All-season Tyres are Trending

Should I fit all-season tyres to my vehicle?

Are you familiar with all-season tyres? They’re also called all-weather tyres, and recently there’s been a huge amount of buzz around them. All-season tyres are a relatively new tyre fitting option for Irish drivers, but more and more of us are choosing them, instead of driving on summer and winter tyre types. So why is this?

As their name suggests, all-season tyres were created so that drivers could simply fit just one set of tyres over the changing seasons, rather than drive on dedicated summer and winter tyres at the appropriate time. All-season tyres are able to offer some of the characteristics you get with both summer and winter tyres – though not all of the qualities.

Leading premium tyre makers, such as Continental, offer drivers all-season tyres. Their range includes dedicated van tyres, as well as those created for cars. Continental’s AllSeasonContact™ is one of the very best all season tyres, so much so that leading weekly car magazine, Auto Express, named it as their All Season Tyre Test Winner for 2018.

All-season tyres offer all round performance

The summer and winter tyres you’re used to driving on are specifically optimised to work in warm weather and cold weather conditions respectively. Each tyre type uses a separate compound that is designed to perform at its optimum best at very different temperatures. All-season tyres are made from a compound that has some of the qualities found in both summer and winter tyres – though not all of them.

As such, all-season tyres will perform better than summer tyres in winter conditions, and better than winter tyres in warm conditions, but they’re not a straight like-for-like replacement for either. Why? Because they don’t offer the very performance characteristics that dedicated summer and winter tyres offer. As a result, all-season tyres can only provide some of the qualities of both – but not the very highest levels of either.

That said, given the type of weather – and driving conditions – we typically get in Ireland, all-season tyres are well suited to our climate. Our summers are not typically especially hot, or the winters overly cold, and it’s rare for us to experience any sustained periods of extreme weather.

Who should consider fitting all-season tyres?

  • If you live in a region with mainly mild temperatures, including during winter time…
  • If you drive mainly in urban areas, where the streets are regularly cleared of snow…
  • If you are driving with a limited amount of mileage each year, and not overly dependent on your car…

Then all-season tyres are an alternative fitting solution that you should be considering. With this in mind, it’s no wonder that Continental’s AllSeasonContact™ is so highly regarded.

  • It delivers impressive grip on snowy and wet winter roads
  • It provides good braking performance on dry and wet summer roads
  • It reduces fuel consumption, thanks to being best-in-class for rolling resistance performance.

Fleet vehicle drivers can benefit from all-season tyres

All-season tyres aren’t just for private motorists. Their good all year round qualities are perfect for fleet vehicles. This presents a great opportunity for feet owners and managers to reduce tyre expenditure, and relieve the strain on already stretched maintenance budgets.

There are dedicated all-season tyres for vans, such as Continental’s Vanco™ FourSeason 2 and VanContact™ 4Season, which not only deliver good braking and safety performance, but higher mileage and reduced fuel consumption too. All-season van tyres may be the right option for your fleet vehicles.

BestDrive by Continental – You drive, we care.