All Season Tyres

My favoured choice of AS tyre is not available in the speed rating of the existing tyres, but is one lower.

The insurance company say this about swapping tyres:

"Will they affect my insurance?
Your insurance doesn’t change if you change to winter tyres. If you do decide to get your tyres changed, you don’t need to contact your insurance provider as long as it’s only the tyres that have been changed. If the entire wheel has been replaced, you will need to contact your insurance provider."

Now, I know that winter or AS tyres often drop a speed rating. The insurance website does not specifically mention speed ratings, but given that these drop when choosing a winter or AS tyre and that the insurer says it is OK to change to winter tyres, do you think this is OK?

No problem with that one.....the speed rating is often much higher than the vehicle can actually achieve.
Changing the entire wheel could make the vehicle more desirable for theft which is why the insurers shout about it.
John

Question. What is the speed limit in the United Kingdom?
Answer. 70 miles per hour.

Therefore it is suggested that ANY tyre having a speed rating of 70 mph or above is suitable for use in the UK. Do you remember remould tyres? You know, the ones which had new treads bonded to old carcasses? Back in the 1970s , IIRC, the advised speed limit for remoulds was 70mph! And they were perfectly legal! We all know that insurance companies will use every dirty trick in the book to avoid settling a claim. This is one of them. Why the devil should it be necessary to fit tyres rated at 130 mph when that is almost double the UK speed limit just to satisfy some (probaly illegal) clause in an insurance policy?

Why would changing the wheel make a vehicle more desirable for theft?
Surely if you take a alloy wheel off and put another on with a different tyre then it's no different to simply putting on a spare wheel (not one of those thin things)?

I can see that bit about changing the wheels becoming very messy administratively. My summer tyre is 215/55/16* and my winter tyre is 195/65/15* because I think a slimmer tyre will give better grip. What do you believe the likelihood is that whoever deals with policy changes at the insurer is going to comment on the change from 15 to 16 and say it's not permissible ? That's speculation, I really have no idea if they will retain all kinds of information like permitted tyre variants, but think it unlikely.

Like most people - here anyway - my winter-tyres are on steel-rims, so going down the desirability/cost scale.

* From memory, so please don't shoot me if it's not absolutely correct. The salient point here is the 15 and 16 wheel-size.

As far as the speed-rating is concerned, would there not be a valid point for whichever official body to say that the vehicle might be driven in ( say ) Germany where the full speed might be usable and therefore the tyre ought to be the original spec ?

A bit of devil's advocacy there, not very likely. I did however have a former colleague - a development engineer from Porsche - who liked old Alfa Romeos and he was always very annoyed that he had to buy rather expensive tyres for a 30-year old car that had only just scraped over the U rating ( 200 kph ) when new and had no chance when a lot older. He had to do it though, because without the right tyre, he wouldn't get his TÜV sticker. (MOT)

I'm sure there isn't any issues there, Mointain.....hopefully the difference in aspect ratio will accommodate the difference in wheel diameter.
If its not exactly the same, the ABS system can be upset on many new vehicles though, likewise some (VW) tyre pressure sensors.
John

mattylad said:

Why would changing the wheel make a vehicle more desirable for theft?
Surely if you take a alloy wheel off and put another on with a different tyre then it's no different to simply putting on a spare wheel (not one of those thin things)?

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What I meant Matty was changing the original steels and replacing them with alloys.....just another loophole for the insurers to exploit.
Mind you, the car toe rags seem to go for higher end stuff these days.
John

Burnerman said:

If its not exactly the same, the ABS system can be upset on many new vehicles though, likewise some (VW) tyre pressure sensors.
John

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John

I can't see how that could occur as long as the tyres are identical. The only ABS system that I know relies on a multi-pole ( 60 last time I saw a drawing ) magnetic-disc mounted on the hub and a secondary static sensor counting North/South etc as the wheel rotates. Equal ( but wrong-sized )tyres wouldn't affect that, although they would falsify the speedo' reading.

Glad I put the Nokians on last week as we've had about 20 cm of fresh snow over the week-end and that makes the road impassable on summer-tyres. Winter until late March now !

As long as you keep the tyre spec as per your car manual, the insurance cannot object and you won't need to notify them.
Instead, if you fit low tyres of different spec, even if they make the car safer, they will be deemed to invalidate the insurance.
As always, it's all well and good until an idiot hits you and writes your car off.
Then the insurance will try to find any excuse to avoid paying and having non standard tyres is one of them.
In fact you shouldn't even pass the mot with non standard tyres, hence shouldn't be on the road.
Not my view, but those are the rules and we must obey them if we want to avoid trouble.

insurance co's take an interest in modifications, including non-standard wheels, because they are sometimes fitted by laddish racers to make the car look more sporty. Like loud exhausts and colourful logos, some consider this a sign of a driver who is less sedate and cautious than usual.

JohnD said:

Like loud exhausts

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An appropriate time to ask and something I wonder about, what's the point of them?

My car can fart louder than yours perhaps? (apologies to those of a delicate disposition)

Actually, they're just damned annoying!

Youth is wasted on the young, Mr. Spanner.....
Boy racer ideas, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.....Generally they take a perfectly good car, modify it and reduce its value to zero.
They know best!
John

mointainwalker said:

John

I can't see how that could occur as long as the tyres are identical. The only ABS system that I know relies on a multi-pole ( 60 last time I saw a drawing ) magnetic-disc mounted on the hub and a secondary static sensor counting North/South etc as the wheel rotates. Equal ( but wrong-sized )tyres wouldn't affect that, although they would falsify the speedo' reading.

Glad I put the Nokians on last week as we've had about 20 cm of fresh snow over the week-end and that makes the road impassable on summer-tyres. Winter until late March now !

Click to expand...

If the tyre outside diameters are the same, there’s no problem at all, but if there’s just a fraction of difference in diameter in even the front and rear wheels, on comes the ABS lamp.
Stay safe in the snow and ice!
John