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All seasons - Vredestein Quatrac Pro - latest impressions

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
We picked up a new car yesterday as our much loved 2010 Nissan Murano threw a gearbox hissy a couple of weeks ago and it was not economical to repair (€8k just for the 'box!).

The vagaries of the French car market (and our inability to align with it) meant we were somewhat short on options, so we have ended up acquiring something I never thought I would, a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. I can detail our impressions of that later, should the audience wish, but generally very positive.

Anyhoo, it came with Vredestein Quatrac Pro all-seasons fitted. And some Yokohama summers, which are going on leboncoin today.

Really very impressed. It was -3C when we ventured out this morning, snow and ice on the roads, summer tyred Parisiens in their RR Sports very obviously tentative. Idiots.

Really very secure. No ABS on braking for idiots walking in front of cars. No issues up or down our rather steep hill.


Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Wed 8-12-21 12:15; edited 1 time in total
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
I had the previous version on my Skoda Kodiaq and I thought they were brilliant. Never seemed to run out of grip on snow. Now I’ve just moved up to Speyside and driving conditions have been challenging for my BMW 5 series. Spent about an hour last night trying to find all season tyres in the correct sizes for the car and they don’t seem to exist. Gutted.
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
@Valkyrie, how irritating and a bit short sighted on BM's side surely?
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@under a new name, good news on the tyres, will you leave them on year round (having disposed of the summers)?

I for one would be very interested on your experience with the new car. It’s on my shortlist. I think it could do all our local trips on electric only and be charged cheaply from our solar panels. Not so sure about long runs, real world fuel economy would be interesting.
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
I've been on all seasons for quite some time now, got fed up changing and storing. Firstly I had Nokian Weatherproofs and now Michelin CrossClimate. I've been impressed with both.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
At the start of 2020 I got my first set of all seasons, having previously swapped between winters and summers for the last few years. I got Continental All Season Contact , and I was able to test them in snow in Scotland last March. They behaved very well and I'm pleased with them.
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Being a bit tight I always run winter tyres with a decent tread depth During winter months and then, if they are getting down to the 4mm mark, leave them on through the following summer without swapping, buying new the following autumn.

How do those on all seasons deal with a scenario where you are down to 4mm in say December?
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
@DJL, on tyres, intention would be to leave them year round, saves a wee bit of hassle and a wee bit of money. So far, I'm impressed.

Re car. Well. I was a staunch believer that hybrids were a daft idea. However, the French seem wedded to diesels and manuals. Neither of which we wanted. So we ended up spending 30% over original budget but got a 1 yr old ex-demo which looks to have good residual and it's hybrid and auto.

Do I like it? Yes, so far, 24 hours in, I very much do. It is NOT fast. and it's not really very engaging, other than having errr, at least 6 operation modes to select. But if you want engaging, you buy Italian.

It is extremely quiet. Even on the motorway at 140kph. It's disturbingly so, you put your foot down and nothing seems to happen except that the speedo goes up. I had to lock in cruise control yesterday to avoid a ticket.

& It seems unstoppable on snow and ice, we're forecast a bit this week so I'll see more about that.

