I've had these on for a couple of months and perhaps three thousand miles now, on all four corners.

It's been, um, interesting.

On snow, slush, or ice - fantastic. Though obviously I'm not throwing it around, they inspire great confidence. Grip is significantly better than standard Proxies; braking is also effective. I can't give any figures, but in eight hundred miles driving to Berlin I neither skidded, slipped, or failed to go when required except on one occasion: I parked the car in slush and overnight it snowed and then froze to -19C - the wheels were frozen into a solid block of ice and it was going nowhere; took me half an hour digging and additional salt to get out of there.

In the cold but dry, it's another story... driving from London to Skye, it's apparent that there are issues. Again, the grip is very good, but it is impossible to turn smoothly. You can feel the tyres squirming under you as you turn; presumably the big blocks are flexing. When a turn is started, nothing happens, so you turn a bit more, then the front catches up and you overshoot. At the same time, the back has now decided to catch up too, so every corner is an interesting little wiggle fore and aft before anything happens. On zig-zag roads - normally great fun - it's vomit-inducing and never inspires confidence; every corner is an oversteer/correct wiggle. That said, it will go round the corners amazingly quickly... but it's so sensitive to throttle position and any changes in the road surface that it's impossible to do it confidently.

This review conducted to the strains of: Queen (Sheer Heart Attack); Robert Rodriquez (Mexico and Mariachis); Shakira (Oral Fixation #2); Norah Jones (Not Too Late); Patricia Vonne (Guitars and Castanets); and half a track of Johnny Cash (American IV - The Man Comes Around)

Interesting. Would you consider them (in the dry) better or worse than summer / all season tyres?

Definitely worse than summer tyres; far too twitchy to be fun. Could be better when the tread's down to 3mm or so... They do turn in more but that initial squiggle feels like the suspension bottom bushes have fallen out.

And that was with a car on base boost (I think I have a PRV fault).

I had a set of four Toyo Proxes PX4 last year and they suffered from the same issue - its called 'block hysteresis' which is just a fancy term for the tread blocks moving around under the contact patch

Its a truly horrible feeling and made me a good 20% slower everywhere, even in straight line (I could make the car veer to one side, just by the boost coming in )

In the end, I asked Toyo to replace them, (as they were advertised as a VHP [very high performance] tyre, which they clearly weren't). They swapped them for a brand new set of T1-Rs - very good service - highly impressed

Good review and good music choice. I haven't had skirming issues on my winter Uniroyals (MS Plus 66) in the dry, certainly no oversteer.

How did you go about that Nigel? Was that an easy process?

As a side issue, the trip up was 5-10% worse on economy than I would have expected, given the good conditions and lack up great hurry.

I contacted them - they said the PX4 was a medium-performance tyre, designed for lighweight, low-power hatchbacks. I pointed out that their website showed them to be the "new ultra-high performance tyre", and that I'd bought them on the strength of this. They agreed that I had bee misled by inaccurate advertising and they offered to replace them with my usual T1-R - no quibble, just great service. I really can't complain and I told them that their actions had ensured I would continue to be a Toyo customer for years to come.

Further update after driving the six hundred miles home; first two hundred on some of the finest roads in the country.

Ose - A863 - Sligachan - A87 - Kyle - A87 - Invergarry - A82 - Crianlarich - A85 - Lochearnhead - A84 - Stirling (one day we *have* to get a meet up there...)

Temperatures hovering around freezing; mostly the roads were dryish though some were damp and on the high passes - Glen Garry and Glen Coe/Rannoch Moor - there was both snow and ice on the road.

Again, on the ice - where I was obviously moving more slowly - there was good feel from the tyres, nothing to worry about in terms of grip or turn-in.

On the dry or damp roads, though, the issue continues. The tyres will start the turn and then suddenly turn in further; this drives the car into the corner. The point at which they suddenly decide to go where they're pointing is fairly random, and extremely sensitive to the road surface and throttle position.

All in all, a truly horrible experience on roads I usually enjoy hugely. I shall write to Toyo and see what they have to say - Nigel, do you have a contact?

I'll see what I can find...

Neil - you have PM

Ta.