in any event, he never had an "accident" in any of his cars.

I'm sure the technical benefits are measureable of course, but I can't help feeling that most winter driving safety is about the standard of driving rather than the equipment.
Hyundai i30 - All season tyres uk - mcb100
As long as they’re all the manufacturer approved width, aspect ratio, load and speed rating, I don’t think an insurance company will have a leg to stand on when it comes to refusing a claim. Unless a grossly incorrect tyre can be proved to have directly caused an accident.
www.abi.org.uk/globalassets/files/publications/pub...f

Edited by mcb100 on 16/08/2021 at 18:22

Hyundai i30 - All season tyres uk - brum

Interesting video titled The truth about winter, all season and summer tyres tested at 0c, 2c, 6c, 10c, 15c

m.youtube.com/watch?v=bKtnczk8Mxk

Hyundai i30 - All season tyres uk - badbusdriver

As long as they’re all the manufacturer approved width, aspect ratio, load and speed rating, I don’t think an insurance company will have a leg to stand on when it comes to refusing a claim. Unless a grossly incorrect tyre can be proved to have directly caused an accident.

www.abi.org.uk/globalassets/files/publications/pub...f

All that link proves is that, despite advice given on the forum over the years, you do not have to inform your insurers if fitting winter tyres. In the absence of clarification, I'd take that to mean putting winters all round, not just at one end.

The job of car insurers may be, to you, to pay up in the event of an accident. But while they'd never admit it, their priority before that is to find any way of getting out of having to pay up!.

All season tyres are designed to operate within a given set of parameters, summer tyres are designed to operate within a different set of parameters. Doesn't matter that those parameters may overlap, nor how you drive, and it doesn't matter that the difference between some all season tyres and some summer tyres may be slimmer than the difference between decent quality and poor quality summer tyres. To the insurance companies mind, you have put tyres of unequal properties on your car. And to my mind, that is ample ammunition to not pay up.

Just to point out, this is not fact, just my opinion. I'm happy to be proven wrong on this one, but until that happens it will remain my opinion and the reason I wouldn't put all season on one end and summer on the other.

Hyundai i30 - All season tyres uk - mcb100
I will add, by way of an aside, that we had a car run into whilst outside the house in early May. It had a new pair of Goodyear 4Seasons on the front, and 2 Continental summers on the rear.
Still a driver (near neighbour had driven along one side of it), it was taken to LV’s approved bodyshop who made good the damage to the panels, refurbed the two offside wheels and replaced the two tyres.
We actually got it back with a new Continental summer and a remaining Goodyear all season across the front axle.
Hyundai i30 - All season tyres uk - Archie35

Interesting video titled The truth about winter, all season and summer tyres tested at 0c, 2c, 6c, 10c, 15c

m.youtube.com/watch?v=bKtnczk8Mxk

A very interesting video. It then led into this one, which is about all season tyres only, which is also a good video. Of particular interest to me at least, he produces 2 sets of results, with the second winner directed towards drivers who live in the southern part of the UK where there is more rain but less snow than is usually considered in all-season tyre tests. 9 of the BEST All Season Tyres Tested and Explained - YouTube

Hyundai i30 - All season tyres uk - Smileyman

I switched to CC tyres a few years ago, by planning this a few years in advance I swapped front / rear around so that all 4 tyres wore down to 2.5mm (or thereabouts) at the same time, this delayed the need to replace the front and enabled me to get a better price for a set of 4 tyres. I can't say that I noticed a difference with grip or mpg, and nowadays as my mileage has dropped from from 20k+ to 2k+ per year I look forwards to many more years usage (will swap front / rear to keep the wear even and replace as 4 again in the future)

Hyundai i30 - All season tyres uk - Big John

I'm a great fan of the Michelin Cross Climate. Good in ice/snow winter weather but fabulous in our usual Yorkshire driving rain. They also have stood up well to hot continental long distance driving. Tread still looking good with over 30k miles on them (55 profile). The best bit - they have been soooo quiet on my Superb.

Hyundai i30 - All season tyres uk - madf

I'm a great fan of the Michelin Cross Climate. Good in ice/snow winter weather but fabulous in our usual Yorkshire driving rain. They also have stood up well to hot continental long distance driving. Tread still looking good with over 30k miles on them (55 profile). The best bit - they have been soooo quiet on my Superb.

Ditto.

I find the CCs great on mud and snow. Lots of mud and slippery grass on verges of single track roads when I travel to Beekeeping Training.

Wet grass and hills are very difficult for summer tyres - CCs cope very well

After 15k miles, 5.5mm tread at front 6 at rear