jasey

Wurzel can get you a set of super-soft-stick-to-glass-upside-down tyres if you want

Dream Weaver

Its not invisible, it just looks like a wet patch on the road.

I unfortunately hit some when about 19 in my dads van. Turned in to my folks drive and the van just went straight on and through their fence, then my mum slipped on it when coming out to see what the noise was

I was driving like a **** though to be fair.

Iwan

I want some with thousands of tiny suckers all over them, like on a lizards fingers, or on a starfish (not a chocolate one). That'd be sweet!

Flatcapdriver

I'd agree that Winter tyres would be a good investment if temperatures do get down as low as 3 degrees celsius but as I drive around 25k miles per annum and only come across days with temperatures as low as that on four or five occasions it's a waste of money. The last time I drove on snow in this country was over ten years ago.

Alas

Hit some black ice in Glencoe a few years ago. Road had been fine and was'nt too cold but then I reached the summit of Rannoch Moor and found about 2 miles of black ice. Should have known as I drove that road about once a week. Now won't buy a car unless it has an outside temp sensor. Never liked that car anyway
Alas

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

Yikes!!! Poor Scooby, was it repairable or a write off mate?

I hit some balck ice going down a hill (very slowly I might add) in my horrid 1.3 Escort when I was 18. Whilst sliding towards a T junction I had time to try all the braking techniques they tell you about: Don't panic, brake very gently, Use engine braking, trying pumping the brakes lightly, etc.... out of desperation I even tried putting in it in reverse. Nothing worked I eventually stoped by hitting the kerb having ploughed straight across the T junction. Fortunately nothing was coming and there were no parked cars around. As I was going very slowly the impact only happened at about 5mph, so no damage to the car either. it really shook me up though, it was just the most awful feeling of being powerless in a situation I hadn't even induced by doing anything wrong.

I think to some extent the press have some answering to do for instilling misplaced confidence in traction control, abs 4wd drive etc.. if you believed what the reports said, a Scooby of Evo should make a driver invincible and impervious to adverse conditions. The simple truth is that if you hit ice, you're in trouble whatever you've got.

I don't take Scooby out in freezing conditions, not worth the risk.

matchmaker

Temperature today according to the temperature sensor on my Octy vRS is 2.5 degrees. Last drove on snow was less than 10 days ago. And no, I don't live in a remote part of the Highlands - I live in Central Scotland

Henrik

iTrader: (5)

No, you people still don't get it

Winter tyres (as in, not the studded type), do grip the tarmac better than summer tyres (even new summer tyres!) from about 8C and lower, because the compound (as has been mentioned) is softer at those temperatures. However, this doesn't mean that winter tyres is a lot worse grip-wise when temperatures are higher.

Example: The road is completely dry, but it's 4 degrees. You're driving along on the usual A-road to work, and suddenly you have to brake hard for something. If you are on summer tyres, your stopping distance will be longer than if you are on winter tyres.

Also, even studless winter tyres are better on ice than normal summer tyres, due to the compound used. I feel that I can comment on this having driven in Swedish winters with both stud tyres, studless winter tyres and summer tyres.

For ice, obviously the studded tyres are the best, followed by the winter tyres followed by the summer tyres.

For driving in snowy conditions, there is very little difference between the studded and non studded winter tyres, but the summer tyres are awful.

For driving on dry or wet cold roads, the studless winter tyres are the best, with both studded and summer tyres being quite crap (The studded ones because you end up driving on small pieces of metal (i.e. the studs), and the summer tyres because they go hard).

Diablo

I think we do get it mate

We are talking about sheet ice - only studs will work and they are (IIRC) not legal on UK roads.

