Winter Tyres v Summer Tyres: the Truth! - Auto Express 

Oh look, a young Mat Watson! Still as cool as he is today 😂

I've been driving in the UK for over 20 years and always drove on all-season tyres (or tires for those across the pond ;)). Then three years ago we had a particularly bad winter and there was this snow covered hill I couldn't get up. Several times I made it halfway then gradually slowed as I lost traction. I ended up turning back and doing a 10-mile detour, every day for a week. So I bit the bullet and bought a set of winter tyres. My... God... what a difference! Straight up the snowy hill like I was on tarmac! I was dubious before but as soon as I tried them... wow!! Now I may be a skilled driver, or I may not, but common sense tells me that anything that helps me stick to the road is a VERY good thing. So why are some people so against winter tyres, even after watching the compelling evidence in this video? 1. They haven't tested them for themselves (ignorance); and/or 2. They believe they're so skillful that nothing can improve their driving (over confidence).

As someone who works for a major tyre company; winter tyres are worth the money when it comes to this time of year, especially here in Scotland. They are not designed solely for snow; as the video shows, they are also intended for any slippery surface including wet. The impact on fuel economy is barely noticeable and as long as you drive responsibly then they will last a decent amount of time. The only reason they are so expensive is because the rubber we use is somewhat difficult to manufacture and the process is slightly different- this is not really something that is likely to change I'm afraid, but come one, those extra few metres of stopping space might save someone's life; you can't put a price on that!

I just spent $550 for new winter tires... that price tag hurts. This video makes me feel better about it

I was actually impressed that in my country (Bulgaria) changing tires during winter/summer is a typical thing but for other countries like US/UK is something rather unusual.

in Quebec Canada the Law 42 was instituted 2007, which requires all motorists to install four winter tires on their vehicle from December 15 to March 15. As of December 15, 2014, all winter tires must be marked with the symbol of a snowflake and mountain on the sidewall. if you get pulled over and don't have the snowflake on sidewall it is 400$ ticket per tire. Best law ever passed if you ask me.

When I was young I used to try to do it on the cheap and go through winter with my all seasons up here in Canada. It was my father-in-law who finally convinced me of the wisdom of springing for proper winter tires, when he reflected, "the cost of buying winter tires is pretty cheap compared to the cost of an accident". That pretty much did it for me, and I have dutifully switched to winter tires every November since that conversation many years ago. And I NEVER run with worn tires. Good tires are like good shoes: you can go "cheap" on many other aspects of life, but there are some things you just cannot compromise on. And that, my son, is my advice to you...

Casually saying the braking distance in meter while talking about the speed in miles per hour. Thanks imperial system!

This test is not fair the red car goes faster than the white car because red is a fast color

it suprises me that there is no law in britain which makes it mandatory to have winter tires in the winter. I mean... there is a reason why winter tires and summer tires have their specific name....

Snow tires don't help much if the people around you don't have them. That's why videos like this are IMPORTANT!

Thanks. This helped answer questions I was thinking of

Getting them this weekend. Almost had a scary accident today. Maaaaan my heart was pumping faster than a man running away from child support.

wow I really didn't realise there was that much improvement with winter tyres!

Woah! Been a Carwow subscriber for so long and now RU-vid recommends this video. Matt is as good as always!

Could have shown us the Winter Tyres in the summer for comparison.

A set of winter tyres will still be cheaper than your no claims bonus and policy excess. They should be mandatory over here in the UK.

Bring on the snow! My winter wheels and tyres arrived today. That's all good and well, but I can't help thinking I'm now gonna get rear ended at by a plonker on summer tyres

The final shot was epic

Excellent test!

Now do one in the summer time with winter and summer tires.

Why aren't they comparing All Season vs Winter Tires, seems like a better comparison. It would be pretty stupid to expect summer tires to perform in winter.

Thanks for the info!

With respect Sniktun1, I don't know where you have spent the last 3 winters ! I first fitted winter tyres to a Golf Estate and just the fact that the car will actually stop in the snow and slush is good enough for me.

I'd like you to do the opposite test, how safe are summer there over winter ones on normal dry road.

If you can't afford winter tires for your car, buy a cheaper car. Otherwise you are basically just risking your safety as well as whoever is in/operating your car. Not to mention whatever vehicles you plow into.

