2WD Plus Winter Tyres Easily Beats 4WD In The Snow

The general mainstream assumption that four-wheel drive means you can handle ice and snow couldn’t be more wrong, and here’s proof

Matt Kimberley

19 Nov 2018

Are you a big fan of four-wheel drive as an alternative to winter tyres? Prepare yourself for a dose of crushing disappointment.

Chances are you know someone who is under the assumption their 4x4 is a magical winter-beating unicorn that doesn’t need winter tyres. Unfortunately, that’s rather inaccurate. Tyre Reviews has released a new video showing the wild difference between a typical 4x4 on typical summer tyres and a two-wheel drive car on winter rubber.

2WD Plus Winter Tyres Easily Beats 4WD In The Snow

Two BMW X1s get tested at Goodyear’s facility in northern Finland. The front-wheel drive one is fitted with Goodyear UltraGrip Performance winter tyres while the four-wheel drive car uses the excellent Eagle F1 Asymmetric 3. You can probably see where this is going.

For a start, summer tyres don’t stop a car very well on snow. We all like stopping before we hit stuff, right? As for traction on snow and ice, forget climbing any hills on those summer tyres. As the video shows, all four wheels simply spin away uselessly.

We’d offer some mitigation, in that most road surfaces are at least partly cleared of snow, even if they’re not gritted fully. Most roads should therefore have a tiny bit more purchase than the Finnish snow, but still. The points Tyre Reviews makes are spot-on.

Take 10 minutes to watch this, not just because Jonathan Benson’s biceps are always impressive, but mainly because it’s important food for thought – and a fascinating way for car geeks to gain some context without having to crash our own cars…

Comments

GTRTURTLE🔰🐢(Oo\SKYLINE/oO)(KoenigseggSquad)(McLarenSquad) Top Drives machine broke

What about the MRA?

Hahaha, was thinking the same thing

RWD > FWD

Does not apply in slippery conditions

Back when i was a apprentice we learned in School that contrary to popular believe a AWD Car will actually be the easy way to kill yourself on Snow and Ice.
Loss of traction and the higher friction of the AWD System when braking and turning is a hinderance on slippery Surfaces.

this is brought to you by the anti-subaru gang

issa joke kek

This was proved ages ago when nick murray won a tug of war with a subaru in his bmw m4 because he had winter tyres

I agree with the results obvs, but you still shouldn’t buy studless winter tyres. As most of us here are petrolheads, proper studded tyres will be A LOT more fun.

you can’t get studded winter tyres where i live then again its only snowed 7 times in 27 years here.

the point of winter tires isn’t snow where I live, it’s dealing with temperatures below 6C

summer tire and all season tire compound fails miserably below 6 degrees. temperature matters

I kinda get your point. Studless winter tires were absolute garbage a few decades ago and the cheapest still are. But good quality studless winter tires that are actually designed for northern winters are good. In fact they’re even better than studded winter tires on all surfaces but ice.
It should be noted tho that there are different types of studless winter tires and those that are designed as a more of an all season tire are bad at winter. Here in the northern europe we call them ‘central european winter tires’.
The only benefit of studded tires is traction on ice and lower cost. Otherwise they’re just worse than good quality studless tires. They’re noicy, worse in snow covered roads and they eat away the road below much quicker than studless tires. That and the fact that it all lifts up road dust that creates huge health problems in the spring.

aaronF50 (Group F50) (LFASQUAD) (720S Squad) ayy lmao

Ayy

Awd + winter tires

Well you have to be an ape to think that 4x4 with summer tires is better than FWD with winter tires.

Nowadays, the roads are full of apes

That’s not snow… That’s just a packed smooth layer of white on the road. In REAL snow that’s 12 inches deep and rutted to all heck you’re going to get stuck unless you have a truck.