Merityre Article Archive

Who makes a movie? Usually, it’s a joint effort. In some films, however, it isn’t only the actors, director, crew and backroom staff that make the result memorable. It’s a car or cars and here are some we all know and love…

Roald Dahl and Ken Hughes scripted the 1968 film ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’. Dick Van Dyck and Sally Anne Howes appeared in it but its specially-built star made it come alive. There were in fact six Chittys and not all ran on car tyres. One was the car in its dilapidated state, another appeared in all its rebuilt glory. Of the four others, the ‘hovercraft car’ is probably best remembered. This variation was lightened with aluminium copies of many of the brass parts. When the car had to be filmed suspended from a crane or helicopter during ‘flying’ sequences, its engine was removed to lighten it further.

Could you create a legend in just over seven weeks? In August 1965, US custom car builder George Barris was given a job to do. He had to produce a special car for TV and film work, as fast as possible. Luckily for him, a division of the Ford Motor Company had built a concept car ten years earlier. The Lincoln Futura made an ideal starting point. Barris fitted the 390 cubic inch (6.4 litre) V8-powered car with 15 inch cast alloy wheels, carrying Firestone Wide Oval tyres. Into the recipe went Cumming & Sander impact safety belts, a Moon aluminium gas tank, 2 Deist parachute packs with 10ft. diameter parachutes, and the ‘exhaust turbine’ was made from a five gallon paint can. If you need any further clues, the giveaway lies in the colour scheme. Threequarter inch fluorescent cerise stripes relieved the ‘Velvet Bat-Fuzz Black’ surface finish. Yes, we’ve been looking at the original 1966 Batmobile.

Now for a collection of vehicles, all but one of which set tyres to tarmac in reality. In 1969’s film ‘The Italian Job’, it wasn’t a real Lamborghini Muira that went into a river. It was a bodyshell on a crash-damaged chassis. However, when the film crew returned to pick up the pieces next day, they’d been stolen overnight!

Speaking of car tyres, the production crew got through quite a number with the Italian Job Minis. These were Mk.1 Austin Mini Cooper S cars; in the hands of stunt driving team L’Equipe Remy Julienne, they became legendary.

The film’s two E-Type Jaguars were Series One models, bought for a measly (for the time) £900 apiece. The red convertible registered 848 CRY, however, was restored and survives to this day. Michael Caine’s character’s 1961 Aston Martin DB4 convertible, scooped off its tyres by a digger, really did go down the mountainside - twice. In fact, the first take was unsatisfactory because the car was supposed to burst into flames (it didn’t because the man with the ‘explode button’ had to run for his life as the Aston plummeted towards him.) The ‘Aston Martin’ that we did see destroyed was a Lancia Flaminia 3c Cabriolet, dressed up by an excellent and obliging bodywork firm in Turin.

To close this little trip down memory lane, we can look at what is arguably the world’s most famous coach - ever. The six-wheeler that ended up with its rear tyres clawing at empty air at the close of The Italian Job was a Harrington Legionnaire. Perhaps the notion of reinforcing the cab so that the boarding Mini Coopers didn’t squash the driver was heralded with this: ‘Listen lads, I’ve got a great idea - er - er’.

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Here in the UK, 52% of our days are overcast. Rain is a given and it is frequently very heavy. Consequently, we should be used to it and there is no excuse for ignoring it. It is also a fact that even car tyres in prime condition inflated to the recommended pressures can struggle to cope, especially in particularly heavy rain and floods.

In heavy rain, you need two things, grip and visibility. Good wiper blades and a full screenwash bottle are essential. Doubling the distance to the vehicle in front is equally necessary. When the rainfall approaches biblical proportions, you could encounter standing water. Car tyres are designed to offer a grip by clearing water from the area that contacts the road surface. In extreme conditions, they can no longer sweep water away quickly enough. This can lead to a phenomenon called aquaplaning, in which the tyres skim along the surface of the water. Should this happen, you may find out the hard way.

