All season tyres

[Den48]

Hi
Thinking of fitting some all season tyres to my XC40, don’t get much snow where I am, central England, but when we do we can get a good fall. Looking for piece of mind really, anyway looking for opinions of members who have fitted them, the make, wear, noise etc.
Thanks

[blastpipe]

Lots of threads previously on the subject worth have a search. I ran AST on my xc40 and was very happy with them. The most expensive tends to be Michelin Cross Climates. Many good brands are cheaper and similar performance. Vredstein..Continental..Good Year etc

Have a look here too
https://www.tyrereviews.com/Article/202 ... e-Test.htm

[Perky]

I have Conti All Season Contact. They are good and a few years ago they were the best but there are better ones now. The only problem with the Conti is reversing in snow; not so good as they are unidirectional for aquaplaning.
You have to decide what your priority is: dry braking, wet braking, cornering, summer driving, aquaplaning or snow. Unfortunately, not one tyres is best at everything.

[percymon]

Unfortunately, not one tyres is best at everything.

Absolutely, but i still struggle to understand why somewhat mainstream vehicles from multiple manufacturers feel the need to fit 'higher performance summer tyres' to UK cars - my C40 has Pirelli P-Zeros, which are overkill in summer for the vehicle type and somewhat unsuitable for 4-5 months a year in our climate. Sadly this will be the first car i've not had the luxury of summer and winter wheelsets in 20 years (company lease, no interest in winter mobility / safety).


tyrereviews website tends to have yearly tests of summer, winter and all-season tyres - mostly on medium hatchback cars so the more common tyre sizes but a good indicator. loads of test reports on the right side on their homepage..

https://www.tyrereviews.com/

[blastpipe]

I have Conti All Season Contact. They are good and a few years ago they were the best but there are better ones now. The only problem with the Conti is reversing in snow; not so good as they are unidirectional for aquaplaning.
You have to decide what your priority is: dry braking, wet braking, cornering, summer driving, aquaplaning or snow. Unfortunately, not one tyres is best at everything.

It's true that the tyres vary in characteristics..but you also have to treat the test results with a sense of reality. One tyre might stop (in the test) 1 m shorter than another one....but that's still many metres better than a summer tyre used in winter. Always good to look at the bench mark comparison with summer tyres to get a sense of perspective and not worry about minute differences between different tyres.

[eugen61]

Blastpipe makes a good point. Choose a tire based on what’s most important for your safety, for some is aquaplaning, for others like me is braking distance. When you look at benchmark comparison bear in mind that those benchmark tires in the test are not the best tires in their class but average ones, so if you come from a top ranked summer tire the differences will be bigger.

[JFDIT]

Having done a 300 mile round trip yesterday in snow, ice and freezing fog I think I'll be putting Michelin Cross Climates on mine next year.

[eugen61]

Having done a 300 mile round trip yesterday in snow, ice and freezing fog I think I'll be putting Michelin Cross Climates on mine next year.

CrossClimate 2 SUV is available for your 20” rims in 245/45 R20 tire size.

[JFDIT]

I think the compromise is worth it. The PZ4s didn't put me in a ditch but didn't inspire confidence either, bit slippery.
I had the original CC's on my Freelander and they worked very well.
I do miss AWD too.

[eugen61]

If you decide to use CrossClimate all year long braking distance will be the compromise in summer. Compared to your PZ4 the car will need several meters more to stop in warm weather. ADAC compared the top ranked Michelin Primacy 4 with first generation CrossClimate and in warm dry conditions braking distance for stoping from 100 km/h increased by 6.5 meters. CrossClimate 2 improved vs. previous generation, but the weakness in warm weather is still there.