Very well done video. I have been an auto accident investigator for many years. Tires can make all the difference between beiing in an accident and avoiding one. Of course you must also leave proper distance between you and the car in front of you, a good rule of thumb is a car length for every 10 mph you are going until you get to higher speeds such as freeway speeds, then more room is needed.

Awesome video .

Try all season tires vs winter tires

why not just make all tires with the extra tread pattern it would save alot of time.

well i concur,i can tell by that reply you are a driving god who is so good your car actually floats along the road with little clouds under each tyre.xxx

Well lets just hope you never have to avoid an accident in the winter then. Good luck to you, and whoever shares the road with you.

I participated in a time attack at a local track last spring. Light rain, wet track, no more than 5°C outside. I just arrived on my daily 150hp 2 liter BMW, nothing special about it, and had my "all season" tires on (what these guys would call winter tires). The tires made such an amazing difference, it was unbelievable really. Another guy got there on is M3, same model, almost 200 more hp. He had some racing performance tires on. The end result was he managed a 0.7 second faster lap time on a ca 1.10 minute long track than I did. I just had grip all the time, and he couldn't get the power down at all.

In my country (the Netherlands) there is hardly any snow and the temperature in winter rarely gets very far below freezing. If there is snow, the roads are salted. Combined with the fact that winter tyres perfom worse without snow than summer tyres (in wet and dry), the conclusion is here: no winter tyres here for me.

Very clear info, easy to grasp. Thank you for the video. Summer tires with cheap chains? I know, what a pain lol.

Brilliant video thanks,

Southern Californian here. LOL WTF IS SNOW

Wow, I just cannot comprehend you people complaining about winter tyres? Let me ask you this, you have a child, who gets out of your vehicle and drops a ball and steps out to get it without thinking as kids tend to do. A driver coming one direction stops because they have winter tyres, a car coming the other direction cannot stop or steer and plows into your kid killing the child.... now tell me how much those tyres are worth? I live in Canada specifically in BC where I carry chains for all four tyres and run an extremely siped snow tread myself. I cannot imagine running on summer treads in the winter! NOT EVER... If not for me...for someone else!

Very good and informative video. Potential test alternative: If a car with summer tires takes 85m to come to a full stop, instead of a drag race to see who gets to 35 miles per hour from a stop, you/they should do a race to see how many seconds it takes to clear out 85m from a stop... ...If you have stopped on an icy intersection and see an incoming car behind you sliding fast and sideways in your rear view mirror, the last thing you want is your tires spinning in the snow and staying there (brace for impact captain!). I can tell you, each fraction of a second it takes to move forward seams like an eternity.

I just watched the carwow snow drag. I clicked to this video to see a different perspective. Oh well, hello again, Matt! :D

massive difference

I've gone 6 years on a set of winter tires so at 75 dollars per tire you get your moneys worth. They never lose there tread and most times have to be replaced due to weather cracking. That's my experience here in Canada. Obviously if you spin the hell out of them and drift and do burn outs you will be lucky to get a year out of them. Summer tires last about 3 years with normal wear.

Good video and makes sense ! thank you !

glad we don't have winter tyre issue in Aus, but we do have offroad tyres that for a lot are required but most just usually have offroad tyres as a year round set if they go offroad. If you do a lot of driving it is highly recommended to have two sets of tyres, it doesn't work out any more expensive, if you store your tyres out of sunlight they will last a while.

Have used winter and summer tyres on rotation on my BMW since living in Germany for several years. For £140 I still do now I am back in the UK. Undoubtedly safer in colder and wetter conditions from Nov to Mar and proper rotation helps the tyres to last longer. Summer tyres will degrade more quickly if there is a consistently cold spell. Well worth the investment in the long run.

Winter tires are for under +6'C. Than are beter on wet snow and dry than a summer tire. If temp is over +6'C than a allweather or summer tires are beter on wet and dry.

Great video, quite an eye opener. Subscription fully earned. I do note a discrepancy though; first of all, the tests were done on fresh snow(Presumably a frozen lake?) that was dry. Snow itself isn't slippery, it's slippery when it becomes lubricated by liquid water. When driving on the roads, the slipperiness is mostly due to other drivers melting the snow/ice. Driving on that freshly cleared snow is much easier than on snowy roads, source people who ice fish and ice road truckers .

I love how the red car is fitted basically performance tires compared to a true m+s tires.

A better comparison would be winter tires vs. all seasons. Almost all tires sold are all-seasons not summer or winter.

in texas there is no such thing as winter.