How? Try to brake and very little will happen because the tyres have no grip; the same goes for steering control. A sudden, suspiciously light feel to the steering is an excellent clue to aquaplaning and the ‘cure’ is to gently lift off the accelerator; you will feel the tyres regaining their grip. Nobody who’s experienced it would deny that aquaplaning is frightening. Should it happen, it will quickly educate you into matching your road speed to the prevailing conditions.

Sometimes, rainfall becomes so heavy that the roads’ and their drainage systems can’t cope with it. Here, flooding is not only a risk, it is practically a certainty. The secret of coping with significant flooding is to employ forethought. ‘Look before you leap’ is a long established proverb and in many respects, it applies to flood driving. You shouldn’t attempt to drive into floodwater without knowing how deep it is. Tall 4×4s apart, modern cars have an engine air intake positioned quite low down. The snag is that water, unlike air, is incompressible. Should water enter the engine, the pistons will be stopped dead in their tracks. This will completely wreck the engine.

So, what do you do when you see floods ahead? A simple rule of thumb is that being able to see the road surface means you can see how deep the floodwater is. Assuming you can see the depth of the water, flood driving goes like this.

Drive straddling the white line. Being on the crown of the road puts you where the water is shallowest.

Drive in a low gear, at a slow pace. Creating an impressive bow wave is a very good way to drown your engine but keeping the engine revving will prevent water’s entering the exhaust and causing a stall.

Should the engine come to a dead halt, it’s likely the worst has happened. Depress the clutch immediately and do not attempt to restart the engine. Damage may already have occurred; turning the engine will make it worse.

Should another vehicle be approaching from the opposite direction, make every effort to let it negotiate the floodwater first. This is for two reasons. One, if you both have to move across to let one another pass, you’ll both be in deeper water. Two, if the oncoming vehicle ingests water and dies mid-flood, you’ll be prompted to not try negotiating the flood yourself.

Finally, remember that brake pads can ‘aquaplane’ on wet discs, leaving you without brakes. On leaving the flooded area, apply the brake pedal for a short while, to dry the discs.

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‘Caveat emptor’ is Latin. It means ‘Let the buyer beware’ and it makes the perfect maxim for anyone intending to buy a secondhand car. The rules for a successful purchase are simple enough and making a matchless deal is easy if you use these pointers.

1: Check the tyres. Car tyres save your life on a daily basis, simply by doing their job. Tyres with 3 millimetres or less of tread need replacing. Tyres can also be excellent tell tales. If they’re worn unevenly, the car’s suspension, steering or brakes could be at fault. Cracked tyres are generally pensionable and lumps or bulges in tyre carcasses suggest internal damage. Remember to check the spare tyre and bear in mind that tyre failure can be a killer.

2: Check the VIN. The car’s Vehicle Identification Number should match that in the logbook. If it doesn’t or is absent, the car could have been stolen, ‘rung’ or be two half cars welded together.

3: Check the history. This advice counts in two ways. Dealers must offer an HPI check by law. If buying privately, have one carried out yourself. An HPI check is to validate the car’s history and would reveal previous damage, theft, insurance claims, writings off and more.

Service history is equally important. If a main dealer or an approved concern has carried out servicing, the car’s automatically a better prospect.

4: Check the deal. Often, dealers can offer a warranty. The car may have some remaining manufacturer’s warranty and there may be ’sweeteners’, such as included accessories. Be very careful if buying from a private seller. Once the car is yours, you have very little comeback if it proves to be a bad buy.

5: Check the car. Unless professionally executed, accident repairs are easy to spot. Look for poor panel gaps, paint colour and texture mismatches, non-factory additions (e.g. lights) and damaged exterior trim. Take particular note of the car’s extremities: the nose and all four corners. Suspiciously thick, new-looking underseal can hide a lot, as can the boot carpet.

Look under the bonnet, for a clean engine bay with no rust or coolant stains. Dip the oil, which shouldn’t be like black treacle, and look underneath the car for spots of leaked fluid.

