Snow tyres. What are the Scandanavians using this year?

[Sebastian S]

The syncro doesn't get to see much of the winter roads around here (living near the ocean and tons of salt on the roads all winter), but when it does I generally use studded Hakkapelittas. Will be trying out some Cooper Discoverer M+S without studs this year though, will be interesting to see how they do.

Now thats something that surprised me. Salt on your roads. Not good, same as UK. Here in Finland, we use no salt, but an alternative which does not hard vehicles bodywork, or floors.

I live in the southern parts of Sweden where they use salt without ends. In the north they don't. I think they say salt stops having effect somewhere around -7 or -8˚C so I guess that's the reason. "Hotter" winters here than in the north (and in Finland?). I lived on the Åland islands for a year, no salt there either, lovely
Salt is reason enough to move north during the winter...

As for studs, according to recent tests (such as the one ThorAlex linked) it seems that unstudded tires is just as good or even better than the ones with studs nowadays. At least when comparing the very best tires (and the ones that are made for our conditions) on the market over here.

[avdem]

What part of the world are you in?

Stryn, Western Norway... Need to update my profile....

[jaded]

seems to be a bit of a campaign going on here to stop people using studded tyres as they create more airborne particulates,

at least 1 major road in stockholm has a ban on them and theres talk of more.

i use non-studded on my car ( 2 year old renault) as its got ABS ESP and probably more but the van has studded mainly because it came with them

didn`t insurers in the uk say they would charge extra if people used winter tyres as they were a modification?

[taigagreen]

The syncro doesn't get to see much of the winter roads around here (living near the ocean and tons of salt on the roads all winter), but when it does I generally use studded Hakkapelittas. Will be trying out some Cooper Discoverer M+S without studs this year though, will be interesting to see how they do.

Theres a farm near where I live thats 230 m above sea level. The road up there is VERY steep and is really scary to drive, I wouldnt recommend it to anyone on snow. The people living up have the best view you can think of. They have two 4x4s (Mitsubishi L400 & Nissan Patrol) and they have been running Cooper Discoverer M+S without studs for years. Enough said! I´ve been running the same tyres, with studs, on my syncros since 2005. Very happy with them. I have Hakkas with studs on the T5 and they are grippy but very noisy! I´ll stick with the Coopers.

BTW, I live in Northern Norway, near the coast. We can get a wide variety of weather within a day. My drive to work can go from +4 to -2 and be rainy road, icy road, snowcovered road and slushcovered road within 24 km... We regularly see -20 in the winter and in march this year we had 145 cm of snow on our lawn. Hey, perhaps a syncro meet up here in february would be a real challenge

The mentioned farm:

http://wikimapia.org/5806013/no/Loftfjellet

[syncropaddy]

Studded not legal in the UK...

I'd like to find some 205r14's with a decent tread to make them AT ish.. (215/75r14's would do too) so i can run them all year.. the Semperit vangrips (185's) I have on at present have done 40-50k km.. and work well in the summer and great in the winter.. but are prob about as low as i'd like for winter.. want the bigger tyres to gear it up a little...

Maxxis do a 205r14 in various types.

http://www.maxxis.co.uk/tyre-details/t139-maslw-spike" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[syncropaddy]

Are you starting to believe the weather man Andrew ? We were also meant to have a heatwave this summer so predictions of snow in October I'll take with a pinch of salt ran around on bfg at's last year and had no problems whatso ever on and Offroad only time it got anyway interesting/slippy was on wet ice when it was thawing

Im thinking more of Bernie's Mercedes than the Syncro. She hates driving in the snow so I said I'd get her some snow tyres. She wont drive the Syncro either!!

Those Cooper M&S tyres look good

[Mudlark]

Studded not legal in the UK...

I'd like to find some 205r14's with a decent tread to make them AT ish.. (215/75r14's would do too) so i can run them all year.. the Semperit vangrips (185's) I have on at present have done 40-50k km.. and work well in the summer and great in the winter.. but are prob about as low as i'd like for winter.. want the bigger tyres to gear it up a little...

I just sourced a new set of 5 Cooper Discoverer ST Maxx for my syncro. New tyre not yet generally available over here. Intend to use them all year round; they are Ms rated, have a good tread somewhere between AT and MT. Happy with them so far; very little road noise and have done well in dry and wet; not tried off road yet but expect them to fair well.

[syncropaddy]

I went to see the local BFG tyre guy today and he can get me the Goodyears UG Ice+ for Bernie's Mercedes and I had a good look at the Cooper Discoverer M+S. They look interesting indeed, between a road tyre and an AT but with a soft compound suitable for minus degree conditions but they dont do them in 225/70/15 ..... bu**er!