With winter fast approaching I went out to find out how winter tyres differ from normal tyres and whether changing your tyres is worth the hastle and cost.
Winter tyres have special tread compounds that use one or more of the following features to improve traction:
Specially developed tread blocks to provide traction on covered road surfaces.
Special compounds that retain their flexibility even in the coldest temperatures, a more flexible tread surface creates more traction.
Silica based, micropore compounds (or similar ) are used to bite through the water film and increase snow and ice traction.
To summarise a lot of technical jargon: flexibility appears to be the key element in cold temperatures, also rigid tyres are more succepatble to damage, especially when you slide around and bang into the curb.
The cost is obviously more than that of a normal tyre, but surely safety is priceless. As for the hastle, D and G Autocare offer a fitting and storage service, which is great as the last thing you want is your tyres taking up space in the garage year round, yes it is year round because you still need to store your normal tyres in winter.
My winter enquiries also led me to discover a novel company set up by two entrepeneurs in response to the last two winters. They have invested in snow clearing equipment including snow blowers and salt spreaders and set up as snowbotherfife. They will be on call for any job too big to handle or one that you just can't be bothered with. How many of us cursed last year where after 5 hours of digging you went to bed and in the morning all our hard work had majically been undone!!
To them it is snowbother.....yes it is meant to sound as it does.
For snowbotherfife we hope for a bad winter, but for the rest of us let's hope that we have some respite from the last two winters.
