Unbiased opinions welcomed....winter tyres.....

I dont think mgf handle that well to be honest,in the dry there fine,in the wet they can be a bit tricky,all I know in the winter we get loads of mgfs all with rear panel damage where they have spun.If you wrote off your mgf /tf you would be upset.they are light on the front at the best of times.vw are german cars built for german winters.

will be putting winter tyres on this year but took the TF up to Edinburgh last year through six inches of snow in places, with no problems, on standard Falken NIEX's. The only thing i had to do was stop every so often to clear out the compacted snow from the front wheel arches to make sure it didn't interfere with the steering.

Reading this with intrest, although my MG will be tucked up in the garage for any bad weather, I have invested in 2 all weather tyres for the front of my Smart For Four and 2 for the front of the wife's Saab. My local tyre company said I would get away with just fitting to the front as they are FWD. Noticed the comments from David about fitting 4 not 2, and have seen this argument on a few other sites. It seems people are split 50/50 on fitting just on the front or on all 4. It seems more confusion is caused by whether you are fitting All Weather or Full Snow tyres as well. People who fitted just to the front commented it was a vast improvement and should not cause any problems unless you were going to try and out perform the Stig.
I expect I will find out and pass the information on.
Shaun TF

I know Phil-hex fitted 2 rear winter tyres to his TF. He said there was a great improvement. :yesnod:


Mind you he did have a snow related accident not long after. :pinch:

I would just be concerned by the vastly different grip levels- front to back.

I have never been one to scrimp on tyres, so I'll get all four....still not entirely sure for which car though......might get both done!

With FWD two winter tyres on the front are a huge help as they basically drag the car through the snow and do the steering as well as the pulling. On RWD the steering and pushing are done by separate axles so there is more of an advantage to fitting winters all round. Of course, when it's icy nothing much will help in the way of drive or tyres. Studs do help but their use is pretty heavily contolled by legislation, and they don't help traction on dry pavement.

Very valid points! :yesnod:

I grew up in an area of Canada where winter was part of life, 6+ inches of snow weekly and -20 degC was a normal winter temp (-45 degC the day I was born) and the January thaw always meant icy roads.

I've always installed winter tires on my daily driver (the MGF will not see winter). Even where I no live where people think -5 degC is cold and a snowfall is gone in a day or two I still put winters on my daily driver because lake effect blizzards are common.

The advantage of winter tires is that there rubber compound stays flexible at cold temperatures, where as the rubber compound in summer and "four-season" tires gets hard below approx 5 degC, which means you're loosing grip.

With a rear wheel drive car installing winter tires just on the back will help and is not dangerous in terms of steering/control on ice or in snow, where as only winters up front on a FWD is very dangerous, especially on ice because lots of traction up from can cause the back to break free and want to swap ends with the front. With a FWD you must install four winter tires.

And studded tires on drive pavement have a significantly longer stopping distance than non studded tires but sure are nice to have if you live in a coastal area where ice covered roads are common; I hate black ice.

Great post, thanks.

Have decided to just go for 4 tyres on the Golf estate....as above, if I do crash, I will be protected in the Bohemoth of steel that it is.

Question now is .....snow tyres or just "winter" tyres.....think winter as I'll just keep them on till they run out as winter lasts about 6 months up here anyway, and I think winter ones are more general, and should be good for wet/dry too, whereas snow are more geared for snow/slush rather than wet/dry? I might be talking codswallop of course

That sounds like good advice from Mowog73.
He comes from a place where winter means six months of snow
wheras where I am we might get 2 weeks of snow over the season.
My observations work for me but like everything on the net there is
always someone with more real life experience!
(That is one of the reasons I live where I do-I hate snow!)

For the last 3 years we have had 4-5 months of snow (with the odd week of slush rain in between here and there). 2 years ago it started Mid November and it never really stopped till March and then was still snowing in May!

So I am a bit behind with all this winter tyre stuff, but I bloody need it lol. They are predicting another long drawn out winter, with possible snow in the next few weeks, so i want to be prepared. even if I cant get into work, I want to be able to at least get to a shop for supplies when the buses etc stop running lol

Two winters ago I bought Hancook Winter I-Pike W409 tires for my wife's Corolla. She finds these tires work well in snow and on ice. The other tire I was considering was the Michelin X-Ice. Bridgestone Blizzak is another good winter tire.