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Winter kit in your car - what to pack


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To be fair in the situation where Autosocks perform well, they outperform winter tyres, although I agree for general winter driving tyres designed for the purpose are better.

 

Having said that you still need to take them to a garage to have them fitted and removed and somewhere to store them.

 

They're already fitted. I had them done last weekend as they take a few hundred miles to bed in, so I am now feeling very smug. I've driven quite a lot this weekend, and even on the roads on our estate which are basically just sheet ice - the road outside our house gets the sun in the morning then freezes again - it is almost like driving normally. For the second cheapest winter tyres I could find (I buy my tyres like I buy my wine) I'm very impressed. It's just a shame that they are only on the family car as I have to drive the other one tomorrow.

 

Fitting is a pain, but I needed four tyres anyway so on this occasion it wasn't too much hassle, I just had them put on the normal wheels. Come spring I'll either have acquired some other wheels from a popular auction site or scrapyard, or I'll have them swapped on the same wheels. I'm lucky that I have a cellar I can keep the tyres in until they are needed again.

 

I've added a shovel and a soft bristle brush (for getting snow off the roof of the car) to my kit now - but the winter tyres are by far the most useful item, and hopefully will mean I don't need the rest.

 

I can't recommend winter tyres highly enough - think about the cost of paying your insurance excess and losing your no claims, and then look at the price of getting four tyres.

 

Says he with winter tyres on only one car!

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Today I remembered that you can prepare you car for Arctic exploration and it doesn't matter at all because you're still sharing the roads with people who think clearing a letterbox sized hole in the snow constitutes 'preparing for winter' and that as long as they drive at 20mph in whatever lane they happen to have ended up in they'll be fine.

 

I don't think my emergency food rations will last long at this rate. I get bored easily.

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+1 on winter tyres,

 

Saw a poor woman get a right fishtail going on the hill up to Crookes from Rivelin this morning, in a Freelander! How my little winter tyred Ibiza laughed at her out of control 4x4 as I cruised on by whilst she languished at the side of the road, looking rather shaken.

(I should say, i am grateful that she had the common sense to wrestle her unwieldy lump of metal to the opposite side of the road to enable me and others to carry on uphill passed her without loosing momentum)

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They're already fitted. I had them done last weekend as they take a few hundred miles to bed in, so I am now feeling very smug. I've driven quite a lot this weekend, and even on the roads on our estate which are basically just sheet ice - the road outside our house gets the sun in the morning then freezes again - it is almost like driving normally. For the second cheapest winter tyres I could find (I buy my tyres like I buy my wine) I'm very impressed. It's just a shame that they are only on the family car as I have to drive the other one tomorrow.

 

Fitting is a pain, but I needed four tyres anyway so on this occasion it wasn't too much hassle, I just had them put on the normal wheels. Come spring I'll either have acquired some other wheels from a popular auction site or scrapyard, or I'll have them swapped on the same wheels. I'm lucky that I have a cellar I can keep the tyres in until they are needed again.

 

I've added a shovel and a soft bristle brush (for getting snow off the roof of the car) to my kit now - but the winter tyres are by far the most useful item, and hopefully will mean I don't need the rest.

 

I can't recommend winter tyres highly enough - think about the cost of paying your insurance excess and losing your no claims, and then look at the price of getting four tyres.

 

Says he with winter tyres on only one car!

 

I've considered them in the past but discounted them on the basis of cost more than anything, although £160 for a full set does make it a little more compelling, I usually pay nearly that for one tyre that it's shod in!

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I've considered them in the past but discounted them on the basis of cost more than anything, although £160 for a full set does make it a little more compelling, I usually pay nearly that for one tyre that it's shod in!

 

Yours might be a bit more then - you can drop a size or two and a speed rating or two, but make sure you check with your insurance company first - some see it as a modification and try and charge you more for having safer tyres. They're not money grabbings sods though. Honest.

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