I think you're sensible to be researching and shopping now as prices tend to go up once the cold truly arrives...
I have some Michelin Primacy Alpin PA3 205/55 R16 91H in my folks' garage, waiting to go on again after they did absolutely brilliantly throughout last winter. I bought them ready-fitted to steel rims, replacing the original 225/45 R17 Pzeros which my FR came with as standard, for the winter. I was advised that it can be beneficial to go down one size narrower to
help with snow traction and I did this as I was buying wheels and tyres as a package, but you can get most good winter tyres in both sizes anyway. My new car - Leon Ecomotive - uses 205/55 R16 as standard so I'm just going to use the same wheels/tyres as I used with my FR.
Anyway, winter tyres are a fantastic piece of kit - I can't imagine driving in winter without them now, in fact. Never had to resort to chains on the way home last winter over some very hilly small roads, even with several inches of fresh show sitting on top of compacted snow. They aren't just good for snow, though. You feel a massive difference on all those cold wet mornings which are more common to our winters - when it's not below freezing but only 0-5°C - compared to summer tyres. Basically anything below 7°C, you'll see progressively better braking and traction performance in both wet and dry, with the difference from summer tyre performance getting more pronounced as the temps fall.
There are several categories of winter tyres but (in my opinion) you probably want something from the 'performance winter' category. These offer decent handling and braking on dry and wet roads and significantly better snow/ice performance over summer tyres.
Studded tyres aren't legal in this country and you wouldn't want to use them on bare roads anyway really as they can be noisy and poor handling, relatively speaking.
'Studless ice and snow' or 'Nordic' tyres offer even better deep snow and especially ice traction, but use very soft compounds so can feel squishy in corners, floaty at motorway speeds and wear very quickly on bare roads, especially in warmer winter temps. Unless you live up a mountain which has constant snow, or in Scandinavia etc, I would give these a miss.
Popular choices in the performance winter category seem to be Dunlop SP Winter Sport 3D, Continental ContiWinterContact TS830, Vredestein Wintrac Xtreme and Goodyear Ultra Grip 7+. I've also been reading great things about the less sporty, more snow-biased tyre from Vredestein - the Snowtrac 3.
I chose the Michelin Primacy Alpin PA3s based on a lot of reading around last winter. Essentially they're the compromise I was looking for: decent handling, quiet and comfortable winter driving in 'normal' conditions, and offer some very useful grip in snow too. What finally made my mind up over the Winter Sport 3Ds - my runner up choice - was the Michelins had both a better wear rate and a lower rolling resistance meaning lower mpg.
I just wish I'd discovered winter tyres earlier - both for the better cold+wet and cold+dry performance but mostly for those few days a year when you just have to drive on snow to get home or whatever.
I had a resort to chains (with summer tyres) to get home with my Golf TDI a couple of times in Winter 2008... and effective as they are on snow, you can't use chains on anything but fully-covered snowy roads and they can be a right faff to put on when there's a blizzard, it's dark and your hands are cold. Based on experience, I say bugger that for a laugh!
If you enjoy a bit of schadenfreude as I can do after a bad day at work, winter tyres give you a proper smug grin when you chug past abandoned 4x4s in the snow with low profile summer tyres on them.
Here's a test showing the Michelins in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkpvEpmBdIM
Here's an infomercial for the Primacy Alpin PA3 and Pilot Alpin PA3 (with Russian subtitles but the pictures make sense on their own
):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRY1YWXp7mY
There are loads of
reviews on the US site tirerack.com, and they have some good videos of tests: summer vs all-season vs winter tyres, etc. You'll find loads of user
reviews of the Michelins, Dunlops and Continentals on there too, but you won't find anything about Vredesteins on there as I think they're only available/popular in Europe at the moment.
Hope the above helps!
