11th January 2019
All-season tyres are essentially the best of both worlds as they combine the benefits of winter tyres, alongside maintaining the core benefits of summer tyres. This creates a tyre that is flexible enough to withstand most weather conditions, however we must be mindful that this may not include severe weather conditions, so it is always best to ask a professional which tyres will suit your car best. Get in touch with your local Merityre branch to discuss your tyre options.
All-season tyres; there’s been a lot of buzz about them lately. Are you familiar with them? Also known as all-weather tyres, they’re a relatively new fitting option, with more and more UK drivers choosing to fit them to their vehicles, in place of traditional summer and winter tyres. Like their name implies, all-season tyres are specifically created to deliver good performance all year round, offering some – but not all – of the qualities you get with summer and winter tyres.
The world’s best premium tyre manufacturers, like Continental, provide UK motorists with market-leading all-season tyres.
Summer tyres and winter tyres are engineered to perform at their best in warm weather and cold weather conditions respectively. Each feature a different, dedicated tyre compound, designed to perform at its optimum at completely different temperatures. All-season tyres have a compound that includes some of the qualities found in both summer and winter tyres – though not all of them. As such, all-season tyres will perform better than summer tyres in winter conditions, and vice versa, but they’re not a straight like-for-like replacement for either, since they don’t offer the very highest levels of performance that dedicated seasonal tyres offer.
That said, given the typical weather and driving conditions we experience in the UK, all-season tyres are well suited to our climate. British summers are not usually too hot, or winters too cold, and it’s very rare for us to have to live through sustained periods of extreme weather.
You should consider fitting all-season tyres if:
You live in a region with typically mild temperatures, including during winter time…
On the whole, you mainly drive in urban areas, where the streets are regularly cleared of snow…
You’re driving with a limited amount of mileage each year, and are not overly dependent on your vehicle.
If this is you, then all-season tyres are an alternative fitting solution that’s seriously worth considering. In fact, many UK motorists fit this description. It’s little wonder that Continental’s AllSeasonContact™ is so popular and highly regarded. It delivers impressive grip on snowy and wet winter roads, as well as good braking performance on dry and wet summer roads. The AllSeasonContact™ also helps to reduce fuel consumption, thanks to being best-in-class for low rolling resistance.
All-seasons aren’t just for private motorists. Their good all year round qualities are perfect for many fleet managers, since they offer many of the benefits of both summer and winter tyres in a single product. That means no need to switch from summer tyres to winter tyres, when the temperature drops, and presents a great opportunity to reduce tyre expenditure. In the current economic climate, any opportunity to relieve the strain on already stretched maintenance budgets should be welcomed.
There are dedicated all-season tyres for vans, like Continental’s Vanco™ FourSeason 2 and VanContact™ 4Season, which not only provide businesses with good braking and safety performance, but higher mileage and reduced fuel consumption too. With attributes like these, all-season van tyres may be the right option for your fleet vehicles.
If you are interested in upgrading your tyres or buying all season tyres, visit one of our local Merityre branches to see how we can help you.