Ben Rose

LOL, classic. She probably thought the fronts must be spinning as she had winter tyres on the rear :P

Yupp, Vredestein Wintrac xtreme 245/40 R18 97W XL with rim protection ridge, M+S marking Full speed and load rating needed for the car, standard size, no insurance notification required as they comply with vehicle manufacturer specification. It obviously helps that I started shopping around in August and made my purchase at the beginning of September whilst the sun was still shining. As I see it, £150/corner is about the price you pay for a standard (summer) tyre. Whilst the winter tyres are on, for 6mths of the year, the summer tyres are in storage and not being worn. End result is that my standard tyres last twice as long and so my tyre cost, per year, is exactly the same - plus I get a considerably safer drive in the winter. You're going to spend £600 every 20k miles anyway, it may as well be on the correct rubber for the job....4 of them ;)

I'm sure you'll be fine, it's not like you have a lot of snow to worry about in Scotland

£1200!!!! Give Lexus Sheffield a ring. They had a set of Vredestein winter tyres in last week, £170 a pop! Right, off to Surrey!!!!!!!! (with 4 winter tyres) Indeed. Paid under £600 for my set...fitted.

Never fully confirmed what the "sport" suspension setting does, on my car it certainly changes the throttle mapping and firms things up a little bit. This may well put more stress on the edge of the tyres if there is a lot of toe/camber. I know on the original IS200 the setup used to wear the rear tyres down to the canvas on the inside whilst the outside was still legal - the camber was done to improve the handling but created very uneven tyre wear.

As the other guy said, you undoubtedly invalidating your insurance by fitting just 2 winter tyres - I'd be surprised if anybody will even fit them for you. Take a look at this: Note the example is FWD, so the winter tyres are on both drive AND steering wheels. In your case, they'd just be on the drive wheels...so you'd have even less ability to steer. Leave your anger at the door, calm down, and think carefully about what you are doing. We're trying to tell you it's a mistake.

The car was brand new? Or they were replacement tyres on a new car? AFAIK Lexus have never supplied a new car on Pirelli tyres. The rubbish Yoko A10s are pretty much the standard for this model. Regarding the handling issues you guys report, perhaps the suspension set-up just doesn't suit you? Most car with low profile tyres are prone to tramlining, especially if the suspension geometry is setup with certain camber/tow settings. Are you seeing wear in any particular area of the tyre? Perhaps a trip to somewhere that specialises in 4-wheel alignment would help, like Micheldever Tyre near Winchester. They could probably give advise on your setup and suggest changes to remove the behaviour you don't like.

You'll be eating more than you words if you end up killing another road user or pedestrian. Take the sensible advice lad!

Don't then, but don't waste £240 on 2 winter tyres that will leave you even more likely to need to make an insurance claim. Consider other road users too. Spend the money or stay home in snow/ice.

You should never fit 2 winter tyres. All or nothing.

Keeping it in B will help but won't be perfect. Gentle application of the brake is the only way. If you can't stop sufficiently, you're going too fast. The hybrid is very smooth at slow speeds, use it to your advantage and drive within your own limits.

Just drove from home to my office, some 20miles, at -8C. Lots of up/down slopes (not going to say hills to a man from Sheffield) but managed to not flash the traction control at all. Not once. These winter tyres are truly awesome.

Why do you specifically need Kumho? Changing the specified load rating on a tyre, away from those in the handbook, is officially a modification and will need to be declared to your insurer. New tyres on the rear, every time. There is no debate here. You will not find any expert anywhere in the world who tells you otherwise. Speak to car companies, speak to tyre companies - all the same. There's even a video on-line that shows what happens when you fit winter tyres to just the front tyres on a front wheel drive car. It's completely undriveable. Economy and tread depths isn't a design thing...it's just simple mathematics. The circumference of a circle is proportional to the diameter (pi x d). If you reduce the tread by 1mm, that's 2mm of the diameter and over 6mm off the circumference. So, for every rotation of the wheel, the car will travel over 2inches less. This adds up quite significantly, maybe 3%.

Feedback on noise is always interesting. Compared to the stock Toyos, I've really not found any noise different on my 450h. What tyres did you have fitted before? I gather Dunlops are quite quiet.

The seat belt tags only indicate the year of manufacture, not the year it was first registered - 2 very different things. For example, my own cars is a 2009, 59 plate, registered in September 2009. Warranty started on that day, so is covered until September 2012. But, it was actually manufactured in 2007. Due to the data protection act, you're unlikely to find much info related to the car but contact the DVLA directly may help and a company like HPI may be able to give you some additional history of the vehicle. What make/model of tyres are fitted? What digits are on the tyre wall? Cars can sometimes be ages that way.

How does it feel just having the different, softer, rubber on? Felt like a different car for me.

Lots of things could be at play here. The tracking could be out. The wheels could be balanced wrongly or the stick on weights have become detached. Somebody could have bounced a wheel off a kerb by accident causing a weakness in the tyre wall. If something doesn't feel right, it should be checked out. If the tyres are bad, they should be replaced - even if the tread is good - and the newest put on the rear.

Indeed. I'm reliably informed that a Winter tyre will wear less in Summer than a Summer tyre will in Winter.

New tyres should always go on the rear. If the remaining fronts aren't up to the task, they should also be replaced. Simples.

For safety, you should always put the best tyres on the rear - this applied to all FWD, RWD or AWD cars. Putting worn tyres on the rear won't help your economy at all. Having a lower circumference, they'll actually likely reduce your economy. The Yoko Advan A10E is one of THE worst tyres I have ever known.

Trying to pay by card, just the same as I did. He's a dentist, drives a 2010 Porsche 911 C2S - not exactly like he's hard up.

As far as I can tell, the mytyres site has very cunning cookie tracking and the price goes up a little each time you refresh the page...forcing a panic buy. If you look from a completely different machine, you'll likely start again at a lower price. Agree that Delti are huge but it all just seemed very odd that they wouldn't ship without a bank transfer. I even contacted them on his behalf, giving them my order reference number to try and prove he was a trusted person, but they still wouldn't ship without cash in advance.

You won't regret buying those wintrac extremes for the colder months. This is my 3rd GS (55 GS430, 06 GS430 now 59 GS450h) and I've never felt one drive so good in the wet/cold - the extra confidence they give you is amazing. Glad your car is sorted. It's all about the service with Lexus, they don't charge for so much stuff where others would. They only charge for the amount of screenwash they can get in the tank, not a whole bottle. They replace key batteries FOC etc.

A lead acid battery can lose something like 30% of its capacity in sub zero temperatures. Winter tyres are going to be hard to find now, as others have said, I ordered mine in September and they've gone up £50 a corner since then. I used mytyres but they've since arsed my brother around and wanted cash in advance so he cancelled the order. I can't recommend them as a result as it makes me wonder if they have cashflow problems.

Winter tyres make a vast difference, read my link in the other thread about driving on snow. They're even better than the stock Yoko's when it's warm and raining. I got my 4 tyres in the GS-450h! (back seat)