Winter Tyres

[Rolfe]

I was a bit dubious about just doing the front when my garage man suggested it, but so far I have no real problem with it.  If I take a corner too fast the rear end will fly out, but there's a cure for that...!

Rolfe.

[Ben Lessani]

i've probably left this a bit late but after 2 days of 'moderate snow' i'm beginning to get a bit more worried about more and more. it's not been too bad in Greater Manchester but today i did have to dig out my driveway to park up. so is the consensus just getting a pair for the front sufficient?

No, you have to change the rears first, then the fronts.

[Ben Lessani]

I'm ordering some 15" steels + Continental TS180S Winter Contacts (M+S) from the BMW stealership for the Mini, for the princely sum of £420 - not too bad considering its dealer prices!

As mentioned, good tyres are a bit of a no-brainer, and my 215/45/18's are just plain dangerous in snow/ice.

Love the poll results, for the MK6 section, most cars must be worth £15k+ and 40% of you don't think ~£500 on tyres is a worthwhile spend, craziness.

[rjwojcik]

No, you have to change the rears first, then the fronts.

Why?  The fronts all of the work on the Golf (steering and drive) and if you were to change just two I would have thought these were the first to be changed?  Rear wheel drive, a different story.

[MDSS MK6]

I reckon for a lot of people its not so much the cash as the hassle....if you happen to live in a flat, where are you going to store 4 tyres? If we adopted the european approach whereby your local garage/dealer will quite happily store your winter setup & swap them over for you, a damn sight more people would bother. Also, once you've been in a properly booted car in this weather, you see the point within yards! As more people fit them, more will get to try them & (if you'll excuse the pun) things will snowball from there.

[Ben Lessani]

No, you have to change the rears first, then the fronts.

Why?  The fronts all of the work on the Golf (steering and drive) and if you were to change just two I would have thought these were the first to be changed?  Rear wheel drive, a different story.

Its always rears first regardless of drive. I'm on my phone, so it'll take too long to explain, google it

[Rolfe]

Well I seem to be getting on fine with only the front tyres changed.  This was at the suggestion of my garage man, who didn't seem to want to be bothered doing all four!  And it seemed to make sense, given that the AutoSocks go on the front wheels only for a front-wheel-drive, and doing that was very successful last year within the limits of these things.

And you don't want to know what I just negotiated to get in to work here.  If only I'd brought my camera, I'd show you.  Car is running like it was on caterpillar tracks though.

Rolfe.

[Ben Lessani]

Well I seem to be getting on fine with only the front tyres changed.  This was at the suggestion of my garage man, who didn't seem to want to be bothered doing all four!  And it seemed to make sense, given that the AutoSocks go on the front wheels only for a front-wheel-drive, and doing that was very successful last year within the limits of these things.

You may think its working for you, but don't advise other people to do the same. Its just plain dangerous to upgrade front tyres over rears.

[Rolfe]

I could understand an exhortation to change all four, so that the traction matches and the rear tyres will grip on the corners.  I'm still in two minds about that, though as I said I'm getting on so well that I'm inclined to respect the garage's suggestion just to do the front pair.

However, you seem to be suggesting that changing the rears only is a better option.

This makes absolutely no sense to me, both in logical terms, and in view of my experience last year following the advice from the AutoSocks manufacturer.

http://www.roofbox.co.uk/car-snow-socks/

The advice is firmly to fit the things to the driving wheels.  There is additional advice to fit a second pair to the front wheels of a rear-wheel-drive car to improve steering control.  There is no need to fit a pair to the rear wheels of a front-wheel-drive model.

Now obviously that's for AutoSocks, in which you should not be going over 30mph anyway, and they do warn about unstable rear ends if you do anything unwise.  As I said, I can see the argument for doing all four feet when fitting proper winter tyres.  What I can't see by any stretch of logic is any argument for doing only the rear wheels on a front-wheel-drive car.

Rolfe.

[Ess_Three]

You may think its working for you, but don't advise other people to do the same. Its just plain dangerous to upgrade front tyres over rears.

You are talking utter rubish...on a FWD car, you need traction, steering and braking. Front wheels.