For my little shit heap runner, i bought some 2nd hand Scirocco Mk1 Alloys (won all 5 on ebay for £18!) threw some (decent) winter tyres on it and now i can drive everywhere! and that was 3 years ago! :D

I never touch the budget tyres. The extra distance its takes them to stop could mean the £20-40 a corner you saved buying them could cost you paying out on your excess and more expensive insurance for the next 5 years if you go up the back end of the car in front on decent tyres. Worse you could mow down a kid.

In RC racing, tyres is everything. Why would it be any different on 1:1 cars?

Cheaping out on tyres is just false economy and frankly dangerous.

The 'you need to be on the right tires' analogy is very good. I've put some Michelin Alpin's on the front of the dig milk van for this winter, it's miles better in snow than past years when I have been on normal tires.
Come spring Ill get a couple more rims off ebay and put some normals on them for summer, get the winter wheels out next winter.

i used to be very against winter tyres 3 years ago , due to my wife being very unconfident driving in snow/ice i invested in some avon super ice touring these are more extreme snow tyres with the pattern of tread being serrated rather than just blocks i fit them in november or when temp drops 7 degc this is the temp that winter tyres start to work(mine anyway) and take them back of rims when temp again rises.
i would recomend anyone to invest in these the differance they make is unbelievable
if you get chance in cold weather feel how hard a normal tyre tread is and then feel a winter tyre the winter will still be soft
another thing winter tyres should be fitted to all four wheels as differance in grip can affect handling .
those still not convinced invest in some and give them a try !

What's does that make me then when my alloys and tyres have just cost £1400 :confused: :lol:

You'll be pimping out on 25" spinners in your landy ;-)

25" rims???? This is a proper landy not a range rover, 16" blindos in black with a fresh new set of 265/75/16 bf Goodrich all terrains, or for a extra £700 you could have some insa turbo special tracks on modulars, now they are winter tyres, just not sure if they would fit your standard car :confused:

I have Dunlop winter sport 4d on my seat leon cupra. Being able to put 180bhp on the road does have its benefits in the snow. They were £137 a corner fitted and that's for 17s. My usual continentals are £100 so not much difference for extra winter safety. I've had winter tyres for 4 years now and wouldn't change back. The car would go nowhere at the moment.
I can go anywhere a 4wd can go, on road ;) I don't have the ground clearance for off road.
If you ever look at tyre tests you'll see that paying a few quid extra for a branded tyre really does reap benefits in terms of all round tyre performance. They will out brake the cheap Chinese tyres by more than double and these cheap tyres are not even made to European standards. Is that worth snyones safety??
Having a good independent dealer like I have also keeps costs down as the same tyres from the high street would be £50-80 more.

Personally, i wouldnt put my life or my family's lifes at risk by buying cheap non brand tyres, there are dangerous! There should be some sort of law against it..now there are new tyre lables out there's no excuse for people buying shite tyres.

Weridly, on my company car they are obsessed with budget tyres. So much so I had to pay the extra to get some better tyres on it.

Strange really, they just see me as being fussy :)

Quote
 

Yeh but the way you drive they last along time:p

Ours are the other way round, mentioned that the fronts were a bit, um, sketchy, and might need swapping while they were doing the service, rears were pretty much immaculate. Came back to find 4 new tyres fitted, £1000 bill. (It wasn't the dealers ripping us off either, as its our own dealership :lol:)

I guess one of the mechanics probably needed a couple of tyres........ ;)

I love my chinese ling longs, can do ace burnouts and they just dont wear out. Think they must be made from plastic, maybe recycled wheelie bins lol. Stopping distance is probably worse than a freight train tho, but with my poorly fitted aftermarket hids, old folk and kids willsee me coming from a couple of counties away :lol:

The wifes snow tyred corsa would out drag your 4x4 turbo on sheet ice/snow still. try it to believe it. ive blitzed around albeit not very fast on ice in my cousins impreza sti, it wont get stuck unless your daft and only steady progress at best. so youve paid for a car, tax and insurance not to mention the cost of an extra set of tyres for your extra car lol that compared to the £0 cost of winters as once again you can only use one set at a time so your summers are sitting in the garage waiting their turn....

Hmm, have you been on the wine or something. It's not a race? It's a non turbo, I've paid for 6 months tax on that then 6 months on my Beemer for summer, swap the insurance over and that's it! I don't need to worry about wreaking my nice car, or someone else wreaking it for me.


I think it's a good idea!

60,000 miles on one set of tyres :cry:

I get about 11,000, must learn not to press so heavy on the pedals.

Never had winter tyres, but keep on contemplating getting some for my scooby.

Makes me sad when people think about tyres like that.
They are the only bit in contact with the road yet you don't give a stuff what you put on your car?

I'd have thought someone who races r.c. cars would understand how much difference a decent set of boots can make to a car.

Mine are around £500 for a full set. Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric.

