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B8.5 - winter tyres? Absolute necessity or just belt and braces? Any experience with all year round tyres? (apologies for the inevitably inaccurate terminology)

Definitely not necessary but you would notice the difference. I say dont bother

As mentioned above, not necessary but they do give a good bit extra grip when the weather is poor. I have a set that only done about 500miles back and forward from Aberdeen and was grateful of them for added security a couple of times. Although I have a feeling I'll miss the 4WD this year.

Thanks to you both....F1s all round it is in that case!

I'd say winter tyres are a luxury, one luxury I wouldn't be without!

I run Goodyear F1 summer tyres and whilst good in the summertime, they're not a patch on my Continental Wintercontact TS830p when temps start reaching 12c and below. They far out perform the summer tyres in the wet weather as well. I will look to put my winter tyres on again in the next 6-8 weeks and they will stay on until around Easter time next year. They probably just pip the summer tyres for staying on the longest, over a 12 month period.

+1 on the Wintercontacts.

It's not so much the snow conditions but the cold wet conditions that these tyres 'shine' in. I'm always amazed how I much power I can put down when coming out of my home intersection after I've changed over from the summers. Also, these will prolong the life of your summers tyres so it kind of evens out. I'm coming up to my third season for this set, still over 4mm all-round too.

Do you have separate rims for the winters (18 rather than 19)? This seems to increase the faff factor.

I do but I have a lot of rims at present. An extra set of rims should on be £400 - £600 via fleabay.

I run exactly the same dimension rims and tyres for my winter setup. No point looking like you have a poverty spec Audi.

*edit spelling

+1 You'll have them on for up to a third of the year so they should look the part.

I bought a set of genuine B7 RS4 rims for £650, the OP should be able to fleabay a set of B8 S4 wheels for less, ne?

I will be investing in a set for the RS, I run winter tyre set ups on my other car / van and they have proved invaluable, so much more surefooted too. I would be interested to see what others are running though as haven't started to think about this yet...?

Don't wait too long, winter tyres sell out very quickly.

I run a set of winter tyres from November to March, Vredestein wintrac extremes, and they are superb. The general rule of thumb is to swap summer tyres when temperatures drop below 10 degrees Celsius. Last year, we had a mild winter, so they came off earlier than normal.

You lose a bit of steering feel and outright grip in the dry, but on cold, wet, greasy roads, the wintracs are great. Even more so if they have to deal with the white stuff.

Rather than faff about with changing tyres on rims, I got a set of winter alloys from Germany and run a 225/45/18 tyre, rather than the stock 255/35/19.
Swapping over is so much quicker, and the stock alloys avoid the salt.

mylo911 wrote:I run a set of winter tyres from November to March, Vredestein wintrac extremes, and they are superb. The general rule of thumb is to swap summer tyres when temperatures drop below 10 degrees Celsius. Last year, we had a mild winter, so they came off earlier than normal.

You lose a bit of steering feel and outright grip in the dry, but on cold, wet, greasy roads, the wintracs are great. Even more so if they have to deal with the white stuff.

Rather than faff about with changing tyres on rims, I got a set of winter alloys from Germany and run a 225/45/18 tyre, rather than the stock 255/35/19.
Swapping over is so much quicker, and the stock alloys avoid the salt.

Tempted to do the same myself. Why did you go to the trouble of Germany for the rims? Cheaper new?