Everyone (bar a few) uses summer tyres because they're the cheapest. Period. This is the best test out there. Wake up people and stop complaining when you're involved in an accident in winter conditions. Chances are, the person who hit you are using the exact same tyres they had on when it was 80° in July. It should be part of the MOT test to have the correct tyres in the winter.

Thanks for this video test, it should save lives if people have enough sense to take your advice. I've ordered winter tyres on a BMW 3 series with 18 inch alloy wheels (I mention this as I've heard some dealers try to force a 2nd set of rims on you) and the dealer will store the standard summer tyres for me. Over the longer term it doesn't cost anymore in tyres just a fee to swap them.

0:48 When our drivers reach THIS CONE they will do a full abs emergency stop...

Oi! Sweden isn't freezing cold! ... At least not most of the time... *desperately tries to forget last winter's -34 C*

If someone still believes that summer tyres will do just fine in winter if roads are dry, you should try riding a streetbike when the temperature drops below 7 degrees Celsius. The effect of a thread pattern on these is pretty much non-existent naturally, since there almost aren't any threads. The summer tyres compound turns into something that resembles a hockey puck when it's cold, just try leaning into the curve and see for yourself how confident you feel! I think that the only reason why so many car drivers don't notice the difference is because modern cars can compensate for the lower traction with various ride stabilization systems (and of course because cars are inherently more stable than bikes from the very beginning). But when an emergency situation comes and they have to push it to the tyres limit, it's already too late.

i was skeptic about winter tire because tire was just tire to me, but when i bought a set of 4 winter tire this year.... i am a believer. driving a rear wheel sports car in the winter with winter tire is like driving an all wheel drive in the winter except it is 2x better then an all wheel drive because i can just floor the car and speed in the snow like it was nothing. out speeding all the all wheel drive car people and when turning on a corner, your car wont even do a 360 spin out because the winter tire grip on the snow is so good it wont even let your car spin. it makes winter driven so much fun. Winter tire is highly recommended for rear wheel drive in the winter if its your only car all year round and winter tire does not kick all the snow up into your car and form a big chunk of ice under your car in between the wheels like *All season tire* do.

Umm...This a good idea, especially for stopping quicker...but what about the guy behind you and his half-used under inflated summer tyres??

I do have a question for you Brits, do you guys just call all season tires summer tires or do you really try to drive on summer tires in the winter? The reason I ask is because it seems to me like all seasons would be all but a requirement anywhere that gets a reasonable amount of snow.

I'm curious. I would like to see these tests done again, with the summer tires under inflated, like just enough air, to keep the rim easily hitting the ground. I'm also interested in the snow tires being the same way, and how much they would improve.

Great video

You're leaving out the fact the summer tires would beat or equal the winter tires in the second test if the road was dry at the same temperatures. So are they really better for the entire winter? No not really, only when it's wet. To be honest the winter tires have a larger lead over the summer tires in the wet, then the summer tires have over the winter tires in the dry.

thats the first time i really noticed that - you guys in the UK use miles per houre for the speed, but the metric system for the distance? how unlogic is that? ;)

I am really impressed with this, I never realised the importance of winter tyres.

one of the best ways of improving grip for bad conditions is to simply air down the tyre to a much lower psi, this gives a wider tread pattern and a more pliable tyre that grips much better, and of course a reduction in speed helps considerably as well.

Your "summer" tires are performance racing slicks. Normal car summer tires have much more blocks in the profile.

Americans: THERE ARE WINTER TIRES???

On the continent they use metric mainly but in the UK we use a mixture of metric and imperial (US) measurements. If we're talking about car speed we say miles per hour, if we go for a run we're doing a 5k but would equally as often say we're doing a 4 mile walk. Weights are stones and pounds rather than just pounds but we also use KGs! I could go on all night but let's just say that we're a complex bunch :)

They are great. I use them here in NEPA and never had a problem on these twisty, sometimes unplowed mountain roads.

did anyone catch him saying 85 meters when the video measured 58 meters at 1:14?

An all season vs winter tires would be a better comparison. Who has summer tires other than expensive sport cars. Majority of cars come with all season tires.

