The new Continental VanContact Winter. Note the different tread (to summer tyres). What you can’t see is that the rubber compound is also different.
There’s nothing like a smattering of snow to remind British drivers that the summer tyres fitted as standard to the vast majority of vans (and cars) sold in the UK are not intended to work in cold or icy conditions.
And they don’t. Witness the cars and vans I saw getting stuck on the slightest of gradients in an inch of snow recently. It wasn’t ice, just nice grippy fresh snow. In contrast, my van, with all-season tyres, had plenty of traction.
In the hope of picking up some early momentum, Continental has chosen this week to announce its new VanContact Winter tyre, a winter tyre for vans. Winter tyres do, of course, provide massively superior grip in snow, ice and low temperature conditions — anything below 7°C, in fact.
Conti claims that its new winter van tyre offers better fuel economy than the older VancoWinter 2, thanks to a modified silica compound that provides a 15% reduction in rolling resistance.
At the same time, the new VanContact Winter is said to offer 5% more grip as the result of a modified tread design.
It’s an impressive combination (more grip and less rolling resistance!) and although I haven’t tried it, I have little doubt it’s an excellent tyre. Continental is a top-tier tyre firm.
The only problem is that we don’t have much snow in the UK. Persuading van operators or car owners to change tyres between winter and summer tyres twice a year is a hard sell. For most people — me included — it’s just not going to happen.
All-season (M+S/snowflake) is the answer!
That’s why I use all-season tyres on both my van and my wife’s car. In my experience, after several years of use, they really are ideal for UK weather. They work well in both summer and winter conditions (including snow and ice) and do not require seasonal changes.
Yet despite the obvious suitability of all-season tyres for our relatively temperate climate, the big tyre companies have been reluctant to market all-season tyres in the UK. They’ve preferred to try and flog seperate summer and winter models.
Things may be starting to change, however. A growing number of tyre centres appear to stock all-season tyres which were previously only available as imports from European companies such as mytyres.co.uk (a German business).
For example, Continental make an excellent all-season tyre for vans, the VancoFourSeason. This does not appear on Continental’s UK website at all, but does now seem to be widely available a major tyre fitting chains — something that wasn’t true a few years ago.
It’s the same story with cars. Michelin recently launched the CrossClimate tyre in the UK, which has had excellent reviews and is available in sizes to fit small vans as well as cars. Indeed, British Gas recently signed a deal to fit Michelin CrossClimate tyres to 13,000 of its vans. British Gas operates one of the UK’s biggest van fleets and previously used winter tyres on many of its vans, so this decision speaks volumes, in my opinion.
Momentum does seems to be gathering in favour of the all-season camp. Earlier today, an email dropped into my inbox informing me of a special offer on Goodyear Vector 4 Season all-season tyres at Kwik Fit.
The last time I tried to buy an all-season tyre from Kwik Fit, they didn’t have any. Indeed, back in 2011, I was at a Goodyear press event and was told by one of their PR people that they did not have any interest in promoting their Vector range of all-season tyres in the UK — they were pitching winter and summer tyres only.
Thankfully, common sense seems to be prevailing. Tyre firms appear to be gradually conceding that the majority of British motorist will never run summer and winter tyres, but may be interested in something more suitable for year-round use.