Don’t forget tyres can work differently on a lotus because of the weight and alot of road tyres are designed to run on cars weighing 500kgs more.
And yep tyres are subjective try reading reviews on Toyo T1R’s to see what I mean.
Boothy
good point about the difference in performance due to weight boothy. Oh yeah i can see from the reviews, very subjective. cheers mate. Makes it harder to make a decision now though lol
[quote=Whiteysback]Yeah lets get this thread back on track…I’m leaning towards vredsteins as i have them on another car and are amazing in snow and rain whilst being ok in the dry. Struggling to get them in the right size tho.
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I’m just about to fit Winter tyres to a spare set of wheels and drop down a rim size (ooh er missus!) from 18 to 17 inch and fit Vrederstein Wintrac Extremes to my everyday car, Golf GTi Edition 30. Ive read fantastic reviews on these tyres. Not sure if they do a size that fits the Exige though?
The wintracs are amazing. I went past cars with chains on up in the alps last year they are that good. Also zero extra road noise and even after driving them year round and clocking nearly 20k relatively hard driving they still have enough life in them for this winters alps skiing trip.
I’ll have to eat my words… I was going to buy some wintrac extremes but they are on back order until the new year, prob into March! Which is kinda the time when summer Tyres will be going back on.
Bought some Pirelli Sottozero S2’s instead. There was b@gger all choice left!
I do use my Exige as an ‘everyday car’, even though I only go to work 2 days a week. The rest of the week, I would only really use the Exige for the more special trip.
I live on the Pennines at 1000 feet and it rains lots and lots, and snows, as shown on my avatar.
The car obviously came with 048s, which were great in the dry but made me nervous in the wet, and I did have some “interesting” experiences coming off one or two roundabouts.
I suspect 2 years ago there were not as many options as now, and not as much experience out there of different tyres, but I went for the Toyo T1R.
The T1R gives me much more confidence on wet roads than the 048 ever did.
I rarely do track days, but one at Castle Combe had me off the track, whether through my sheer incompetence, or whether the tyres really are not suitable for the track I wouldn’t like to comment.
I’ve just been through this process, and ended up with a set of T1Rs. I haven’t put many miles on them yet, but early impressions suggest much better grip in the wet, lighter steering (but that may be because they still have some release agent on them, or they’re not really bedded in yet), and a slightly softer, if squirmier ride.
I also invested in a set of Autosocks to help cope with snow. Does anybody here have experience with these? I hope they help.
We use T1R’s on our rental Exige for the winter, they are fine, cope with standing water well if required and are cheap enough to throw away when spring comes. R1R is good all round compromise but more expensive.
i’ve just re-fitted the sottozero/snowsport setup that i used last winter and was very happy with. it’s amusing to find yourself flashing at some guy in an SUV on a country road who’s in denial about AWD invincibility, to pull over so you can get by on 4 inches of snow. in all seriousness, i would recommend a proper winter tyre on something as light as an exige in wintertime - you need all the grip you can get.
i did invest in a set of conti sports for the summer this year and very good they were on the road and would probably be fine for most of the winter but since i have the proper stuff i may as well use it.
ao48’s are strictly for track use for me these days, i notice somewhat of an increase in consumption since that CN upgrade.
Is it safe to run exige in the snow even with the winter tyres??