Has anyone fitted snow tyres?

About 12 years ago I bought my first 4x4 - a short wheel base land crusier. It had big chunky all-terrain tyres and would go anywhere. My purpose in buying it was to ensure that I'd be able to get to work in winter. Sod's law came into action and for the next several years our maximum snowfall wouldn't have come up to one's ankles and some years we barely had an inch.
Last September, having been retired for a while we decided to 'get sensible' and reduce our fuel bill and migrated to a Vectra which has proved to be very economical.
We are now in our second hellish winter and although I don't have to get up and go to work, we do have an elderly relative to visit which means a 90 mile round trip. Things have been so bad driving that I've been half considering moving back to 4x4, but this would consume a big chunk of our savings. My other option which though a bit less ideal from the winter driving aspect is to buy 4 second hand wheels and fit winter tyres.

Has anyone any experience of the benefits of winter tyres on a front wheel drive car?

In my teens I had a mini that I fitted with 'town and country tyres' (remoulds) in winter and it had excellent traction.

 

Dave it might be different around your way but on Friday night I came home from work along the motorway at 70mph.
Came into my road and it was solid ice.

So I'm not going to fit winter tyres for a couple of hundred yards.
Anyway the way I see it is, you can drive a tractor, but if the bloke in front is sliding to a standstill so are you, 4x4 or not.

Our problems mostly stem from volume of traffic rather than road conditions.

 

Hi Dave,

No experience of them but was reading a Swiss post that said they change to winter tyres as a matter of course in winter & that our insurance wont cover us if we haven't.

 

Hi Pete!
Our problem is - first we have a very long sloping drive that can be a b* to dig out. Sliding down is easy, but getting up is another matter! And next we have four miles of B road before we hit an A road. The snow here this year has been unbelievable we were without a bus or mail for almost a week. The motorways and dual carriageways haven't been too bad, but to visit our elderly relative we have many miles of single carriageway A road that has often been covered with snow and or ice.

 

We've had them on the car (a normal Corsa, nothing special) since the beginning of December - bought them last January so they've been used twice now! According to himself, they are good for temperatures up to 7'c and have been proven to give better control and grip on snow conditions than regular tyres, and you can leave them on even when there isn't snow, something you can't do with snow chains.

We took them off this year in April. The other advantage of course is that you get more tyre for your money, as you have two sets, so each set is going to wear out/need replacing less often.

 

Actually, there was much made of the fact that insurance wouldn't cover snow tyres or required an upgrade of insurance but upon investigation it was proved to be incorrect. Call centre staff were telling people that it constituted a modification and would therefore require increased fee but some companies, when contacted by the BBC prog "Rip Off Britain" said callers shouldn't accept that but insist on being put through to a supervisor.

However, there are these snow socks that Which reported on recently.

 

They come attached to the wheels/rims. So changing them is no more difficult than changing a flat tyre. Except you have to do four of them!

 

Yes I thought things might be a bit different in your neck of the woods Dave

Must admit I was also interested in if there was much to be gained by fitting them, thanks for the info Aaron, its sounds expensive though.