Winter tyres

My apologies for that I haven’t written in a long time. School and my free time have kept me busy for the last few days, but now I have chance to write again. I cleaned Laguna’s air-conditioning. Before that it was completely stuck, but now it works properly.  But there is still one more thing in Laguna that I haven’t been able to adapt, although I’ve been driving it for almost six months: the seats. The car is very old as you know, so it has no fine gadgets to improve the driving posture like in the newer cars. Sure you can adjust the angle for your back, but you can’t adjust the height of the seat or the steering wheel. And sometimes I feel that you can’t adjust them right even in the newer cars. That’s the punishment for being a bigger than an average Joe, whose demands are more interesting for car companies.

It has been estimated that first snowflakes will come down in 34 days. Although a month is a long time, I already have a set of Nokian Hakkapeliitta 7 tyres in ourstorage. I haven’t yet driven in winter, because I just had my driver’s license in May, but my parents have always admired Nokian Tyres. And why not, for Nokian Tyres makes tyres specifically for northern conditions and specializes itself to this. Nokian Tyres is one the most secure trademarks for northern roads.

School is going fine. For a little while I can study without too much problem, but soon will be the time to start reading to the matriculation examination, especially to history. But there’s no hurry yet. When I start to read little by little, I’ll eventually learn and if I start to study earlier, I’ll have chance to fix Laguna more.

Aquaplaning and proper tyres

The school has been going on for two weeks now. Timetable isn’t bad at all, although I have couple of free periods. Even after my homework I’ve still has some time to improve the Laguna. My goal has been to clean the air-condition system and I’ve managed to do so. When you are driving your car in the summer, it doesn’t matter whether you got air-condition or not, because you could just open windows. But now I have to keep windows close, otherwise I could catch cold.

There have been few downpours this week some of the lanes on the roads in downtown had to be closed. Although no tyre could drive through flooded roads, except monster trucks, the weather has shown that these days have required proper tyres. Unfortunately I saw a car not too long ago that made fierce lane switch on a rainy day. I believe that car was in aquaplaning when it was trying to do lane switch, but didn’t switch the lanes in calm manner like it should’ve been done. Luckily nothing serious happened, but if I were him/her, I’d switch my tyres straight away. Nokian H is a very firm choice for couple of months, before the winter season comes.

The school has been going well and I’ve managed to grasp a hold of it even after summer. I’ve seen many friends and familiar faces and so on. But in general there is much less time. If I could tune my car even more I would, but one must have priorities. My weekends are reserved for taking it easy. In that time I rather not concentrate on my car.

Hakkapeliitta 7 for the winter

Schools are open once again. The first day wasn’t any special and the lesson begin tomorrow, but this will be my last year in the upper secondary school and I have to leave my car hobby aside and I have to make some room for my studies.

I met my friends in the school today and they gave compliments on my Laguna and I’m proud because I’ve done so much for it for the whole summer. I waxed my car’s surface and I vacuumed the floors and interiors of my car this week. But now that the school has come to the mix, the Laguna has to put aside for a while.

When the winter semester starts I could check my car again. Somewhere in November I could change my tyres to winter tyres if the weather is starting to get snowy.  I’ve of course chosen my set of tyres beforehand: Nokian Hakkapeliitta 7 tyres. It is an excellent stud tyre that is comfortable and safe to drive with. My own parents have used Nokian tyres for many winter and they recommended Nokian tyres for me too. I understand why Nokian tyres is such a good tyre choice. Hakkapeliitta 7 tyres are made for Finnish and Nordic winter. They are specifically tailored for these road conditions what we have in Finland.

So the tyres are OK for the winter. Later I must check other things such as air condition for the winter. And if I could get a heater on the car, it’d be much easier to get on the road in the morning.

The school begins for real tomorrow, so I’ve still got couple of hours to enjoy my holidays before I begin my studies.

Rolling resistance on tyres

I’ve concentrated on Renault Laguna again and I’ve managed to fix the rusty parts by covering them with pieces of metal. Now I just need to paint over these pieces and it’ll look just fine. My next project is to see what I can do with the mirrors. I myself would like if the inside mirror were a bit wider. Outer mirrors are OK excluding minor scratches. I could look into those on this upcoming week.

I’ve driven very much with my car this summer. I’ve driven more for fun, but I’ve driven also to go to work and stuff like that. For my amazement the gas consumption has been very low and the gasoline purchases have been much less than I would’ve imagined before summer. I’ve driven a lot in the countryside and only a little in the city. That can explain a lot of the low consumption, but the tyres have had also effect on it. With other tyres I might’ve paid much more for gasoline. My guess is 200 € and that’s a lot of money. For this I’ve have to thank the R&D behind the Nokian Hakka H tyres and other tyres and especially for their rolling resistance development. By decreasing the rolling resistance the car can move further with less effort. Also by decreasing the rolling resistance the car will need much less gasoline to move the cars tyres. So with these facts on my side I can surely say that I’ve saved quite a penny here.

