The importance of the right tyres.

So,  I thought I would share with you, why I think tyre choice is so important and also why it is so massively overlooked by so many people.

When I bought my seat Ibiza in April 2014, I was the happiest person in the world, it was a cracking car and we had an amazing summer together. however as winter drew nearer I became slightly apprehensive as I was living in the middle of nowhere at the time and I knew the weather could get rather cold and snowy. Also, the previous winter was pretty bad, and my previous car never got winter tyres, which I discovered was a seriously big mistake! So I decided to price up some winter tyres. as I was looking around, it quickly became apparent that if I wanted to keep the original wheels on the car I would have to fork out well in excess of £400 for the tyres and for fitting etc. At the time I dint have a spare £400, so I started looking at other options. I finally decided to buy a smaller wheel and have winter tyres fitted to them, Even though they were a full set they were significantly cheaper! 

I chose a 15 inch steel wheel with 185/55 profile winter tyres on them, although the overall size was fractionally smaller the speedo was on an extra 1mph out so it was an easy adaptation. Now winter tyres have a harder compound so are meant to last a lot longer, however when I specced my tyres I didn't look at the speed ratings, so my tyres were only designed to a max speed of 110mph, My car can do 140mph but of course in winter you would never get close to that, however the tread of a cheap tyre can't take the acceleration forces inflicted my a powerful engine and so after only 8000 miles my tyres started to lose chunks of tread. As it turns out, instead of lasting the recommended 40000 miles, im having to bin them after less than 20,000. so a word of warning, although the tyres might be cheap and you may only be using them for wintry conditions, always go with the manufacturers recommendation, it might seem like they are just trying to rip you off, but each tyre is made to a certain tolerance and if you buy a cheap tyre, best case scenario, it loses half its life, worst case, you could end up worse than leaving your summer tyres on.

That being said however, for the 2 seasons I had my tyres on, they made a marked difference in poor conditions and I would highly recommend anyone who lives in a climate where there is a good chance of bad weather for half the year, definitely shell out for winter tyres. The difference will almost certainly save your life!