In many part so Europe it is advised or in some countries, a legal requirement to have two sets of tyres for your car, winter tyres and summer tyres. Most people have two sets of wheels so they can swap the complete wheel over each season without having to bother swapping the tyres.

Winter tyres use a tread rubber compound with a high silica content, and a tread pattern that is specifically designed to retain flexibility in low temperatures making them ideal in the cold wintery ice and snow. They also give good breaking distance on snow and ice at temperatures below 7 degrees.

Winter tyres are not great for performance in the high temperatures and therefore you would need two sets, this can be costly and often it is hard to justify the additional cost unless you are going to be using the car quite a lot in bad weather.