And in our usual driving cycle - mostly around town, or the valley, the leccy range is quite ample, even at minus degrees so we anticipate minimal petrol consumption.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
@Claude B, I've just picked up a new VW Transprter and was looking at putting some CrossClimates on once I've gone through the tyres on t now. How did the CrossClimates last mileage wise?
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 Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
@rogg, we have the Vredesteins Quatracs on our T5, excellent in all weathers. Been snowy and icy here this month in NE England. I'm not anticipating keeping our X-trail long enough to need another set of winters, but would definitely put them on if we were.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
Very happy with my Goodyear Vectors put on in October. Feel super secure in frosty and very wet roads. Only drawback is they seem to have hammered MPG relative to the Eco Contacts on before ( though as tread lowered on those perhaps they had too little rolling resistance)
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 And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
@rogg, I don't know yet. Front ones have been on just over a year and rears for 3 months. Mileage well down in that time due to covid.
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 So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
@under a new name, I read this thread back up from the bottom to discover what the new car is. We have had the same Mitsubishi for around five years and David has been very pleased with it. It has Vredestein winters on at the moment but David is intending to change to all-seasons when new ones needed to stop the faff of changing over. Does all his local driving ok on the electric. It used to happily cope with the hills when we lived in Les Gets and we had a particularly steep bit just before our chalet and a stupidly steep drive. We invested in some of the expensive/much easier chains which sat in pristine condition, other than a test drive, never used, until two years ago in Austria where a couple of the places we booked were rather remote and at the top of very steep hills so they did come out then, but last winter the car and the winters coped admirably again in France and Austria. I had said I didn’t want to stay quite so remotely again! Any questions about the car do ask.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
@Pamski, this is good to hear. How do you get Apple Carplay to work? We can't ... Shocked
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
@under a new name, @Pamski, looking for a new one ourselves soon, so interested in opinions. Not a fan of the new Xtrail model, which is our natural replacement. Needs to be big enough for two German Shepherds.
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
@under a new name, we (he) don’t know about Apple car play - haven’t tried, but he can get Spotify. And apparently we haven’t got Vredesteins, they were previous car, this one had Toyo? (maybe) summers when bought so bought the same for winters. So far only researched Michelins all season but will look further this summer.
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Having been out on Vredestein winter pro first thing this morning they were fab. 4-5 inches of snow on untreated road and not one twitch or slide. I did slam the breaks on from 20mph just to see/feel what happens and it stopped quickly, the abs went off and helped but very sure footed.
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
@under a new name, don’t know about your car but with ours (Skoda) we had to get dealer to activate something to allow CarPlay and it’s android equivalent to work. Did cost (c£50iirc) but definitely worth it, we use it all the time now.
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@under a new nameGlad to hear of your positive impression with these so far my new set are still in my garage as my current set still have a bit of life left in them ( they are the older version ) and have worn very well indeed ,one thing i will point out which might be of interest is that i suffered a pretty nasty puncture in one once big enough to stick two of my fingers in but i was still able to drive the car to a safe location albeit rather carefully with out any damage to the wheel and that's in a fairly heavy vehicle (Land Rover D4)
the side walls are extremely tough so from a safety point off view i was very impressed and yes the winter performance is very impressive too.
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Interesting testing of all-season tyres:
http://youtube.com/v/gHph1mDtCbQ
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Dave of the Marmottes wrote:
Very happy with my Goodyear Vectors put on in October. Feel super secure in frosty and very wet roads. Only drawback is they seem to have hammered MPG relative to the Eco Contacts on before ( though as tread lowered on those perhaps they had too little rolling resistance)


I ran an Smax on GY Vectors, my ex would run rings round the 4x4s, I bouht them by the pair, new on the rear in November & rears went on the front & we did 20k miles / yr so a pair would do 20 k on the rear then 20k on the front which was about 10 % less than conti sport contacts we had used in the past. No observable difference in mpg but some additional road noise, much better on wet roads.
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
@andseven, that's very good to know, although I hope not to have to rely on it.

@Hells Bells, in our local 2nd hand market (Haute Savoie) , X-Trails and Outlanders seem broadly similar in pricing. But the big thing was avoiding diesel. I don't know if it's just us being a bit paranoid, but given the various governmental stances on phasing diesels out ( and the €5k bonus apparently available for low income households switching from diesel to hybrid) we were not comfortable acquiring one.

Once I've had the car a few more kms and ideally in some more snow, I'll update.
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
@ulmerhutte, I find tyre reviews (in general) tricky as there seems to be a big difference between results for different sizes and cars. That one you posted though is remarkably detailed and quantified.
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 You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
@under a new name, yeah, it seemed to be very professionally done, down to blind testing, by a driver/team that clearly makes a living out of testing tyres. He assessed a range of parameters / attributes, not just stopping distance.

I guess I have long known that season-specific tyres will out-perform all-season tyres in their designed conditions, but this test quantified the difference for the sets of tyres they were using. The difference was huge, but... if you drive in mixed conditions, and having a second set of wheels is not practical for you, then the all-season tyres are probably the best choice. The worst combo would be summer tyres in the snow - diabolical.