In Romania it is mandatory by law to have winter tyres if there is snow or heavy mud on the road (even if you are in august and travelling in a mountain area). It is also recomended to have them installed if the

I just added winter tires/ all season tires on my Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited.......TOYO Celsius WSC......love them

Why summer tires vs winter? Why not ALL SEASONS tires? All most everyone uses all winter tires and barely anyone uses summer tires during winter.

but how many days there is snow on the streets? where I live maybe two days a year, so I would rather take a bus on that day then spend 600 $ on tyres

I drive my M135i on Michelin Pilot Super Sport during the summer and on Michelin Pilot Alpin 4 during the winter. The best tires in their categories, believe me, well worth the investment. Where I live temperatures are about 8-14ºC between November and February and there's some rain but no snow - can't tell you how good the A4 are on colder climates, but here they work a treat. During the summer we have temperatures of around 25-30ºC and the PSS are brilliant.

what the fuck is this when everybody talks about winter tyres that dont have studs on em

Um better review would be High rated all seasons vs dedicated winter tires.

Be nice to know if any tire companies/organisations paid for this?? Hmmmmmm?

Would like to see the same test wet and dry at summer temps!

I live on the west coast of Scotland where it rains all the time. I keep winters on my car all year around because the climate is never really warm enough to need to take them off. The handful of days that it goes above 25C are not worth changing for, I just take it easy.

Why not test on a tarmac road in cold temperature? That is more relevant to the UK where only a small percentage of time in winter there is snow on a few roads.

get ultra-high-performance all-season tires and be done with it. I love my Michelin Pilot A/S3

Agreed, same with here in Alaska. Summer tires in the winter, here in Alaska, you can't even get down the street most of the time in the winter months.

Still surprised that there is still need for video like this.

in norway the police can take your licenseplates if you dont drive with good wintertires.. and you have to be pretty fucking stupid to drive on summertires in the snow.. :P

learn to drive in the winter. and use all seasons all year.

Nice video. But do you have another for the same test the other way around. I mean how useful is summer tyres?

I grew up driving a '66 Chevrolet PU with a 250 inline 6 with a 3 speed. First drove it at 11 years old in '78 by myself on the public road lol. Still got it, but it needs work and I don't drive it anymore. Will restore it one day because it was my Daddy's and I was with him and remember the day well that he bought it in 1976 from a Ford dealership. He was the 2nd owner. Have had lots of hotrods over the years and still have a few, but at 45, the racing days are close to being behind me.

You floored it on the acceleration test with the summer tires. Of course your not going any where. Also the summer tire driver either sucks or this video is just trying to make a point (which is what i'm betting). You know what is unsafe? Bad drivers not knowing the limitations of their vehicles.

Whats with the "miles per hour" ?!?!?! I thought you Brits were using the metric system?

good observation doesnt matter if you stop in time, when the car behind you is still a danger to you

don't forget the UK has wet snow mainly, which is far more slippery, not dry like northern areas. any winter tyre would help but the best advice is to have new tyres in the late autumn so that you have plenty of tread depth when needed through the worst weather

Did Continental pay for this video? Of course they did!

how stupid driver can you be, to not make any difference between winter and summer tires? If you can not feel/see/make the difference, i can not Imagine how are you handling with more strict laws... Jesus, now i am scared for driving in Winter, because someone might crash with summer tires and try blaming the other people... i saw a lot of comments i this video and its sad to watch

I have worked in field service for over thirty years and I also love to ski, I drive all over New England in crazy weather either for work or play and I am a big fan of studded snow tires. I think its the way to go.

holy crap you mean winter tires are better in winter conditions MIND BLOWN

I live in Wisconsin, USA and run snow tires all year 'round. I don't drive aggressively in the summer and the tires wear just fine. Also work well on dirt/gravel roads. :^]

I've known for a long time that winter tires are massively better in snow and ice. I did NOT know they were better in the wet in the cold. That's useful information and makes me less irritated when I'm wearing my winters and the stupid weather refuses to snow.

Most Americans in the northern states run all season radial tires. If you drive a high performance car with summer tires you keep your car garaged until springtime. In the southern part of the US you can drive with either of course.

I live in Norway and used to think that having two sets of tires was twice as expensive, but it isn't of course: Having two sets (one of which is the Nokian Hakka studded version) just means that I distribute tire wear over the two sets so they both last longer than a set of "All Season" would. Here in Norway the question is mostly moot: If you try to drive on summer tires in winter conditions the police will take your license plates on the spot, and using the studded winter tires after the spring cutoff date leads to a heavy fine.