Henrik

iTrader: (5)

yeah i know that bit, it's just that some people seem to think that if the roads are dry, summer tyres are as good/better than winter tyres

Ok, maybe I was slightly off topic

Flatcapdriver

Teach ya to live in Scotland then.

scoob_babe

Bit of a sweeping generalisation Wurzel, I'm surprised at this. There was no covering of snow on the ground, no indication of ice. The speed that our car was going way less than the speed limit as the Police confirmed. Bad road surface and lack of council maintenance played a HUGE part so the recovery driver said as he continually got called out to that bit every Jan-Feb.. We're not local to the road so had no way of knowing it was a death trap.

Dracoro

I have to disagree (politely ). Ice doesn't appear on the ground unless it's cold. The weather is your indication that there may be ice about. Watch out for areas shielded (e.g. under trees etc.) as the sun doesn't hit them.

BMWhere?

In the 10 years I spent driving in the North of England, I've never encountered "Sheet Ice" on the road in such a quantity that all four tyres are on Ice at the same time!

Henrik pretty much posted exactly what I want to say! Every year, we get the same descussion, that it never snows in the UK or its only below 0 for a couple of days! 0 degrees and snow have nothing to do with it. Increased grip and reduced stopping distance in the wet is the point.

IMHO, the number of serious injuries and deaths on the UK roads would be reduced far more than any number of speed cameras if they made winter tyres a legal requirement in the UK.

Winter tyres work perfectly well upto about 14 degrees! How often does it go above that in the average UK winter? Summer tyres stop working properly at about 7 degrees! Between 7 & 14 degrees there is little difference.

The cost is not an argument as while you have the winter tyres fitted, you're not wearing out your 'normal' tyres. The wear rate on winter tyres in no more than 'normal' tyres while the temperature is below 14 degrees. For example, instead of buying 1 set of tyres every 2 years, you buy 2 sets every 4 years - in the end, the cost is the same!

Wake up people and start using winter tyres!!!

matchmaker

onder2:

Brit_in_Japan

[hammer home]
Henrik, new studless winter tyres actually perform better than studded tyres on smooth ice. On rough ice studded are clearly better though. I posted a link to a report in a number of previous threads which backs this up (and can find and post again for those doubting Thomas' if necessary). Unless people have driven on new (& high silicon content), studless, winter tyres then they won't know how good they are. I have had sufficient grip in my WRX on pure ice to tow another car out of a ditch and up a slope. When I got out to undo the rope I couldn't even stand on the road, so you could say I was impressed.
[/hammer home]

Having said that, they cannot give the same level of grip as on dry tarmac, so if you are driving on the limit of adhesion and then hit black ice, you will be going off.

Back on subject a few years ago my father was a passenger in a car which hit black ice. It was a BMW and at first he thought he'd caught it, but then it gripped and threw the car of the road the other side. His mate who was driving had passed an advanced driving test and spent time on a skid pan, but it didn't help. The car left the road and went through the brick wall of a factory. No-one hurt thankfully, but the factory workers got a skock as it took out their tea-making facilities

SJ_Skyline

Couldn't really tell if it was cold or not since he'd already driven the best part of 80 miles and hadn't got out of the car to take a weather snapshot . It also doesn't help having an adverse camber on a hill on the road to take you on your merry dance plus two fire engines blocking the inside lane cutting someone else out of their car to concentrate on missing.
The replacement car does have temp indicator so we do now keep an eye out for the drop in temperature and shaded areas where the sun hasn't got to!!

And yes New scooby 04, it was a total write off - every panel except driver's door heavily damaged but inside cabin held together!


ooops, written as SJ_Skyline by mistake - scoob_babe

Scoob99

iTrader: (1)