6: Check the mileage. The car’s MOT certificates should show a believable progression of mileage figures and the speedometer’s mileage reading should tally. Modern electronic mileometers can be easily tampered with so checking that the speedo screws aren’t butchered doesn’t always reveal a clocked car. That said, plastics and modern trim can wear. If the steering wheel rim and the pedal rubbers are shinier than the bodywork, chances are the car has an intergalactic mileage in reality. A worn, bursting drivers seat, is a dead giveaway, as are badly worn driver’s door mechanisms. Don’t forget that these parts could have been replaced, so if they look too new, be wary.

7: Check the performance. Have a realistically long test drive, using the vehicle as you expect to on a daily basis. Try the brakes, steering, transmission and electrical items. Should something be not as expected, be careful to not fall for the old ‘They all do that’ routine!

8: Remember these three golden rules. Unless the car you’re examining is so rare that there simply isn’t another, you can always find a rival example. Rule two: it’s a buyer’s market at the moment and you can always walk away. Rule three is simpler still: buy with your head, never your heart!

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Car tyres do a magnificent job. Few would argue with this but there are those who seem to believe that their car’s tyres can perform miracles. Most people who’ve seen the consequences of this belief would argue with it. Now that winter is upon us with a vengeance, knowing what car tyres can and can’t do, particularly on snow and ice, becomes particularly helpful. Here are some basic facts to begin with…

* Car tyres, like many shoe soles, are made of materials that provide grip in most conditions. On snow, car tyres provide much-reduced grip and on ice, can offer practically no grip.

* Treating the road surface, with a mixture of salt and grit, enhances the available grip.

* This enhanced grip is nowhere near that provided by even a wet road surface.

* Should the treated surface re-freeze, the level of grip will decrease radically.

* Loss of grip equals loss of control.

Ok. For those who would argue that their car has anti-lock brakes and traction control, there are further facts. Electronic aids notwithstanding, a car (or a van, truck or whatever) can only obey the laws of physics. ABS, DSC and other driving aids help but like car tyres, they can’t perform miracles.

So, how do we deal with snow and ice? The short answer is very carefully but there are ways of driving in such conditions. Let’s take a look at the most useful…

* When setting off, you can lose traction. A car with furiously spinning wheels won’t be going anywhere except possibly downwards. Be subtle with the controls and in really bad conditions, try setting off in second gear.

* Should your car tyres insist on spinning, you may be able to progress by using wheel spin but only as a last resort. Turn the steering repeatedly from lock to lock and you might, just might, find a little traction.

* In adverse conditions, driving becomes very much a matter of the balance between grip and sliding. This is an immensely delicate balance that’s easily upset. Your fingertips and the seat of your pants give the best feedback about what’s happening at ground level.

* Despite all the theoretical talk, your car can only skid in three ways. In understeer, the front of the car loses grip and runs wide. In oversteer, the rear loses grip and tries to pass you. In a four-wheel slide or skid, all the wheels lose grip. If you’re skidding, you’re going too fast for the conditions.

* If the front wheels skid (understeer), reduce the amount of steering you have applied. In a rear wheel skid (oversteer), steer in the direction the tail of the car has taken. In all cases, four-wheel skid included, lift off the accelerator but avoid hard braking.

*If your ABS cuts in under braking, you may have a limited amount of steering control. Again don’t expect miracles.

* Where traction and grip are radically limited, stopping distances increase vastly. Never, on any account, follow a vehicle too closely and be aware that what’s behind you could have only a minimal chance of stopping. Should a vehicle be following too close, pull in and let it pass.

* Remember that even a treated surface can refreeze. Pay attention to your car’s ice warning and act on it. Black ice can remain in shadowed areas long after sunrise.

Above all, be realistic. Should conditions be dreadful, accept the fact and don’t travel. With the abovementioned driving aids, not to mention seatbelts and airbags, you’re likely to survive an accident. However, surviving the consequent insurance issues and the inconvenience of repairs can be a major hassle.

If in any doubt at all, you need answer one question, the one that posters carried during World War Two: Is your journey really necessary?

