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Michelin Alpin PA2's

Kam

Prof. Myang Li - Yum!
Jun 6, 2002
1,738
0
South East
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Bought mine from Mytyres.co.uk. I think they may be hard to track down in the UK from the average tyre dealers. I think they are great - very comfortable, relatively quiet and are fantastic in the wet, ice and slush. Dry performance, need to take it a little easy when travelling a little over motorway speeds as the car tends to feel a little floaty. They also perform fine in warmer temps. I think I paid £50 something each.
 

RobT

Full throttle trip
Nov 30, 2001
2,558
10
Congleton
I have just fitteed a set of dunlop sp wintersport 3d's and they are fantastic in the cold /wet - narrowly beat the alpins in numerous USA tyre tests but I did consider the alpins as they have a good reputation

the dunlops are great so far, very planted in early cold mornings

winter tyres are designed to work at 7C and below and should be better than a std tyre even when not in the snow

because of the tread sipes on most winter tyres, most loose their edge below 4mm so I dont think the alpins are unique in this respect

hope you like em as much as I do mine

Cheers

Rob
 

Willie

LCR Track car
Aug 6, 2004
8,939
1
Sunny Scotland
Time will tell, cheers for the info.
Hope I've not made a very expensive mistake but time will tell
At least this year more people are speaking about winter tyres, the last two years I couldn't get any infor out of anybody.
Taking one for the team!!
 

Niall

Active Member
Aug 6, 2003
880
0
www.testrake.com
Every year the german AA does a winter tyretest and they are always spot-on. 2 years ago i was visiting family in scotland and on the way home there was heavy snow.

I was PSML when i passed police cars who weren't going anywhere and i was able to carry on as normal running my winter tyres. :lol:

@Rob T: 3mm is abosulte minimum, under 5mm the grip on snow is heavily influenced

http://www.adac.de/Tests/Reifentest...ult.asp?ComponentID=194624&SourcePageID=8979#

http://www.adac.de/Tests/Reifentest...ault.asp?ComponentID=127017&SourcePageID=8979
 
Last edited:

Niall

Active Member
Aug 6, 2003
880
0
www.testrake.com
4mm is under 5mm........and anyway this is tyre dependant


Too true.

Less than 3mm on summer tyres during heavy downpours isn't much fun, unless you are into drifting ;)

Most germans who live in snowy area's change at 5 mm, whearas people who live in a more moderate part of germany change them at 3-4mm
 

Willie

LCR Track car
Aug 6, 2004
8,939
1
Sunny Scotland
Phew
Maybe not such an expensive mistake then, time will tell
Thanks
BTW what the hell is that in your profile picture?
Looks like a parrot sitting on top of a shotgun with a mountain and red sky
Take it it isn't
 

Niall

Active Member
Aug 6, 2003
880
0
www.testrake.com
Photo of a wooden duck dressed up in a Burka. Taken in a restaurant in Nürburg, sort of private joke between Mr coyote, Me and a couple of others :lol:
 

Willie

LCR Track car
Aug 6, 2004
8,939
1
Sunny Scotland
Well the first snow has fallen and laid so time to test these expensive tyres.
From the first time I moved off it was very obvious that these tyres were 1000% better than summer tyres. I tried har acceleration, hard braking, hill starts on ice/snow and hard cornering. All in all the tyres are amazing.
The last three years the car has been an absolute nighmare during the winter, last year it was unusable due to the heavy snow we had but this year it looks like there should be nothing stopping me.
So if your getting pissed with not being incontrol of your car in the winter then get these. They are very expensive but looking at the tread, and considering I've been driving on 99% tar so far, looks like I'll get a few years out of these
 

Willie

LCR Track car
Aug 6, 2004
8,939
1
Sunny Scotland
Well these tyres were removed last month after being on the car since November.
The fronts have 6 mm and the rears 7 mm. These tyres were an absolute god send in the snow. I've had the car 5 years and 4 of these when it snowed the car was a complete waste of time on summer GSD3's.
With these tyres the car was usable 100% of the time. They were expensive to buy but they allowed me to use my car and have faith in my wife and kid being in snow covered roads with complete confidence which is worth alot of money when you work away from home and are worrying about your family anyway.

My findings were......

At and below 6 degrees these tyres drive and handle like the GSD3's do in the dry warm days. Obviously I wasn't pushing quite as hard but the grip was very very good. In the wet they were great, in large amounts of standing water they weren't as good as the GSD3's but I don't think anything could perform nearly as well as the GSD3's in this situation.
As above post even on ice covered road I was getting enough grip to do hill starts with 220 ft-lbs of torque

All in all I would definately recommend these tyres to anyone. I gave these a really hard time and they took everything I gave them. If your thinking about getting winter tyres or you couldn't use your car due to snow covered roads an big torque just spinning the wheels then you could do far worse then these tyres.
 
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