{"id":7667,"date":"2015-07-30T14:58:10","date_gmt":"2015-07-30T14:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/?p=7667"},"modified":"2015-07-30T14:58:10","modified_gmt":"2015-07-30T14:58:10","slug":"michelin-crossclimate-all-season-tyre-wins-landmark-13000-van-fleet-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/archives\/7667","title":{"rendered":"Michelin CrossClimate all-season tyre wins landmark 13,000 van fleet deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BritishI’m a huge fan of all-season tyres. For the majority of UK motorists,\u00a0switching between summer and winter tyres twice a year just isn’t worthwhile.<\/p>\n

Despite this,\u00a0the traffic chaos that results from even the\u00a0tiniest amount of snow proves that\u00a0as a nation, we do have a traction problem when frozen water is involved.<\/p>\n

I have all-season tyres fitted to both the vehicles in my household (one van<\/a> and one car) and\u00a0they’ve proved their worth more than once in\u00a0winter conditions,\u00a0providing grip while\u00a0cars with summer tyres were visibly sliding around.<\/p>\n

I’m certain they\u00a0prevented at least one crash\u00a0last winter.\u00a0At the same time, they perform well in summer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, for reasons I cannot understand, all-season tyres are not widely available in the UK. Mainstream tyre retailers like Kwik-Fit only seem to offer summer and winter tyres. I think it’s a marketing thing — I was once told by a Goodyear PR person that they were not interested in selling their all-season tyres in the UK. (I buy mine through mytyres.co.uk, which is a German company shipping to fitting centres in the UK. All-season tyres are widely sold in Europe.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Luckily, this short-sighted approach is starting to change. Earlier this year, Michelin launched the CrossClimate, a new type of all-season tyre that has received rave reviews and proved to be the equal of both winter and summer tyres in the highly-regarded German TUV and DEKRA tests.<\/p>\n

The main difference between the CrossClimate and other all-season tyres is said to be that the CrossClimate is a summer tyre adapated to work in winter, whereas most all-season tyres are winter tyres adapted to work in summer. This means they often work less well in summer than in winter. My experience chimes with this, although the difference is slight, in my view.<\/p>\n

However, perhaps the biggest difference is that Michelin has got its act together and is actively marketing the CrossClimate in the UK, to both fleet and retailer buyers.<\/p>\n