Winter tyres are the same as summer tyres, stick with a premium brand and you won’t go far wrong
Phil,
I do have to disagree with your statement. There is a huge difference between normal summer and winter tyres. This ranges from the obvious tread pattern differences, to the different temperatures the rubber is designed to operate at, to the actual construction of the tyre. The Michelin ‘Cross Climate’ type tyres are a bit of a hybrid between the two – but do neither summer or winter as good as a decent brand of proper summer and winter tyres.
When one of the leading mags did a ‘back to back’ summer/winter tyres test a few years back, they found that summer tyres start to lose efficiency at or around +8 degrees C, whilst winter tyres come into their own below this temperature and continue to operate down to about -12 degress C.
Living in the wilds of the Dales in winter, summer tyres, even with 4×4 are pretty useless. Infact I would go as far to say that winter tyres on a FWD vehicle are better than having summer tyres and 4×4 in snow and ice conditions, and are better in lower temperatures overall.
As JS says above, the optimum in winter conditions are winter tyres coupled with 4×4.
Dave