Rubber compound has a working temperature, and a summer tyre is blended to be pliable when it is warm. Below roughly seven degrees that blend stiffens. The tread stops keying into the texture of the road surface and starts skating over it, which shows up as longer braking distances, a vaguer steering response and a car that runs wide on a damp roundabout it would have gripped fine in June. None of this depends on ice or snow. It is simply what happens to the material at temperatures Britain has for a third of the year.
A cold weather compound is blended the other way, staying flexible when a summer tyre has gone hard, and the tread is cut with fine sipes that give the block edges to bite with. For most London drivers the practical answer is not a second set of wheels in a garage nobody has, it is an all season tyre carrying the alpine snowflake marking, fitted once and left on. That is a planned decision, best made in September when there is time to choose, rather than in January after something has already happened. We will fit them where the car is standing, so choosing well costs you nothing in time.
Most people put new tyres off because of the afternoon it costs them, not because of the tyre. A run near Grosvenor Place and an hour at a counter is a morning gone. Tell us the size and a time that suits and the van comes to you in SW1, which means a tyre already down to the wear bars never has to make one more journey to get replaced. Pressures set before we leave Belgravia, and the same on Buckingham Palace Road. A Grosvenor Gardens driveway is our workshop, and so is a Buckingham Palace Road kerb. A SW1 address in Buckingham Palace Road and one in the Ebury Street area are the same round.
New tyres in Victoria is part of our wider mobile tyre fitting across London and the home counties cover. For new tyres in Victoria, call 07717 389637 or get a price for your tyre.
Most mileage here is short and slow, which matters more in winter than it sounds. A tyre reaches its working temperature by flexing, and crawling from Grosvenor Place to a car park two junctions away never gets it anywhere near. On a cold morning a summer compound in that traffic stays stiff for the whole trip rather than the first few minutes of it, so the entire journey happens at the tyre's worst. On a car that does exactly those journeys, an all season fitment earns its place.
A driver who had never had a complaint about grip in summer described the car as feeling nervous on cold damp mornings. The tyres were good, nearly new and entirely wrong for the temperature.
A set changed before the weather turned, on a car that does short local journeys, chosen so the owner never has to think about seasonal swapping or find somewhere to store a second set.
Four tyres replaced on a car parked near the Ebury Street area while the owner was in the office. The car did not move and the old tyres left with our van.
Nothing dramatic and nothing sudden. It is the rough point where a summer compound has stiffened enough that the loss of grip becomes measurable on a cold wet road. Above it a summer tyre is the better tyre. Below it, a cold weather or all season compound stops more car in less distance.
Snow is beside the point. The gain is in cold rain, which London has constantly from November onward. That is why an all season fitment tends to suit drivers here better than a dedicated winter set, since it handles the cold months without giving much away in summer.
They are not the same. M and S is a tread pattern description with no test behind it. The three peak mountain snowflake is awarded after an actual grip test in winter conditions, so it is the marking worth looking for if the cold weather performance is the reason you are buying.
Yes, honestly. It gives away a little to a proper summer tyre in July and a little to a proper winter tyre in freezing conditions. For a car doing short urban journeys through a British year, that trade is usually worth taking, and we will tell you when it is not.
★★★★★ 4.9 from 151 verified Google reviews.
Read all 151 reviews on Google →Prefer a callback? Send your details for a new tyres price in Victoria.