Best budget winter tyres

[PetrolDave]

I knew what you meant Timster but Dave and wellzie mentioned Sessanta's because a few forum members, myself included have run Sessanta's in the winter with no issues so you could in theory take your choice between their summer, winter or their all weather Quatrac(?) tyre.

I haven't seen the Quatrac's in the right sizes for the RS4 though - otherwise they would have been what I bought last month instead of the Sessantas.

I've run Summer tyres on the RS4 for the last 5 winters - and I've got into and out of places where no other car has got during the snow (I rescued my wife & 3 colleagues last winter from a commercial area only 5 miles away), so I'm not convinced that it's worth having separate Summer & Winter tyres - at least here in the "soft South"!

But I do run Summer & Winter tyres on my daily drive, a Citroen C1.

[JCviggen]

Anyway, I was running my Audi over in Germany and so had to put it on winter tyres last year, a set of pirelli w240 sottozero 2 (255/35 R19 XL 96V TL). Reckon I did about 1000 miles on them and they still have 7-8mm of good tread with even wear, no kerbing etc. They're gathering dust in my garage at the moment (the beetle dealer wasn't interested), so I'm happy for them to go to a good home for a modest price?

I run those exact same tires on my RS6 in winter, they are absolutely brilliant in dry/wet conditions compared to most other winter tires. Only in genuine snow they are a bit less brilliant simply because they are 255 wide and you really want a narrower tire for plowing through snow. But I think for w-european winters they make a lot of sense.