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Driving away from a tyre bay on tyres so new that they still retain their labels can cause mixed feelings. Often, replacing car tyres is carried out to remain safe and legal, which is comforting. Sometimes, a set of replacement tyres must be bought far too early, because the originals went nowhere near fulfilling their expected life, through neglect and/or misuse. This scenario is irritating at best so knowing how to get the most out of your car tyres is valuable.

We all know tyres don’t last for ever but there are mechanical faults, road conditions and driving habits that significantly shorten tyre life. Let’s start at the ground and work upwards.

If a car’s wheels are misaligned, the tyres won’t live long, it’s a simple as that. Having your car’s wheel alignment checked and fixed if necessary isn’t desperately expensive and pays dividends in tyre life, performance and comfort. Under or over-inflated tyres also acquire strange wear patterns and stranger habits on the road – and they wear out sooner. Equally, wheels in need of balancing can compromise comfort, grip and tyre longevity; much the same goes for ineffective shock absorbers.

In many respects, your car tyres’ life is as much in your hands as your life depends on your tyres. Accelerating savagely, braking spectacularly and cornering to the squeal of tortured rubber may seem thrilling but such practices shred your treads depressingly quickly. You can’t, in general, choose the kinds of roads you travel upon but there are known tyre killers that you’ll certainly encounter. Dealing with these in the correct way can enhance your tyres’ life, your car’s life and your comfort. Whether you call them speed bumps, sleeping policeman or traffic calming measures, the potential outcome is the same.

The first rule is to never straddle a speed bump; doing so can knock your car’s suspension out of alignment. Doing so repeatedly can damage your car’s springs and suspension too. If you cross speed bumps with either the left or right wheels, your car will suffer less. Similarly, if you take a gung-ho approach to speed bumps and speed pads, you’ll pay in the long run. This even affects big, tough 4×4 vehicles so don’t be misled. Slow down, as the bumps necessarily dictate.

Kerbs are not so far removed from speed bumps, either in terms of their location or the damage they can do. Look in any busy town centre and it won’t be long before you see someone allowing their car’s wheels to mount a kerb or two. It’s an unarguable fact that despite the cushioning effect of the tyres, car wheels always come off worse in a fight with a kerb. This is especially true of alloy wheels, which are relatively soft and easily damaged. This can be verified in the abovementioned busy town centre. You won’t have to look far to find a wheel with a piece taken out of the rim by a kerb, or with an edge raked down to bare metal by the same culprit.

The bottom line here is that looking after your car and its tyres pays dividends, in terms of performance, comfort, longevity - and financially.

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“Now is the winter of our discontent”, said Richard III. In fact, he meant that the time of unhappiness was past. However, if you don’t check your car tyres – and your car – before adverse conditions arrive, you could experience a highly discontented winter.

Anyone accustomed to living in ‘this sceptered isle’ (Shakespeare again) will be more than familiar with what we are liable to encounter. Dealing with anything that puts our cars and their tyres under stress isn’t all that difficult so let’s start with tyres.

Any car tyre, but for those with studs fitted, will not grip on sheet ice. However, well-worn tyres won’t grip too brilliantly in snow, slush or even in wet conditions. So first, check your tread depth. This should be a minimum of 1.6 millimetres of tread in a continuous band around three quarters of the tyre. This is only the legal minimum but a tyre that’s down to the wear indicators won’t cope well in winter. You may consider investing in a set of winter tyres but in any case, replacing tyres for the winter is a valid action.

It should go without saying that your car tyres should be at the correct pressure. Checking this is any easy job that should be repeated regularly throughout the winter. It’s also worth running a hand over your tyres’ carcasses to check for bulges, lumps, cuts or the evidence of misalignment. Remember also that you have a spare tyre that you might need in a hurry. Check first that you can dismount it, particularly if it lives beneath the car. In some instances, it’s so long since the spare tyre has seen the light of day that its fastenings under the car have long since corroded into immobility. It’s better to discover this at your leisure than at the roadside in mid-snowstorm or hurricane.

