Are winter tyres worth it in the Midlands?

It is about temperature, not snow

The useful thing about a winter tyre is the rubber compound, which stays flexible below about seven degrees. A summer tyre goes hard and loses grip well before there is any snow involved.

Which means winter tyres do something useful on a cold wet morning in November, not just on the three days a year it snows.

And yet, for most people, no

A set of winter tyres, plus storage, plus two changeovers a year, against a Midlands winter that is mostly four to eight degrees and wet rather than frozen.

For a car doing average mileage on main roads that are gritted, the money is better spent on decent all-season or premium summer tyres.

We sell the changeover service. We are still telling most people not to buy it.

When they genuinely are worth it

Rural lanes that do not get gritted. A steep driveway or hill you have to get up. A vehicle that must start every morning regardless — care work, on-call, anything where not going is not an option.

And rear-wheel drive cars, which are considerably worse in the cold than their owners generally expect.

All-season as the middle answer

A good all-season tyre gives up a little in both directions and needs no changeover, no second set and no storage.

For most people in this part of the country that is the sensible compromise, and it is what we fit most of when somebody raises the question.

If you do go for them

All four, never two. Mixing winter and summer across axles is worse than either on its own because the grip balance changes unpredictably.

Fit them around November and take them off around March. Running winter tyres through a warm summer wears them out quickly and handles worse.

What it actually costs to run two sets

A set of four winter tyres, plus two changeovers a year, plus somewhere to keep the set that is off the vehicle. Storage is the part people forget and it is the part with no upside.

Against that, each set only wears for half the year, so both last roughly twice as long in calendar terms. The tyres themselves are close to cost-neutral over their life.

What is not cost-neutral is the changeovers and the storage, and that is the real number to weigh against how often you actually need the grip.

The tyres roughly pay for themselves. The faff does not.

What to look for if you buy them

The three-peak mountain snowflake mark is the one that means something — it certifies the tyre against a snow traction standard. The M+S marking on its own is largely self-declared by the manufacturer.

An all-season tyre worth having carries the snowflake too. Plenty of tyres marketed as all-season do not, and those are summer tyres with a different sticker.

If it does not have the snowflake, it is not doing the thing you are buying it for.