XSeries-forum

Winter tyres go soft above 20C and will wear badly from there upwards, but you can run them all year if you are not doing much mileage.

Richard

I did the winter tyres on separate rims thing with one of our Volvo's, they were in the garage at home when I was in Yorkshire!! The result was a very long and unpleasant drive home, the weather had been mild (above 7deg apart from at night) and turned in the few days I was there? So after that I ran all weather tyres all year.

The Grabbers had covered about 12k and would have comfortably gone through this coming winter but a 100' Cedar tree blown over in December thought otherwise. So I don't think tyre wear was that bad, I don't hammer the car around roundabouts and bends (even without the horse box attached) but do cruise at proper motorway speeds when travelling North.

I totally agree with all the other posters if I were into serious off road stuff then the narrower the better plus a proper M&S tread I have a couple of friends with LandRover 90's who compete off road and are into winching (Daftest hobby ever) That said my off road use is limited to a grassy field with a muddy gateway or when shooting farm tracks and muddy gateways. In the snow providing I was sensible the X worked well with no sign of getting stuck even on some fairly steep hills on local shoots, hill descent works well by the way. So for me I can't be bothered with swapping summer to winter and back and just stay on winters all year it may well cost me a little extra in fuel and tyre wear, but when the weather turns I am not 200 miles away from them.

I have also been known to run winters all year round and I do a LOT of mileage - around 20-30k a year.  The wear was not exceptional and I managed around 40,000 miles on the last set of Vredestein Wintracs,  so I was quite pleased with that.  I have the summers on at present and will have new Vredies fitted for this winter, the alloys are being refurbed at present ready for more salt and slush! 

Running M&S tyres can be a good tactic particularly if you only want the one set of wheels/tyres - they will outperform low profile skinny rubber bands in bad weather any time.  I keep my wheels at home so can change easily whenever I want to, but can understand the nuisance of storage and lugging 4 hefty wheels and tyres around to change them. 

40k sounds very good, I do have room at work for an extra set of wheels so it might be an option depending on how the budget goes when I find the right car!