For the last few years, I've been using the Lotus Advan Neova AD06's on my Roadster, and have been generally very happy with the wet and dry handling.
I did note that on winter mornings, there was quite a lot less grip available
- especially noticeable as oversteer with little feedback at low speeds and small throttle inputs pulling out from T-Junctions, and mild understeer on slow tight roundabouts. I'd put this down to the salt on the roads
- before I found out that the root cause is 'Summer' Performance tyres harden notably below 7C ( ie November to March in the UK ) - the result being less grip as the temperatures drop and hover around freezing.That caused me to take another look at tyres and options for the Roadster.
Although I don't drive the '2 in snow in general, I do believe in having the best tyres available for the conditions.There's a lot of advice online around winter tyres, but it is mostly aimed at more extreme climates than the UK
( eg North America ) where temperatures are lower with snow on the ground for long periods, unlike the UK.The best, balanced write up of the pros and cons I found was from a Lotus website, along with some interesting stats on braking differences at different temperatures
:http://www.thelotusforums.com/latest-ne ... -analysis/
With input from Lotus Engineers:
http://www.thelotusforums.com/latest-ne ... ter-tyres/
For my own use, I didn't want a full on winter tyre
- but instead an All-Season tyre which is a compromise between the two types - adapted for low temperatures and for water, ice and snow but OK on dry roads which would be used more in the conditions I would be using the tyre in.Autoexpress ran a tyre test, and this tyre which is available in early Mk3 alloy sizes did well
: http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/tyre-guide ... -quatrac-3
So, having picked up a set of early Mk3 alloys needing a refurb for
£80 from eBay, a full set of tyres from Elite were £310 - not far off your typical insurance excess of £250.
In the above, you can see the difference in tread pattern between the smaller blocks of the Quatrac3 on the left and the large blocks of the Nevoas on the right.
And many more fine
'spies' to provide biting edges in snow and ice, with wide channels for water and slush.My impressions, a month on and after some icy and snowy mornings is that they are a noticeable improvement on the Neovas in the cold.
Ice and Snow grip is astounding - trying them out I could drive on those surfaces and expect nearly as much grip as wet tarmac. There isn't any additional road noise and fuel economy seems about the same. Dry handling is also good, with nice progression to the grip.The only Cons I have are that the 185/55 profile gives me much lighter steering than the stiff sidewalls of the 195/50's on the Nevoas, but you do get used to this.
The only other surprise I've had is that the Quatrac's on concrete road surfaces that have been re-keyed / scored in the direction of travel are very keen to follow the new keying on the surface - near me, there is some 'wave' in the keying on a dual carriageway which results in some pull on the steering.I'll be refitting the Neovas early next year but so far am very pleased with the Quatracs.