Reading: Don’t buy a new snow-hardy car - just invest in all-season tyres!

It appears some motorists are considering buying a second vehicle better equipped to deal with the kind of Arctic winters the UK has experienced in the last few months.

But the Car Clinic Panel in the Sunday Times’ Ingear supplement has a cheaper option - fit all-season tyres to your present car!

This was the exchange between the column and Mr SR, from Shotley Bridge, Co Durham, which was published today: “My wife and I live in a relatively remote part of the northeast that was gripped so firmly by the icy hand of winter that I had to have my Vauxhall Astra towed from our home to a main road, where it stayed until the weather eased. We are getting too old to dig out cars so are thinking of buying a modest second ca that won’t be as easily waylaid by Jack Frost - perhaps a Suzuki. What do you advise?”

Jason Dawe, the used-car expert on the Car Clinic Panel, offered this advise: “You may well find that adding all-season tyres to your Astra is enough to keep it moving in the snow. These are a variant of winter tyres, and have softer rubber and deeper treads to offer more grip in bad weather, yet are designed to be left on the car all year.”

Jason goes on to put in a good word for the Mitsubishi Shogun Pinin if the couple are set on buying a second car or a Suzuki Jimny 1.3 VVT JLX.

Denna Bowman, Head Office

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 21st, 2010 at 9:02 pm and is filed under Blogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.