A truly excellent tire. I bought a set of 4 for my Ford Focus (front wheel drive)to use in the Alps during the winter season. We had lots of snow, and I never needed my chains. Awesome grip. The tires fling out the snow and present a fresh profile to the road surface on each turn. The compound remains soft in sub zero temperatures, and the tread is deep! I have just bought a Land Rover Freelander. I shall be putting the Avons on it for this winter. I chose the Avons because I'd bought the previous model of Avon snow tires for by BMW 730i, a rear wheel drive car. It impressed not only me but people who saw the Beemer go up some steep snow slopes. One person gawped at the car and asked me how I got up the slope ( to a local bar) without chains... it was the Avon tires! I'm surprised they are not at the top of the list.

Fantastic tires!

I should have written a review long ago.

We drove from Kent to Wales in the worst snow the UK has seen in decades!
Everyone we know said we wouldn't make it and we'd have to turn back; there was 2 feet of snow in some areas (not drift, that was fallen snow).

I was able to drive over the Brecon Beacons into Wales when the only other cars able to move were serious 4x4's such as Defenders and Landcruisers and one or two of those were in ditches. We were in a brand new front wheel drive Kia Pro-cee'd.

We spent a week touring Wales in heavy snow of several inches deep and very low temperatures and these tires were simply amazing.

I kept them on a spare set of wheels for winter use but you could run them all year round as they were very refined on good roads and great in the wet.

Purchased these 2nd hand on a 2nd hand set of alloys for my E280. Off came my Continental Contact 2's and on went these Avons- still with 4-5 mm if tread. Dry road handling good and on a par to the Continentals. When the snow arrived a few days later, they were very good.
Lateral/sideways grip round bends - very sure footed.
Pull away/ rear wheel drive- minimal wheel spin.
Steering- confident with good feedback.
Braking- good grip, good feedback. Minimal ATC even on ice.
Noise- only marginally louder on dry roads.
Basically- massive improvement over a brand new sew set of Continental Contacts run last year in snow.
Tire pressures run at 36psi- 50kg in the boot same as last year.
Hope this helps.
-I may try T830 P's next depending on prices, but will swop winter/ summer tire sets.

When properly inflated, these are great. Currently running 46 psi rear, no traction control light in the snow. Plus I put a spare wheel in the boot to add a bit of load to the rear. Last year there was no boot load and I was running lower pressures but I wasn't that impressed -- it seems that increasing the pressure both lowers the contact patch (more weight per unit area) and opens up the sipes.

Bought set of four in oct 2011 for audi a4 avant to try to improve road holding on front wheel drive car,we live high up on mountain road that does not get gritted, these tires have made the car much safer Winter 2011 was much better than previous year so not realy tested .Paid £600 for 4 fully fitted at local A T S tires ,tires left on all year throughout summer ,November 2012 tires done just over 10k and getting noisey with tread down to 3.5 to 4.0 ,after being flagged down by another driver to tell me that a rear tire was running out of shape i decided to fit new set of 4 to be safe, Bought again at local ATS this time only paying £500 fitted . This time come march i will change back to summer tires again, Avon ZV5 look good value.

Purchased these last year for my ford focus, I live up a very steep hill, its about 500 yds long and the year before we had really bad snow and I almost wreaked the car skidding at the junction on the bottom of the hill, crawling in first gear just touched the brake and I was gone, straight over the road and into the kerb the other side, and I had no chance getting back up again. With the winters on what a transformation, we only had one bad snow last year with about the same conditions and going down the hill you can feel them biting, gives you real confidence that your going to stop, and going up was no problem at all. I've just put them back on with the rear ones to the front as there's hardly any wear on them. Brilliant, wouldn't be without them.

I have used this car for three seasons in the Alps and kept the Avon Ice Tourers on for the whole time( Driving back to the UK each year). The wear has been very good at 21,000 miles so far. Being front wheel drive the front tires are going to need changing for the 2012/13 season ,but the back tires have plenty of tread left.With hindsight I should have swapped fronts to back. The performance of these tires has been excellent in all winter conditions.I use the car almost every day in the winter and only once did I need snow chains and that was due to a polished ice surface on a hill caused by queuing traffic at an accident.Going to try Michelins on the front to see how they compare, I hope I don't regret it!

Fitted to my 2003 BMW 525D AUTO. Have always fitted winter tires for 30 years. These have now done two winters, 17000 miles so far and will do another. Snow grip is impressive and secure in the wet and cold. Would buy again.

Just bought 4 for my bmw, they are really good on snow! with the traction control on and off.. I was equally impressed on the wet! i just can't get them to lose grip! On the other hand, despite the 94 (reinforced) load index, i must say that they are quite unstable in windy conditions! I would strongly advise anyone to set the pressure higher than regular..
overall a good winter tire for the money!

Had them on for the 2010 blizzaed winter and had no trouble driving on untreated Somerset B roads. Left them on all summer of 2011 and have enough tread left to go through this winter season. Basically they will work all year round provided you do not drive down to Spain at 100mph in the summer!
Grip, wet and dry, noise and economy are all good enough for all noraml driving and the money you save in not going to the body shop to have the snow/ice slide dents knocked out will buy them for you twice over!

I bought these tires last autumn as an experiment for the winter. I live in a village that is ~5 miles from the nearest village that is large enough to warrant a council snow plough or gritter and wanted to get in and out of the village. It turned out to be the worst winter in over 30 years and we had snow and ice on the roads for about a month. I have 2 cars in the household and so was able to conduct a back to back test with 2 cars, one with winter tires and one with good summer tires (bridgestone ~5mm tread). The Avon winter tires gave very good grip and I even choose to use a hill into the village to test them out. I had no grip issues and the ABS hardly ever kicked in when I came to stop. I have now purchased a set of winter tires for my other car.

Fitted to a Mercedes C250TD rear wheel drive no traction control.
Bought these in October 2010 encase it snowed and boy it did!

Can't possibly explain how good these tires were in the snow. It transformed a car that would have been unusable in the snow to a car that I could not get stuck (and believe me I really really tried.)

I took the car to steep snow covered inclines in an attempt to find the limit of these tires and never managed to get the car to slip.

Was passing countless spinning small FWD cars while I had no grip problems at all.

Not only will I buy these again, I have bought them again for my new car.

P.s. I had 60kg of weight in the boot to help traction too.

ROLL ON THE SNOW!