Many people see what’s under a car’s bonnet as fit and forget items. Wrong! Having enough non-freezing windscreen washer fluid is fairly important but if your car’s coolant, oil and hydraulic fluid levels are low, you could be heading for major difficulties, if not disaster. They’re easy enough to check and your car’s handbook will tell you all about which fluids should be used and where they should go. Bear in mind that a poor battery will almost certainly let you down as the temperature drops.

Apart from letting you see where you’re going on a black winter’s night, your car’s lights also announce your presence and intentions to other road users. Ensure that each and every bulb or LED on the car is fully functional; this includes less frequently used lighting like front and rear foglights. Carry a full set of spare bulbs and make sure you have the tools and know-how to fit them, if necessary. As an adjunct to vision, your car’s windscreen wipers are extremely important. Examine them and if any are ragged, loose or ineffective, replace them. Should you find any of these tasks too daunting, remember that your local garage will be happy to carry out your winter checks for you.

Finally, what to carry on a winter journey. What you take along can be tailored to the conditions you might meet. For example, you might need a torch, reflective waistcoat or jacket and a warning triangle, and some extra screen wash fluid for normal journeys. Whether you need boots, gloves, a shovel and a thermos of tea depends on where you’re headed.

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Fun Q and As about car tyre technical terms.

Car tyres and technical terms are inseparable, which is useful especially for those who work with them. However, we mere mortals can benefit from knowing some of the jargon. Here are some questions, with multiple-choice answers. The right answers are below so see how high you can score.

1. What is ‘aquaplaning’?

A: A popular water sport involving skis and a hang glider?

B: What happens when a tyre can’t clear road water away quickly enough?

C: A technique used by a deep-sea carpenter?

2. What is ‘rolling resistance’?

A: The amount of energy required to overcome the static mass of a tyre?

B: Wartime fighters who adopted job-sharing?

C: The ability of a tyre to stop a car turning over?

3. What does ‘M+S’ stand for?

A: A well-known department store?

B: ‘Match and Slip’ as applied to tyre tread’s grip?

C: It denotes a ‘Mud and Snow’ tyre?

4. What is a ‘mid range’ tyre?

A: A tyre designed to run at a medium pressure?

B: A tyre that is of lower quality than a branded tyre but is cheaper?

C: A tyre that wears out twice as fast as a high range tyre?

5. What is ‘Mu’?

A: The coefficient of the average grip of a tyre on a wet surface?

B: A metric unit of tyre pressure?

C: The sound made by a taciturn cow?

6. What is a ‘Standing Wave’?

A: The hand signal given by a policeman directing traffic?

B: The sine wave shown on the screen of an electronic tyre-balancing machine?

C: A wave of deformation in front and behind the contact patch of a rolling tyre?

7. What is ‘Re-grooving’?

A: Cutting new grooves into the sidewall of a tyre to aid water dispersion?

B: Cutting new grooves into worn tread to extend the life of truck tyres?

C: An older person learning how to break dance?

8. What is ‘profile’?

A: The difference between the sizes of front and rear tyres?

B: A person’s self-disclosed information on Facebook?

C: The ratio of tyre sidewall height to the width of a car tyre’s tread?

9. What does ‘SST’ stand for?

A: It stands for ‘Second Set of Tyres’?

B: It stands for ‘Self Supporting Technology’?

C. It stands for ‘Slightly Slippy Tyres’?

10. What are ‘Harmonics’?

A: Annoying vibrations and noise causing discomfort for a car’s occupants?

B: Tyre noise ocurring only on certain road surfaces?

C: A 1960’s band that used musical saws?

11. What is ‘Hysterisis’?

A: The hardness of the rubber used in a car tyre’s carcass?

B: A female relative who tends to panic?

C: The resistance to deformation of the rubber in a tread block?

12. Why do some tyre fitters use nitrogen?

A: As an alternative to air for inflating tyres?

B: As a means of removing an old tyre from a wheel?

