The benefits of winter tires

Winter tires have been specially developed to offer more grip on wet and slippery road surfaces. To achieve this, the tires are made of a softer rubber than the summer tires and have a clearer profile. This ensures that the tires stick better to the road surface. You also see the usefulness of winter tires if you drive on a road surface that offers less grip due to winter conditions. Even at temperatures below seven degrees, you will see that the winter tires work better than their summer equivalent.

What are the benefits of winter tires?

Thanks to the softer rubber and better profile, winter tires offer some clear and important advantages over summer tyres:

• They offer more grip, which always feels better. Nobody feels comfortable driving on a slippery road surface, but with winter tires you are more confident. This is also very useful if you go on winter sports and have to drive up a mountain.
• The braking distance is much shorter in slippery conditions, in some cases even half shorter than with summer tyres. This is due to the better grip of the winter tyre. So if you end up in a situation where hard braking is necessary, you will feel a lot safer with winter tires.

The usefulness of winter tires is therefore mainly in the improved contact with the road surface. And if this road surface offers less grip, you can use everything to keep as much control over your car as possible.

What disadvantages do winter tires have?

Why not drive with winter tires all year round? This is due to two important factors:

• During the summer wear out the winter tires a lot faster. The soft rubber ensures that the tires wear a lot faster in warm conditions, so that you are ready for a new set very quickly.
• In addition, the winter tires in the summer are correct less grip then offer the summer tire. That is also due to the rubber composition; this one is really made to perform optimally in cold weather conditions.

It should be clear: winter tires are really meant for the winter, summer tires really for the summer.

How long do winter tires last?

The durability of the winter tire naturally depends on several factors, but a general rule of thumb is that winter tires older than six years should no longer be used. The profile of the tires is of course always checked during the MOT and since you do not use the tires all year round, they will wear less quickly than tires that are under the car every season. If you are unsure, check your profile: less than 1.6 millimeters is not enough anyway and if you have to drive through snow, you actually need about 4 millimeters. Do you want to know more about winter tires? Then look at the overview winter tires at Autoweek.

In which countries are winter tires mandatory?

During winter sports you notice the most of the usefulness of winter tires and in many countries they are even mandatory. If you want to go on holiday there in the winter, you will have to fit winter tires for this. These tires are mandatory in the following countries:

• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Germany
• Estonia
• Finland
• Croatia
• Luxembourg
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Norway
• Austria
• Romania
• Serbia
• Slovenia
• Slovakia
• Czech Republic
• Turkey
• Iceland
• Sweden

We have listed deviating traffic rules for a number of popular winter sports countries where you often go by car.

Are all season tires a good alternative?

All-season tires, also known as all-season tires, are tires that are somewhere between winter and summer tires and can therefore be used all year round. But as is often the case with a middle ground, it is actually not suitable for the extremes. In the snow, for example, an all-season tire hardly works; whoever wants to drive off on a slope in a mountain village will really have a problem. You will find an overview in the comparator for all season tires on this site. Therefore, if you really want to be sure that your car has the best tires, you should opt for winter and summer tyres.