This year the amusingly inexact Exacta Weather has advised us via The Express (who love a good weather story, or indeed any weather story) that “a notable period of exceptional cold and significant snow should be taken seriously throughout the latter part of December and into January”. This is partly the result of sulphur being emitted during volcanic activity in Iceland, apparently.
You may already have your emergency breakdown kit in the boot (see earlier blog) but are your tyres up to the job of driving through snow if we do get some? It only takes a few centimetres of snow on untreated roads to make them treacherous, and if you live out of town the snow can build up and stay on the ground for days.
If you’ve struggled driving in snowy condition in the past, you may be looking at one solution – winter tyres. Winter tyres are designed to give you extra grip in cold temperatures and when driving on snow and ice. The differences from normal car tyres are:
- they are made from a softer rubber compound
- they usually have deeper tread grooves
- the tread blocks are covered in slits called sipes
Thanks to these features winter tyres are much better at gripping cold, damp roads (below about 7C) than standard tyres but rather less good above this temperature, which is why you can’t just use them all year.
The cost of buying four or five winter tyres, plus rims, will not be insignificant. Whether or not you feel the cost is worthwhile will depend on how often you drive on snow and ice, and how bad you expect winters to be – 2013-2014 was very mild but the previous few years saw some long spells of snow and ice.
There are alternatives to winter tyres which are cheaper and may suit you better:
- Tyre socks – these fabric ‘socks’ fit over your existing tyres and are a useful quick-fix solution to get you off an icy driveway or to the shops and back. At around £50 per pair (they need to be fitted to the driven wheels only) they’re something that you can keep in the boot just in case. They do have to be removed once you reach snow-free roads though otherwise they will be very quickly worn through.
- All-season tyres – as you can imagine from the name these tyres are somewhere between winter and summer tyres. They can be left on the car all year round so they’re very convenient, but they tend to perform less well than comparable summer and winter tyres.
- Snow chains – like tyre socks, snow chains are fitted over the existing tyres, but snow chains should only be used on roads which are covered in deep and compacted snow, so are probably only suited to people who live in more mountainous parts of the UK. You probably already know from experience if you need these!
- Tyre grip spray – a silicone product you can simply spray on your existing tyres to improve grip “by 33%” according to the blurb. Buyers on Amazon seem to give it good reviews so for less than £10 it could be a useful addition to your emergency kit.
Note that if you plan to take your car to Europe over the winter period the fitment of winter tyres and/or the carrying and use of snow chains is compulsory in some countries, including France, so please check local requirements.