Peteski
Active Member
I can drive on Snow, or Ice, on Summer tyres ... we all used to do that 30 years ago ...
Maybe 30 years ago when "low profile" meant 60 series tyres! I think from memory my Golf GTi Mk2 was on 185/60 r14, which could manage "adequately" on snowy hill roads. My previous XR3i had similar rubber too and coped pretty well in the snow without winter tyres - which were pretty much unheard of in those days in the uk.
But I've had plenty of cars more recently that couldn't even get off my driveway on performance summer tyres. Last failure was my wife's 2WD Qashqai on 225/45 r19 Bridgestone summer tyres. It was going nowhere in the snow on those tyres. But later on a set of Vredstein winter rubber it happily drove through some serious snow we had a couple of years ago. Even effortlessly passed a stranded Range Rover on blingy wheels with summer tyres that was stuck on the steep driveway of a local hotel. I had a similar experience with our previous Volvo V50 on 17" low profile summer tyres i.e. virtually no grip at all in snowy/icy conditions, but night and day better on winter tyres. Our 4WD Porsche 911 was also pretty awesome on Nokian winter tyres, while seriously compromised on summer tyres in the same conditions.