C: For a laugh in the tyre bay before a short sleep?

Answers

1B

2A

3C

4B

5A

6C

7B

8C

9B

10A

11C

12A

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Unlike on ‘Who wants to be a millionaire’, your car tyres are your lifeline in the life or death sense. Their four contact patches, their ‘footprints’, are all that are keeping you and a tonne or more of moving metal away from a close encounter with the passing scenery or worse, with a moving 18-wheeler. Unfortunately, many drivers feel their tyres are forgettable but the old adage about looking after you’re tyres so they look after you is ever true.

Tyre pressures are the first forgotten chore. Car tyres lose pressure as a matter of course; it doesn’t mean they’re leaking. Arguably, the best way of making sure you keep your tyres at the correct pressure is all about money. Look at it this way: if your tyres are underinflated, they flex more, run too hot, wear more at the edges and have a shorter life. Low tyre pressures also create greater drag so you’ll use more fuel. Overinflated tyres wear out the centre section of their treads sooner, which is also a costly event. Should you have a tyre that has an air leak, it could let you down. Here, the best case is dealing with changing a wheel. The worst case is a one-way trip to casualty after a tyre burst, so get the leak fixed. As you can see, looking after tyre pressures is a money-saver; consider things like improved grip and enhanced safety as a bonus.

Bad wheel alignment represents another hungry mouth gnawing at your disposable income. Misaligned car tyres can wear out well before the end of their expected service life and having this fixed is simple and inexpensive. More importantly, especially in winter, misaligned tyres work at odds with your car’s steering and suspension. Result? The car is running inefficiently and the cost is in fuel and driver fatigue. Much the same applies to unbalanced wheels, which also cause vibration and increased wear.

Getting up close and personal with your car tyres periodically pays dividends too. You can check your tyre treads’ depth by studying their wear bars. When these, normally buried in the treads’ grooves, start wearing themselves, it’s new tyres time. You can also run an exploratory palm around your tyres, seeking an embedded nail, cuts, lumps, bulges or sidewall cracks. All spell the need for attention and a good tyre bay will advise you about what needs to be done. Adding a visual tyre health check to your car washing routine is a wise move.

Tyre rotation isn’t something that happens every time you drive away. A front-wheel-drive car, for example, gives its front tyres a great deal of work to do. The front tyres have to cope with steering forces, braking forces and the transmitting of power to the road. It’s no wonder that on such a car, the front tyres need replacing more often; giving them a tour of duty at the rear of the car evens things out.

Lastly, treat your car tyres with sympathy. Think of it this way: you only ever see a racing car surrounded by tyre smoke if it’s in trouble. Wheel spin, tyres yelping on corners and smoking, squealing stops are all very well in the movies but remember that stunt drivers (a) don’t own the cars and (b) don’t pay for their tyres!

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Once more unto the breach dear friends, or rather, once more into the gripping world of car tyre trivia. So, did you know?

The word ‘tyre’ is derived from the word ‘attire’ i.e. clothing. This makes the American spelling ‘tire’ the more accurate.

The very earliest ‘tyres’ actually helped hold wheels together. The part that ran on the road was an iron band, which was heated and placed over the ‘felloe’, or rim, of a wooden wheel. When it cooled, the band shrank to fit the wheel tightly, adding strength to the structure.

Formula 1 tyres lose weight during every race. The high wear rate means that a tyre weighs 0.5kg less when replaced.

Speaking of weight saving, the tyre Goodyear developed for the Gulfstream business jet had aluminium, rather than steel, bead wires. This saved 1.3kg per tyre.

Bridgestone produces 40,000 Formula One tyres per year. The company reintroduced slick tyres to Formula One in 2009, after an 11-year absence (prior to this, grooved tyres had been used since 1998).

When travelling at 300km/hour, four car tyres can displace 61 litres of water per second.

A study by Continental Tyres found that 40% of motorists in Britain claim to have never checked their car’s tyre pressures.

To make matters worse, even fewer drivers said that they knew how to check tread depth; 70% didn’t know what the legal tread depth was anyway.