A few years back had a brown trouser moment, I entered a bend in my trusty M.G. Maestro and she let go, but what was more worrying a fuel tanker was coming the other way and I missed him by a gnats bollock, I can still see the look on the guys face as I did a 360 degree spin in front of him, the funny thing was I gently hit the kerb straighted her up and carried on, the guy in the car with me got the train into work from then on The only other time I was scared ****eless was when a fuel tanker had spilt some diesel on the road and my van was going all over the road, the point is if I had braked the van would have ended up in a ditch
Cheers
Colin

rolyatescort

A couple of winters ago i was driving to work along an unlit country road at about 4.30am when in the distance i could make out a Hi-Vis jacket, it was a copper waving at me to slow down, as i rolled up to him i was doing about 10mph as i braked to stop and talk to him i hit black ice, the car just carried on for about 30ft, when i stopped i put it in reverse and edged back to the copper who was gingerly walking towards me. When i stopped i wound the window down and without a hint of irony the copper said "watch out mate the roads a bit icy"! Up ahead was an Iveco TurboDaily van on its roof blocking both lanes and he advised me to drive the rest of the way down the road on the grass as it wasn't as slippy!

Henrik

iTrader: (5)

Neat stuff, for the next winter, hopefully I can afford some winter tyres then

Brit_in_Japan

For the record I have Michelin DRICE tyres. They were supposedly better than the Alpin Pilot II which was the best winter tyre Michelin make available in the UK. This year Michelin in Japan introduced the X-ICE, displacing the DRICE to be their second best winter tyre.

According to Michelins own data on thier website, the original Michelin Pilot was given only one star out of 5 for grip on ice, 3 stars on snow and 5 stars in the dry and in the wet.

Alpin Pilot 1-3-5
Alpin Pilot II ?-?-? but they claim a 11% improvement in braking distance
DRICE rated 4-4-4
X-ICE rated 5-5-5

I can't compare with other tyres, the Michelin's were my first set. But I've heard good things about Nokian and Pirelli.

moses

i nearly crashed today , someone else hit a fence and i clipped them they didnt say anything about it coz they were in the wrong place, i managed to turn it around and thats when i clipped them

very bad ice today, the gritters werent out at all

Neil Smalley

That's because if the council send the gritters out, and the someone spins off on a road they have gritted the council can then be sued. If they don't send any gritters out at all then they are'nt negligent in gritting so can't be sued. All they have to say is that at the time the conditions did'nt warrent sending the gritters out and they are in the clear..

Diablo

Lucky you

LOL

Its not a point of debate mate, its factual and it happens.

Clearly more regularly in Scotland than it does with you.

D

Diablo

Thats not quite right Neil.

Highland council were successfully sued recently for NOT sending the gritters out. Someone crashed on ice (on a trunk route) and died.

Council were found negligent for not gritting.

There are temperature sensors all over the place now. No excuses.

(although maybe England is not quite so technoligically advanced yet )

clarence

Just came back from a holiday in North-Eastern Japan, rented a Nissan Fuga for a few days to see the sites. It's a rwd saloon with a 280ps engine (same as the 350Z) & based on the same FM platform. Great car!!
I forgot to request for winter tyres at the time of reservation, but luckily, it came with them (Dunlop Graspic). I thought nothing of it as the skies were clear at the time of pickup & it wasn't too cold (abt 4-5c). Over the next 2 days, those tyres (& probably the car as it's a new design) proved to be invaluable, as the roads were packed with ice & snow. It didn't help that we planned to see volcanoes & stuff which meant lots of mountain roads. The winter tyres inspire confidence on those unfamiliar roads, which consist of many many hairpins & steep slopes. Traction control rarely kicked in as there were plenty of grip. I think I did hit black ice once when the car suddenly wanted to swap ends on a straight, but it was easily controllable as I wasn't going too fast.
The tyres were fine even tho we were driving up to 170km/h on the expressways.

Neil Smalley

D, two years ago an English council got sued for not gritting properly when they said they did.

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

I have Nokian WR winter tyres and they are fantastic, cost me €122 each including delivery. They are rated at about 260kph so more than adequate, but if you get the ones rated at 210kph they will be even grippier as they don't need to be quite as hard as the faster rated ones.

It seems that inspite of the evidence and testimony of many people we are not going to convince or convert you so I will not bother posting anymore on this thread.

Diablo

So they're fooked if they do,fooked if they don't.

No wonder we have all the trouble

LOL at the UK...