Another thing... My summer hankooks and rated B for wet grip yet the winter tyres I'm thinking of buying are rated C. According to the scale that means my summer tyres stop better in the wet than the winter tyres!?
Im baffled.
Vredestain wintrac's are even worse at wet grip rating E.
All from Camskills website.
summer tyres will stop better on the wet if they are a good brand, reason for this is they are designed for over 7 degrees and when above that temperature the rubber compound adheres to the road the way they where designed to, so they will out perform winter tyres every time.
another reason is the tread pattern, summer tyres have better water dispersal grooves apposed to winters, winter tyres are not designed for speed and not designed for maximum water dispersal with more thought put into grip in the snow.
I run winter tyres all year round on my wifes car, Michelins, they are as good as summers nearly but they produce more road feedback noise until you reach 80mph.
all you need to remember is winters are soft, smaller chunks of rubber so they flex a lot better in cold conditions, summers have large rubber areas and stiffen up in cold conditions but come to life above 7 degrees.
when you are sliding about on icy roads with summer tyres it is because the rubber is very stiff and cannot grip.
whatever you do, do not buy cheap budget winter tyres, would be pointless, I am running Michelins on my wifes and have done for 3 years ( continuously that is ) and they are very very good on a 15 inch wheel.
on my mk5 I have just put on vredisteins and they seem just as good, they are 16 inch.
when a snow tyre gets below 4mm they are next to useless also so remember this,,, when they breach 4mm chuck them out ( you loose 50-60% of their grip then )
also remember that as you go up in tyre width the snow tyres become less effective, more rubber touching the road is a bad thing when it comes to snow tyres, so a 15 inch tyre will out perform a 18 inch tyre, this is the reason I have put 16s on instead of just buying 18s for my summer rims,,,,,,, the smaller the tyre width the the easier it is to CUT through the snow,,,,, instead of trying to flat pack grip it with a wide tyre.
all these points are factual
safe driving