But soon I have to change back to city driving for the schools start once again. With proper driving one can still save quite a bit of money but there will still be sudden stops and traffic lights which will consume gasoline more. One option is a bus drive and I’m quite lucky that I can get to my school with only one bus. But when I drive my own car I don’t need to care about the bus timetables and I can my plan my mornings the way I want. Now what I need to do is to customize my car into shape that I can drive with it to school parking lot and then it’ll be all ok.

Tyre noise levels

I haven’t concentrated on Laguna for a some time now, but I’ve driven with Alfa Romeo this week. It is definitely a great car, and it’s very comfortable to drive with. Laguna is in a good condition, but it’s quite obvious which car is works better in this family. Driving with Alfa Romeo is smooth, quiet and relaxing. This brings a feeling of safety much better than the old car and it’s much more comfortable for other people as well, when your car and tyres doesn’t make so much noise.

You can reduce the noise level with right tyres. When you are inside a car, you may not hear the sound generated by the tyres when there is air condition and other features on, but some tyres can be heard further away than other tyres. Of course the motor and the surface of the road has an effect on the noise too, but the Nokian Tyres strives to reduce the noise level with tyres and comparing to the old tyres you can hear the difference between these tyres. For me a low noise level in car’s gives a certain safety, for in general you can recognize the problems in a car by feeling them or hearing them first. If there’s some strange noise from your car, your driving becomes stressing and car must be checked properly so that there’s no problems.

Nokian H tyres have worked absolutely fantastic for me. When you’re driving with them, you can feel safe and you can drive smoothly. They’ve also worked wonders on rainy days. You can handle gravel roads greatly although there are selections for those situations as well.  Nokian H tyres fit very well for my driving style and I shall continue on driving with Nokian Tyres.

Nokian Winter Tyres

I’ve painted on scratches on our Renault Laguna and although the amount of work that I’ve done isn’t much the results are very commendable. There are still some rusty spots, which I need to take care of but I don’t how I’ll take care of them. Luckily these rust spots aren’t vital but still they aren’t pretty at all. For now I will continue on renovating and cleaning up the interiors.

The summer has gone incredibly fast I must say. It’s almost the end of July and autumn is coming soon. The change in the seasons is clear for everyone for sure, but I’m looking for autumn and winter for they bring different kinds of driving conditions. The starting of the car and other winter maintenance can be stressing, but I myself like to drive in winter conditions. Snowy and icy conditions bring challenge that I experienced while I was in driving school. These challenges are of course a risk, which need to be taken seriously. That’s why I want to keep my car, myself and my tyres in top condition and with Nokian Hakkapeliitta 7 tyres I can drive even more safely in winter conditions. The tyres are test winners in Finnish magazines: Tekniikan Maailma and Tuulilasi. They might be the World’s best tyres out there for winter conditions.

Although the challenges that winter conditions provide intrigue me I still hold to my word that the safety is the biggest factor in the traffic. I want that everyone can be safe on the road, and best way for me to make it more safer is that I do my part as best as I can. When I keep myself and my car in good driving condition and I get tyres that are the safest as possible, I can give other people my best to be as safe as I can for me and for others. Traffic is teamwork and I try to keep it safer all the time.

Team Hakka

I haven’t done anything special to the Renault Laguna. I’ve cleaned up the interior, and bought some accessories, but I haven’t done much more to it. The paintjob I spoke of would be too big of a project for this car, especially when this car won’t last much longer. Maybe I could fix some smaller flaws myself, for the looks are still a very important for a car, even for an old car.

I read more about the Hakkapedia and there was something that I left out since I last read about it: Team Hakka. You could say that Team Hakka is the rapid reaction force for the roads. As you know, they list all the dangers of the roads on the map, but they also send the road safety experts to fix the dangerous situations. This is really admirable action from Nokian Tyres and Team Hakka. Of course, a great help comes from the community, since they can send the information about the danger on the road to the Hakkapedia, and there is no denying the helpfulness of the community in this matter. Information is a very valuable resource. I don’t know about the result or the swiftness of the Team Hakka’s actions, and especially in winter these road safety experts could have trouble with not being in many places simultaneously, but the idea already is wonderful. I for one will inform all the possible danger on the road, especially if the next winter will be as snowy as the previous ones.

Nokian Tyres can still convince me over and over again with its tyres and with its actions. My parents too have admired the combination of Alfa Romeo and Nokian H tyres when they came back from the trip to mid Europe. I must try other tyres sometime, because otherwise my scope on tyres will be very narrow. But the Nokian H tyres are just so good.

