Winter tyres for Finland?

[repo]

If You dock here in Helsinki, I have contacts to get You top service and deep discount for both, set of tyres and mounting them on, close to downtown.

Shoot me an email or gimme a call when You know the dates.

[Nj]

If You dock here in Helsinki, I have contacts to get You top service and deep discount for both, set of tyres and mounting them on, close to downtown.

Shoot me an email or gimme a call when You know the dates.

That's brilliant. I can't send you a message though as your inbox is full
cheers

[Mr.Crossfire]

Heh, well one car driving once through a country won't make any difference, studs or not. But here in Finland it is a problem because most of the drivers use studded tires.

[repo]

Ah, Ph00king IM box. Always full... Cleared.

[Nj]

Heh, well one car driving once through a country won't make any difference, studs or not. But here in Finland it is a problem because most of the drivers use studded tires.

Well I wouldn't like to be any different from the locals... erm.. apart from having my steering wheel on the wrong side of course

[Nj]

Ah, Ph00king IM box. Always full... Cleared.

cool. just sent a message. 16s are going to look really sad compared to my 18s but the 18s would appear to be too wide and the rubber too expensive

[Henkjan]

and, what did you end up with?

[Nj]

Well I was going to go for the Hakka 7s but my father in law has a business account with a local tyre place so I managed to drive across on summer tyres before it became cold and he got me an excellent deal on a set of Pirellis. They seem to be really good.. well.. I haven't had any "incidents" yet anyway

[Henkjan]

OK. My wife is in Ivalo now, and she reported that we need new wintertires on our 80q we have over there (studs are nearly gone). So I sent the recommendations from this thread to her (that's why I dug it out).

[Nj]

the guy at the tyre place told my dad in law that the top 3 just now are the Hakka 7s, Michelin X-ice and the Pirellis (I can't remember the name right now but can get it in the morning if you want and it's not too late?)
Is Ivalo REALLY far north? I would have thought you'd need a snowmobile up there instead of a car

[Henkjan]

Ivalo is fairly north click, but it's not the end of the country, that would be Nuorgam. yes some places are faster to get to by snowmobile then by car in the winter, due to that roads tend to go around a lake

getting the tires there seems a bit of a problem, in the size we need the only thing on stock was a set of nearly 3 year old Bridgestones but given the road conditions (lots of black ice) that's still better than the old ones... so just shelfed out 500 euros for a set of 195/55R15 next time better buy them before the winter....

[Nj]

aw man, that sucks. Still, like you say better that than the old ones. I've noticed the roads are pretty icey down here right now. driving on snow is quite nice but there seem to be a lot of cars going sideways round the town centre right now.

I've been up in Inari by the way but during the summer. Absolutely beautiful, although I'm not sure they'd have many jobs for an english speaking (non finnish speaking that is) monkey like me. I really like the idea of snowmobiling around the lakes although i'm sure it loses the novelty factor after a while. I drove up to Nordkapp once and couldn't help wondering how the hell anyone survives the winter up there.

[Henkjan]

there may be jobs in the tourist area, but most of them are probably temp jobs.

winters are dark, realy dark.. you think Kajaani is dark now? well at least the sun rises there... next sunrise in Inari is 2010.... in summer however there are many weeks where it doesn't set...

[Nj]

I think that might be a bit much for me mate. Bad enough here just now, as you say. But summer up North is just amazing.