How many more years do you think I need to become an expert on tyres.........Only after 30+ years in the tyre trade I think I have gained a tad more knowledge than some others.

Alongside my opinions we also have hundreds and hundreds of customers opinions to work from.

At the end of the day you will all make up your own minds as to what suites your requirements.

I can only give advice on more than 30 years selling, testing and using all make of tyres.

Some think I have wasted my time.  Andy.
www.ajstyres.co.uk www.ajs4x4.co.uk
J8 M25 SURREY
01737 241370

Compared to the experts you neither have the facilities or the test tracks or the science to do objective testing, or indeed even report objectively as you have already displayed in a previous post with your damming broad indictment of I quote: "Conti".

You are a reseller of tyres with many years of selling experience. That alone does not make you a tyre technologist or a qualified benchmark tester.

YAWN ! ! !  Andy.
www.ajstyres.co.uk www.ajs4x4.co.uk
J8 M25 SURREY
01737 241370

Athelstan, I get your point.... BUT....

It is absolutely unnecessary, before commenting on tyres, to require a sciency double blind clinical trial in order to be able to say that a tyre which is not a Winter tyre, will or will not perform as well as a Winter tyre will in the conditions for which it was designed. That's because the people who design tyres already did all the testing necessary so that others who sell and who use their tyres don't have to.

Everyone else. It's not something for which 'you're entitled to your opinion', 'we'll have to beg to differ', 'each to their own', 'horses for courses' and other stock phrases can be picked at random and used in order to offset the reality. I nearly died last year because I was under the impression that my FL2 HSE with Continental Cross Contacts could plough a snowy field just like wot the adverts, salesmen and farmers who will charge a towing fee will routinely tell us. This is because I hadn't even considered the tyres the car was on. After spending what seemed like hours of sliding precariously near to the edge of an enormous drop on black ice (Firle Beacon, Sussex) while sliding backwards fractionally faster than the tractor which was sliding sideways towards me with it's wheels spinning in reverse, with all my car's HDC, ABS, ESP, IAM F1rst, RoSPA Gold and nigh on 30 years of stainless driving behind me.... this all happened because I was trying to drive in the wrong conditions for the standard road tyres the car was on. My friend, in his 12 year old Honda crapheap, whizzed up the hill and was stuck behind the tractor on his way back down. He was able to do this because he drives 365 on cheapo Winter tyres. We didn't need lab testing to prove anything.

When the weather cleared, I went straight to AJ's and following their advice, I bought a set of Grabber AT tyres. Without slighting anyone's reputation here, they're also rubbish at driving on snow and ice, as I said earlier. So they've got a few hundred miles on them and can't be used in snowy or icy conditions.... so neither can my car.

Wherever anyone goes to buy their tyres is of no relevance to me. What is of relevance is that they aren't going to crash into my car while it's sensibly parked awaiting the ice to thaw, because they are driving on the wrong tyres. If putting all that into a graph helps anyone to understand it, fine but it's a fairly simple equation.

Road - use road tyres
Off road - use off road tyres
Below 7 degrees - Use Winter tyres

Don't think it can be much clearer than that. No offense intended. Whereabouts unknown stop going to follow stream until reach civilisation stop message ends

Blimey Kimosabe, I know the beacon very well and wouldn't even consider descending that hill in a challenger tank in the snow!. We're you feeling suicidal by any chance ?  _________________
Gone - 2010 Rimini XS

Kimosabe fears no hill and is in no way related to Heidi, Mary Olsen or wosserface Von trapp.

It wasn't the gradient but because the sun had not shone on the north face of the hill for some days, everything apart from the upper section of road was triple frozen, even the thawed snow runoff, which is what created the sheet ice. My friends old Honda flew up it no problems and to make matters worse, he's an awful driver too.

I really had high hopes that my car would get me to places where other cars would suffer unde the laws of fizziks but alas not to be. So I was even more disappointed when my general grabbers didn't fare any better. Thinking of selling them and buying some winters. What a faff! Whereabouts unknown stop going to follow stream until reach civilisation stop message ends

Clearer than what exactly?

You tried to drive your car in conditions beyond it's capability (by virtue of its tyres) and 'nearly killed' yourself so you went and bought another set of tyres that still didn't provide the capability to do whatever you was doing when you 'nearly killed' yourself.

Quote:

Wherever anyone goes to buy their tyres is of no relevance to me. What is of relevance is that they aren't going to crash into my car while it's sensibly parked awaiting the ice to thaw, because they are driving on the wrong tyres. If putting all that into a graph helps anyone to understand it, fine but it's a fairly simple equation.

Quote:

just like wot the adverts, salesmen and farmers who will charge a towing fee will routinely tell us"

Quote:

"It's not something for which 'you're entitled to your opinion', 'we'll have to beg to differ', 'each to their own', 'horses for courses' and other stock phrases can be picked at random."

I got my wintrac 4's from AJS last November and they were fantastic around Falmer when everyone else was static or sliding in the snow and ice, but I still wouldn't try the snowy beacon. That is strictly mountain goat territory.  _________________
Gone - 2010 Rimini XS

Dear Happy Nomad, please sod off. Whereabouts unknown stop going to follow stream until reach civilisation stop message ends

Aero_383 wrote:

I got my wintrac 4's from AJS last November and they were fantastic around Falmer when everyone else was static or sliding in the snow and ice, but I still wouldn't try the snowy beacon. That is strictly mountain goat territory.