Continental CrossContact Winter Tyres

Anyone got any experience of these as winter tyres? Thinking of getting a set on a 'spare' set of alloys, just wanted to get some views on their performance before I do.

I purchased 19" Pirelli Ice and snow tyres which were a bit less expensive than the Contis and I had previous good experiences of driving my RRS's on the Pirellis in deep snow and also one very wet summer when I had to run on them after shredding 2 x near side 20" Contis the day before I was doing a 1200 mile trip in the car. Over on the Disco3 and RRS forums there are loads of tyre posts and the Vredestein (??) winter tyres get thumbs up too. There are aso plenty of posts here about winter tyres. Most folks seem to find that with the Terrain Response set in Grass, Gravel and Snow setting they don't really need winter tyres in the UK.

Thanks. As mine is just a lowly eD4, I don't have Terain Response, but worth knowing. I will do a bit more research.

If you have a Pure with 18 inch wheels and the Pirelli Verde M+S tyres I don't think you need to go for specific winter tyres. As wheel size increases and the tyres become much lower profile and more 'sports' orientated then it is worth looking for something specific for winter. On my Golf Gti I switch from an 18 inch low profile tyre to Continental 17 inch winter tyres and they have proved to be excellent. On our previous LR, a Freelander, we used Vredestein winter tyres to excellent effect including driving through France/Switzerland with up to 10 inches of new snowfall.
Tim

I have 20" wheels at present, but looking to buy a 2nd hand set of 18 or 19 wheels and fit winter tyres on them, ready for, well the winter!
I will continue with the research on the best tyre, whilst trying to secure a reasonably priced set of wheels.
Thanks.

These seem quite good value...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Genuine-18-Ran...1038705362

18's though, but would be OK for winter use. I have Pirelli Scorpion Verde's but also have a set of winter snow tyres as I'm not convinced M&S tyres are as good as the ones with the snowflake symbol on.

Trapdoor, you will find the GGS setting of the TR almost makes winter tyres redundant. I ran my last RRS north from Southampton to Stirling on the day Basingstoke got cut off from the rest of the UK, car was on 20" summer tyres and I drove through up to 1o" of snow on the M74 using the Snow setting of Terrain Response, once moving the car just accelerated and accelerated as grip permitted and the electronics was intervened - I was most impressed, seeing as I got up to some quite startling speeds and was in convoy with a load of other modern Land and Range Rovers, Freelanders through to FFRRs all doing the same thing, some overtaking me at well over 50 mph! Felt really smug passing Audis and BMW's spinning their power away and then I pulled into Stirling Services and a guy in a Focus pulled up behind me............ He commented that it wasn't a nice night for driving and I said that I had driven all the way from Southampton in similar conditions, he responded that he knew, he had followed me all the way from Winchester! It was the first winter he had used winter tyres on his FWD car and was converted!

Thing is though, as experience has shown me, it's not the 'getting going' that's the issue, it's the stopping but more importantly the 'stopping whilst avoiding'. It was quite interesting a couple of years ago - mate had an X3 manual so claimed he had more control over his car in the snow than my auto, but he refused to run with winters on. He got stuck in his 4x4, I drove as though there was nothing on the ground.

But of more significance to me is that I managed to avoid several to$$ers, one in a FL2 who came skating towards me with her wheels locked, steering hard over and a terrified look in her eyes. If I'd had my all weather tyres on, I'd have probably been in the same position, wheel locked and heading for a huge crunch, but I could steer, stop and avoid.

The Evoque electronics are good, but they cannot completely replace the friction/grip pairing between the tyre and whatever you are travelling on.

When I ordered my car, I was very concerned about what tyres would be supplied ex-facxtory. Dealer nor JLRCS could tell me. So I made up my mind to get a set of wheels and tyres regardless. As it happens, the car was supplied with the Scorpion Verde M&S tyres, but if you look at the Pirelli site, these are not really considered to be winter tyres and have a much poorer ice and snow rating than the Pirelli Winter Snow tyres.

It's a bit of a pfaff swapping wheels, but it also means that I have a spare set if I need to get a refurb done, and my 'nice' wheels will also be better protected as they will be nice and warm and safe when the roads are covered in salty, slippy stuff - and several inches of snow can quite easily hide a kerb.

I'm smug in the knowledge that I'll be getting about in pretty much whatever the almighty chucks at us this year - my mate with his FL2 (he bought it after I got my Evoque) will be struggling on his summer tyres... and as for the bloke next door with his Merc hearse

My car is shod with these Continentals.

No trouble driving with them in last winters snow.

Knowing the car is so capable a bigger problem is other drivers in less capable cars, totally unpredictable.