If they say winter tyres handle and the stopping distance is better than summer tyres in the wet then the of the article is rubbish.Every report I have ever read shows the exact opposite but then again what do you expect from ham reporters they certainly did not lift this from any German magazine.I to run a BMW but on Good Year Vector all season tyres.

Edited by Andy Bairsto on 01/11/2010 at 16:27

The argument about merits of Winter /all season /Summer tyres might all be academic anyway very shortly - as I suspect that Winter tyre stocks will sell out very quickly after the shortages last winter.

If it helps - Costco have 20% discount on 4 tyres at the moment, and those good chaps @ ATS are doing 25% off 4 tyres - all for Michelin.

Seems to be total miss information being posted here!

I have winter tyre on my car Conti 830's so i Know. They are NOT snow tyres they are for wet and low tempresure. SNOW tyres have pop out stud and are total something else.

Summer tyres work will down to temp. of 7c and performance tails off. Winter tyres are softer and work better in Cold and wet conditions as they displace more water and grip more. In the snow they will help but are only around 20% better than a summer tyre.

Winter tyres drift a little on motorways and dont last as long hence not being recommended for summer use.

I got mine from Northants tyres, great service!

Hope that help you folks!!!

There are in fact 2 types of winter tyres in europe. Some are designed for middle europe, and others for the nordic region. Nokian, the largest winter tyre suppliers in the nordic region specialise is tyres for this area, and that is probably why they win the most tests here.

The snowflake symbol is a canadian tire federation logo that can be put on tyres that show the design attributes (tread patter) of a winter tyre. There are no performance test requirements required to show the symbol, and some manufacturers don't use the symbol, most notably Nokian. So a tyre with the symbol could be a useless winter tyre, and one without could be the best winter tyre on the market. The Swedish tyre and rim association publish a list of tyres they deem suitable for winter use, as the symbol is not a good indication.

The words M+S also does not mean it is a winter (snow) tyre. Anyone can put this on their tyres.

Most winter tyres can be purchased with studs if required, and if allowed on the relevant countrys' roads. Denmark and Germany - not allowed. Sweden, Norway and Finland - allowed in winter.

In tests, the studded tyres always out-perfom the studless. And in fact, in countries where studded tyres are allowed, they perform a valuable service in that they rough up the ice, so that studless tyres perform better. So on virgin ice, studded perform better, but on roughed up ice, they seem to perform about the same. On wet ice, again studded out perform studdless, and usually by some margin.

Recently there have been tests including various asian manufactured winter tyres. Without exception, those from China performed terribly.

Mine 2 year old ones don't have it, and neither did the set I fitted to my neighbours car at the weekend.

Maybe they started using it again - probably because it was demanded by people that think it gives some sort of guarantee of winter performance.

The symbol is now quite large you cannot miss it before it was small,you need to look at the DOT date on the tyres .A lot of cheap far east imports and copies do not have these and as far as I am aware illegal in the EU.Tyres cannot be sold without the Dot date and there is an age limit not sure of the top of my head what that is.It is a minefield M&S tyres now must be four season and have the snowflake whereas before they didn't ,the law on winter tyres was unenforcable in Germany and those with convictions are having the fines returned ,the new law comes into effect next week and is a federal law as opposed to state law.