7 Reasons to Consider Winter Tires

After a week of snow and ice on UK roads people are finally starting to take winter tires seriously. A legal requirement in most of northern Europe winter tires are very misunderstood in the UK. Here are 7 reasons you might want to consider swapping to winter tires.

1) Winter tires are NOT SNOW TYRES
One of the most common reasons we hear as to why winter tires aren't needed in the UK is because we don't get enough snow. Winter tires are designed to be more effective than regular tires in any temperature under 7c (44f) on any type of road. Cold weather tires are designed with a larger percentage of natural rubber and silica in the compound which doesn't harden up as much as synthetic rubber in cold conditions.

2) Winter tires really work
Tirerack tested the Bridgestone Blizzak WS60 winter tire against the Bridgestone RE050A ultra high performance summer tire in icy conditions. From just 10mph the winter tire stopped in 6.4 metres, while the summer tire needed more than twice the distance to stop at over 14 metres. Imagine the difference from 30 mph.

3) Winter tires could save you money
Modern cars have big alloys and expensive wide low profile tires. Once the small outlay of a set of steel rims has been made, winter tires are often cheaper because of their smaller size. While you're driving on winter tires, your not wearing out your expensive summer tires, thus saving you money.

4) ABS doesn't stop your car any quicker
Another false-truth we hear a lot is winter tires aren't needed thanks to ABS. ABS was designed to allow steering control to be retained while in an emergency situation and will not stop you any quicker in low grip situations.

5) Winter tires are as comfortable as summer tires
Yet another myth is a loss of ride comfort, or extra noise thanks to winter tires. The truth is modern winter tires are as every bit as comfortable as summer tires, sometimes more so thanks to an increased profile.

6) Avoiding other people on the road
The number of accidents caused by wet conditions increases in winter by 267%. Give yourself a chance of avoiding someone else's incident by fitting winter tires.

7) Cars have changed
It's no secret modern cars have gained a little weight, in fact a MK5 Golf is almost twice the weight of a MK1 Golf. With all that extra weight comes added inertia when trying to change directions or slow down, which gives the tires much more work to do. To compound the problem many more cars are coming with overly wide sports tires which have even less chance of slowing the big heavy car.

To see our full range of winter tire reviews please visit our winter tire section, or if you have any other reasons to make the change, or would simply like to share your experience of winter tires please comment below.

Further Winter Tire Reading

- 2011 Winter tire buying guide
- All winter tire tests


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