Tyres for Snow and Ice

Just thought, people spend hours on here discussing tyres for mud, rock crawling, wet grass, etc but you don't see much about snow and ice.


So which TYPE of tyre is good for snow and ice on tarmac - ie a bad winter on normal roads.

AT, MUD, Road Tyre even !!!!!


I was just thinking if anyone eg put a cracking set of M/Ts on and enjoyed lots of mud plugging, then regretted it at the first sign of snow:doh:

During the snow this year, we had BFG AT's on the front and BFG Muds on the back (Don't ask, Bought 2 BFG Muds then was going to get 2 more when we could afford it, when we could afford it and really needed them the local tyre place had sold out of MT's so we had to get AT's instead )

It was VERY Thick round here, well over a meter. Then it turned into solid ice on the road. The AT's were spot on and the Mud's were..... interesting..... The disco was sideways coming out the driveway

me hankooks MT were dead good in the snow, i made a few bob at the beginning of the year with em on.

My BFG muds were great in the snow, on and of the road.

as above BFG muds

My Disco has General Grabber AT 2's and my RR Classic has BF Goodridge Long Trails. Both are very good in snow - and we get a lot of it over here in Poland. Never ever had a problem on either of them

How many words do the Eskimo's have for snow?
Used to do a lot of skiing, and the 'behaviour' of snow in the US was hugelt different to in Europe, and there were big differences in texture from top of the mountain to the bottom, and from valley to valley.....
And here in the UK.... well our snow is a horrible spongy stuff, cos we are so close to sea level, and have such a damp climate, it doesn't seem to have the same 'bouyancy' as in the european mountains, and is a lot 'wetter', made worse by us not having enough cold to keep the stuff in the solid state, so we get a lot of 'refreeze' snow, ice under and over a sort of honey-comb of fall......
In the US they seem quite happy to use AT's in their snow, but then it tends to be firmer than what we get; here Muds would seem to be better on our slushier stuff.... but the 'problem' is the ice underneath, cos nothing really grips on that... except studs, but then they aren't legal in the UK, and I'm not entirely sure of the legality of chains either.

in me landy i have used 2 types of tyre on snow/ice avon rangemasters which were ok but came unstuck when the snow got slushy, and i have used my SATs which were 'exciting' on ice but on snow and slush i couls not fault them towing people out of hedges etc is good fun in 2wd i even saved a few slittys

Spyderman has some dedicated snow and Ice tyres that were the dogs Bo**ocks last February. He was pulling out huge trucks in low range with plenty of grip.

I had no problems getting around with my special tracks in the snow even when towing a renault espace with a wheel folded in underneath it through the drifts which were 6 foot deep in places.

These are the best money can buy.Had em on my 4x4 panda in alps and drove all winter.Also the deutschbox was front wheel drive and with the snow tyres was fine.
http://www.nokiantyres.com/

I had some Mitchelin xcls woth snow studs fitted great until they er well lets say the studs departed from the tyres

when it snowed last january (bout 6 inches) i had a 90 with 285/75 R 16 bfg mud terrains, and a 300 tdi disco with 235/75 r 16 pirrelli scorpions.

the 90 was awful, i mean it never failed to get up a hill or anything, but it never inspired confidence. at one point, i was stationary with my foot on the brake and it was sliding sideways on the camber of the road!


The disco was amazing, couldnt fault it at all, even when i tried to not get up a hill by flooring it so the wheels spun, it still found grip again and carried on.

Which sort of Scorpians?

They make road, AT and Mud, and they're all called Scorpian ??!?!!

Well what ever comes on a disco pirelli scorpion sucks in the snow. Aawful no grip at all. always sideways when other cars had grip. I do not rate the Pirelli Scorpions that come with Discos from the factory at all.

road scorpions. i disagree jai in my experience they were good!

Nearly lost a discovery on a roundabout because of those tyres was going very very slow around a round about and the back end slipped out for absolutly no reason. I cant describe how slow we were going either. We drove home very stedily. The next day the owner of the 300tdi Disco ordered up a set of BF Goodrich All terrains. He said they were superb in the snowfall In Febuary Cant fault them. I don't rate Pirelli Scorpions personally. Others do, Mabe there is a compound difference between different years but I way prefer the All Terrains. Jai

So what we have proved is that everyone has a different opinion about tyres

I loved the Scorpian road tyres on my Disco, but I really didn't like them in the snow. I had nothing to make a comparison with, wasn't used to driving the Disco, and just after found that one brake was stuck on.....so I didn't trust my opinion there.

Interestingly, I found that you could floor the throttle and launch forward, but touch the brake at anything over a few mph and it skidded!

Anyway, my main thought in the original question was if I stumped up and bought ATs or Muds, would I regret it in winter - the general answer seems to be definitely not for ATs and probably not for muds....is that right?

I have ATs at the moment, and will still have, I guess, in the winter, so we'll see how they work.

ps Anyone want a couple of Pirelli Scorpian road tyres? I've got 2 spare from when I fitted ATs all round.

Only snag is they're 205/80 which is not a popular size (though it is the original size if you didn't pay the extra for alloys)