Tyres and the environment

The tyres look really good now that I’ve installed the new rims on them. On the other hand the car looks a bit silly, because the car itself is old, but the tyres are brand new. Maybe a new paintjob would do the trick, so that the whole would look good. I know that the paintjob requires professional skill and right equipment, because the car paint is harmful. My friend has a place, where you can do paintjobs, but there will be a quite a cost. We’ll see how I will manage with this paintjob.

I’ve been able to be at my own peace this week, for my parents have head off to middle Europe with a car. They have really became fond of the Alfa Romeo, and they wanted to spend a vacation in middle Europe. I would have liked spend a vacation too, but I’ve got stuff to do in here.

Thing that amuses me is that it’s cheaper to travel by car rather than with airplane, travelling by bus or travelling by train, at least in Finland. And it’s also much more environmentally friendly to travel by car than with airplane.

Usually the carbon dioxide emission is the indicator for environment friendliness, but the tyres have also a great impact on the environment. The Nokian H tyres that we use have decreased the gas consumption of our family. That already is a big plus for environment and it’s all thanks to tyres. With the right tyre choice you can also affect on the condition of the road especially in winter. Tyre manufacturer also has a great impact on the environment, because various manufacturers use different materials in the tyre making process.

For me this is a great deal. I want to have feeling of freedom when I drive my car, and that feeling that I’m doing my best for the environment with the proper car and tyre choices is included to this feeling of freedom. And as I already mentioned, I’m really pleased to the decrease on the gas consumption. If it is possible to save 1 litre of gas every 100 kilometres, I believe the tyre choice has been right.

Hakka-Club services

Tyre purchases have gone well and we have already changed the tyres on our Alfa Romeo. The tyres are much better than the last ones. Braking is much more efficient and drivability is much safer and comfortable. On top of that we got our renovated Renault Laguna back. The car is now in drivable condition, which is all good for me. Maybe, I could start planning to make trips with this car, but not until I’ve made some tuning first.

With Nokian Hakka H tyres you will be given a Hakka Turva –guarantee service, which guarantees a new tyre, if new appropriately used tyre gets damaged beyond repair. I think this a really good and proper guarantee, for although the tyre is from a quality manufacturer, there might still be single flaws, that you can do nothing about. For this I thank Nokian Tyres.  You can see that this is a real customer friendly company.

Before you could get Hakka Turva –guarantee, you had to register to Hakka-Club service. Hakka-Club is Nokian Tyres’ client and user register for internet services. With it Nokian Tyres’ manages customerships. In addition to Hakka-Turva, Hakka-Club has a special service that I also like a lot: Hakkapedia. With Hakkapedia –service you can see in advance the dangers, gas stations, roadworks, surveillance cameras etc. This is also a fine tool for car drivers, and I believe that, when this service gets bigger audience, it will save time and casualties for most of us.

Now that I’ve gotten the Laguna back it’s time to start the tuning, starting with the tyres. My friend has supplied me with chromy rims. With them I can improve the looks the tyres. Of course, the rims aren’t chrome, but chromy because it would be too expensive, but the rims look good and it’s the thought that matters.

To the tyre shop

Midsummer Day’s week has passed, and I have to say that the week has been great. I’ve had the chance to relax, go to sauna and spend time with my parents. We arrived home today and I got a chance to drive our new Alfa Romeo all the way back home, I must say that the car is very good for driving long distances. But just like previous owner of the car said, it consumes more than average amount of gasoline.

But in the following week we have few things we have to take care of. We get our Renault Laguna back, and we shall buy new Nokian H tyres to our Alfa Romeo. We really need the new tyres, because on the Midsummer Day’s week, when we visited local shop when it was raining, our current tyres proved to be in really poor condition. It was really risky to drive, when there was really low grip on a new asphalt road let alone in gravel road. Best choice for tyres, as I’ve mentioned many times, are the Nokian H tyres.

We also get our overhauled Renault Laguna back, and now the exhaust pipes and brakes should work properly. Still, I must aim to drive much more smoothly with Laguna for the car is old. Slower brakings and better car handling should do the trick, so that the car could last longer. I presume that with these measures I can still drive this car few years before it goes to the scrap yard.

So, very soon we will buy new tyres, and if only Nokian Tyres has any winter tyres in store, we could buy Nokian Hakkapeliitta 7 winter tyres also. We know that it’s the best winter tyre in the terms of safety for passenger cars. On the other hand we could wait for a newer winter tyre model, if there will be one. I strongly believe there will be one, because even though Hakkapeliita 7 is the best winter tyre there propably is, there can always be a safer tyre in development, and safety is the most important thing in driving.