So you being the guy who goes for the breaks in a situation that is totally out of your hands and discovers you can't stop during human error will find you are actually the guy wrecking motors. Didn't mean race, ultimately meant grip.

What's wrong with you man?:eh?: I'll do it my way, you do it yours. I'm sure I know my situation better than you do!

Go and pick an argument with someone else!

Richie I would pic an argument with someone else James is one big fooker lol.:D

YEAH!!! James swings on winter tyres whilst eating a banana and beating his chest

James is a big, soft, pillock.
The reason he drives a base model non turbo scoob is two-fold... he can't handle a turbo, and (judging be his RC skills) he can't handle his RWD beemer in the slippy either!







































Just joking big boy! To the best of my knowlege I've never been close to the same lap times a James, regardless of chassis

Balls of cheese Col lol

Colway m+s
 

Just got a pair of these badboys
10" colway mud and snow rally tyres
In my rwd fox these are gonna be ace

Used forrest rally rubber is cheap, normally stamped 'competition use only', is that a problem?

I'll be off like a racing snake in the wifes corsa:lol: if im in the insignia that may be a different matter:cry:

not if you have a dremmel:thumbsup:

Col has no balls, they are definitely attached to his wife in his household:lol:

That made me actually lol :lol:


I do agree with the correct rubber being more important in general than 4wd, I've found out in the R32 on Pilot Sport 3's in winter that...

1 - You never get stuck
2 - You cant stop or turn :p

To be honest I'd much rather have a front wheel drive car with proper winter tyres in the snow, 4wd is good for making progress forward but can catch you out sometimes. I've found out a couple of times if the road has lots of camber the second you start spinning all four wheels the whole car just slides sideways in whatever direction the road slopes, and with the Golf being about as heavy as a double decker bus once it starts sliding generally you don't stop :bored:

I've had to abandon the wife's BMW 320d about 2 miles from my house even the slightest gradient was a challenge with the 18" run flats but to be fair it was traffic queuing on the hill that caused me to abandon it at the bottom still I wouldn't buy winter tyres ill just jump in the Volvo tomorrow and rescue it

Only problem is their harder compound, when we did the RAC and it snowed they were wank, ended up buying the right tyres, though there prob better than road tyres

Wish I had winters last night. I came out of the vue after a film in Ellesmere Port about 8.30 and it was coming down fast so decided to skip the pub. The roads were deep in it, no gritters had been out at all. The car was skewing sideways up the aston hill just about made it to the top then 1hr 45mins later what should have been a 20 min trip I could'nt get up the dropped kerb into my drive. All that way crawling and beaten by the last yard.

Unstoppable
 

Been out with the colway tyres today she's unstoppable and so much fun it's untrue been flying up hills and digging through 8 " deep powder

To reopen this Im definatley going to get winter tyres fitted to my spare wheels. Feb 13 On my 4mm michelin primacy 3 my car refused to turn and skidded into the kerb . Up to now its cost me £570 plus the bearing when I do it. Saturday I got a call from the garage to collect my daughters car. I've been in for a few weeks with a slipped disc but managed to take her there Getting home I got stuck on a small gradiant and wasted the 4mm down to the wear indicaters trying to find grip spinning them at 65mph while 4 people were trying to push it.
Now I've got to fork out for new summer tyres and a pair of winters which I wish I had fitted in hindsight.

I'm on my third winter on a set of Nokian W+ tyres (on steelies which do nothing for the looks but the car is filthy from Nov to April anyway) - been superb, £54 a corner and they've saved 15000 miles of wear on my £140 a corner summer tyres so far, not to mention kept my alloys looking great.

Two days after i collected my current car when new, I found myself in 2" of snow, going nowhere - it took that long to make progress up a slight incline that the traction control system actually gave up after 20 minutes.

I've driven on winter tyres in 12" of fresh snow, compacted snow and ice and never had an issue. Biggest problems with winter tyres are..

1. don't get too cocky - the laws of physics only allow so much
2. other road users think they can do the same as you on their wide summer tyres - i've had numerous occassions where cars following me have piroetted into kerbs and barriers because they think they can do what the car in front does
3. it upsets the Range Rover Sport owners that you make progress when they can budge - some might say this is a bonus :D

Im not sure if Jimmy will include this business in the Players report but winter tyres were a factor in us getting there in time for pub on Friday. If the geezer behind does not have winter tyres on he's gonna struggle to slow down as fast as you when you slow down in a hurry.

I'M with Stu on this one, proper winter tyres are the bollocks, after all 50 million of our eastern European neighbours can't be wrong.....


Seriously we have Fulda winter rubber on our swift and it seems happy to go wherever you ask, without complaint :)

Anyone heard of Haida tyres? Just had 2 fitted 235/35/19, £65 each fitted and balanced :thumbsup:

They're chinese budget tyres.
Excellent in the wet. Many boats have them hanging over the side