Happy checking your tyre pressures at the filling station? Driving there means that although the garage’s gauge may be accurate, your tyres will be warm and give a falsely high reading. The tyres are likely to end up 12 to 15 per cent underinflated.

Racing car and aicraft tyres are filled with nitrogen rather than compressed air. Why? Because in flight, aircraft can encounter temperatures of minus 40 degress Centigrade and frozen moisture in the tyres can cause vibration and balance problems on landing. In a racing car, using nitrogen reduces the tyre pressure variations that can adversely affect lap times.

The lessened amounts of in-tyre moisture and the reduced pressure loss are not enough to make using nitrogen economically viable in road tyres.

The world’s largest tyre manufacturer by volume, with interests in Dunlop and many other regional and second line brands worldwide, is the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.

The world’s most prolific tyre maker made 330 million tyres last year. This doesn’t really count as the tyres were for toys and models, also made by the Lego Group!

In the 1964 film ‘Goldfinger’, the scene where the tyre slicer comes out of the rear axle of James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 was faked. A mocked-up quarter of the car was filmed on a small set. The tyres (and sills) of ‘Tilly Masterson’s’ 1965 Ford Mustang convertible were shredded – but not by the DB5.

Green credentials: Interfloor recycles used car tyres to make Duralay Treadmore high quality crumb rubber underlay. Every 10 seconds one used car tyre is turned into carpet underlay That’s 60,000 tyres a week and approximately three million a year, which would otherwise go into unfriendly landfill.

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Great Britain has a temperate climate. That no one seems to have told the climate about this is by the by: the sort of conditions we experience every year are officially classified as being ‘temperate’. Yet facts are facts and like all of us, our car tyres have to cope with markedly different climatic conditions. In high summer, the mercury can hit the 30-degree mark, in midwinter, it can fall well below zero. Can a single set of tyres handle this? Let’s find out.

In winter, accidents increase by a less-than-modest 267 per cent. This begs the question of what is a winter tyre? More appropriately, what is it about winter tyres that make a difference? Car tyres conform to a given set of physical characteristics – they must, to be safe, legal and functional. However certain elements among these characteristics can be ‘tweaked’ and it is these differences that make a winter tyre.

The first tweak is to the tyre’s compound, the mix of rubber used in its construction. Water freezes when the ambient temperature is low. Car tyres don’t freeze but they harden, especially when the temperature falls to under seven degrees Centigrade. Winter tyres have a softer compound through containing more natural rubber than conventional tyres and this improves their grip in cold conditions. This specifically softer tread element gives a significant reduction in stopping distance. It also has a knock-on effect in performance terms. Because winter tyres offer superior grip, your car’s cornering, acceleration and braking benefit, as does your confidence.

The next point contains a paradox. After all, isn’t it true that car tyres with a softer compound will wear faster? In a word, no. In fact, conventional tyres have a particularly hard time in winter, pun intended. In practice, they wear out up to 20 per cent faster in cold conditions, so winter tyres can save you money. Some suggest that winter tyres’ enhanced grip means that your car’s engine has less work to do than with conventional tyres, so that fuel economy is also enhanced. This may be a moot point but a Finnish tyre maker says of its winter product, ‘Lower fuel consumption by lower rolling resistance, shorter braking distance on wet road, stronger aquaplaning protection and better snow grip are its benefits.’

The final point concerns noise. Winter tyres have a more open tread pattern, the better to clear away mud, snow and ice. This might suggest they give increased road noise when in use. However, most manufacturers claim that their winter tyres are as quiet and comfortable as normal tyres. This makes sense, as the tread compound is significantly softer.

So, are winter tyres a worthwhile investment? The above suggests that they are. Ideally, it would be best to have two sets of tyres, one set for summer use and one set for when the climate forgets to be ‘temperate’. The bottom line is still more telling. Given the use of grit and salt on the roads during a UK winter, it would make a lot of sense to acquire not only a set of winter tyres but also a set of ‘winter wheels’!

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