Winter warner

It is recommended and sometimes obligatory to use winter tyres in Germany in "the winter", whatever that is. Since I go there 6 times a year I am not happy with the wheels supplied with the car. I have a spare wheel in my Skoda Superb, but it is not the same as the four alloy road wheels, a steel wheel, an inch smaller than the others and has an oversize tyre to bring it up to the same size as the road wheels. I would prefer to have a set of winter wheels, one of which could be the spare and vice versa when running on the winter tyres. This would, I hope enable me to continue my journey, after changing a wheel, without having to creep to the next garage (perhaps in the dark out of normal business hours). But, the Tyre merchants around here seem ignorant of such tyres. What do I do?

Asked on 27 March 2010 by I.C., Newton Abbot

Answered by Honest John
What you do is buy a separate set of four steel wheels (and separate tapered bolts for steel wheels), fit them with soft compound winter tyres and fit them to the car from November to March, then revert to the standard wheels and tyres March to November. Unfortunately, after the December/January snow, winter compound tyres were in very short supply
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