As you might expect, though I had not explicitly thought about it, some all-seasons are biased towards winter and others towards summer. The presenter provided good insights on that point.

I have been running Pirelli Scorpion Verde All-Seasons and am happy with them. 90% of my driving is on highway, wet & dry, and maybe 10% on snow.

One more video: testing to determine the crossover temperature points:
http://youtube.com/v/bKtnczk8Mxk (Amazing facility BTW)
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 Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
The various videos from these people are very good, but as mentioned, it's worth appreciating that there's as much variation in winter tyres as there is across summers. For example, with Pirelli, they have a warm-biased winter tyre (Winter Sottozero Serie-II) as well as a snow-biased one (Winter Sottozero 3, or 'S3') as well as a performance-biased winter (PZero Winter). And then they'll usually have a couple of all-season variants (snow-biased / warm+wet-biased) and that may even be in car vs SUV variants (so another 4 types). There are also some summers that are much better in colder/wetter conditions than others.

So you've got to be a bit careful when comparing one tyre type from one manufacturer with another type from another manufacturer. r in drawing generalisations for all tyres based on one manufacturer's range.

One conclusion I'd definitely draw is that for an SUV owner, or an 'ordinary' car owner who wants just one tyre for the whole year, then the all-seasons are a great choice. But if you have a performance car, then it's not a bad idea to take a look at one of the owners forums where there will usually be a very informative thread on owners experiences with different winters and summers. That's why our local run-around little Peugeot has Michelin CrossClimate™ on year-round, but the 3.0L BMW RWD convertible has a separate set of winter Pirelli Winter Sottozero 3.

And overall, I think you get 70% of the way to having the right tyre by simply not using a standard summer for winter Alpine trips i.e. an all-season or winter. Which is good, but it's worth appreciating that a typical winter is still going to take you that much further than a typical all-season as the snow conditions deteriorate. And 'deteriorate' isn't just an artic snowstorm - it could be a steep drive out of your accommodation, or a slushy mess in the middle of your resort.


Last edited by Ski the Net with snowHeads on Wed 8-12-21 21:37; edited 2 times in total
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 snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
So I now have to apologise for being so keen last year. We're getting quite a lot of snow and it's cold at the same time.

So I've had a few novel experiences this morning, mostly involving travelling in directions that I had not commanded, including - at very slow speed - finding ourselves sideways on the sis in law's (steep) driveway - and nearly losing traction completely coming up our (very steep) hill.

I am afraid I'm about to order a set of proper winters.
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 And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
@under a new name,
I know what you mean - my Defender 110 did a very neat pirouette descending Route des Granges one morning. A few days later a Lyonnais from just across the road did the same thing in his 110! I was on BF Goodriches, he was on Nokians.
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 So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
under a new name wrote:
@Pamski, this is good to hear. How do you get Apple Carplay to work? We can't ... Shocked


Does it support wireless Apple carplay or wired only? If the later then it might only be certain points that will work over carplay. IE in my iPace there are two USB ports inside the central box that work with carplay, but two underneath the actual display unit "just" charge and don't connect.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
@kitenski, about the day after I typed that, they swiped right on each other, or something.

Anyway local main dealer has been fitting Firestone Winter Hawk 4s and everyone’s apparently happy (and there are loads of outies locally) so it’s being re-shod on Tuesday. (Decent Bild review as well, one place down from Contis).
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Valkyrie _ Have you checked the EU Homologation or BMW manual for your 5 Series it should provide alternative wheels and winter tyre combinations in accordance with BMW specifications. It will cost more with getting new wheels but it will save wear of your standard wheel and summer tyres. If you already knew this sorry for wasting your time.
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Valkyrie _ Have you checked the EU Homologation or BMW manual for your 5 Series it should provide alternative wheels and winter tyre combinations in accordance with BMW specifications. It will cost more with getting new wheels but it will save wear of your standard wheel and summer tyres. If you already knew this sorry for wasting your time.
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