My regular winter tip - if your vehicle has adaptive traction controls then sort out what to set when you hit snow and again when you're back on tarmac. On some vehicles it's much less obvious than others.
On my BMW, when I move on to snow (or sand, gravel etc.) I have to press a curiously-labelled 'car-with-wriggly-lines' button for a couple of seconds, then 'TRACTION' displays on the dash, and when I get back onto tarmac, I press it again and the TRACTION sign goes off. The BMW Owners Manual takes about 200 words to explain this and uses a bunch of acronyms as well that totally confuse the reader and make the whole thing ambiguous. It also doesn't make it clear whether you can do all this on the move (you can) or need to be stationary, nor whether you still do this once you have fitted your chains (you must). It also tells you not to press the button for to long (what's 'too long'?) or the car goes into some sort of Superpower Transformers mode. Basically, if the button just had a snowflake icon on it the whole thing would be intuitive.
So worth checking ahead of time and giving it a go if you haven't tried it before, just so you're ready.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Mr.Egg wrote:
xanderajma wrote:
On chains, I've got to get some of the fancy ones so not to ruin the tyres and hubs apparently £200 and up, ebay here I come.
I bet you could find 2nd hand winter tyres with rims for £200 & the get cheap £20 chains to ruin the tyres & hubs with
Sadly (or not so sadly) our high profile tyres that came with the R Design we have (need the 360 parking cameras for the OH) so have v high profile rims. they are £350 each per tyre (had to replace 2 on first service due to 1 nail and one screw!?! ) and I think rims are like £5k so not something to mess with IMO. they are 275/45 20 s so big old beasts.
But I have started looking, and it seems like it's like £250 second hand or north of £300, but I've put my tyre man onto it!
The upside to fancy new chains, having watched a video they look super easy to fit!
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
@xanderajma We have the Spike Spider Easy for our performance convertible. I wish I'd got some of these £300 ones sooner, because they would have been adjustable to fit the last three cars we've owned from Audi, Jaguar and BMW - I wouldn't now have three different sets of cheap chains in the garage. And as you say, they fit on very quickly.
If you are looking at the Spike Spiders, be aware that they will probably need the links adjusting to fit your specific wheel: they come set up for the smallest wheel in the fitment range and you have to spend 20 minutes or so per chainset re-setting the links if the wheel is bigger. This is much easier if you have a spare handy and can lay the spare flat on the ground. The manual doesn't really get the point across that pre-fitting (before you need them in earnest) is more a necessity than just desirable.
But as mentioned by others, a completely separate set of winter wheels and tyres may work out to be a simpler option, allowing you to use the right spec' of tyre for snow and cheaper chains. Obviously dependent on your having the space to store the unused set, as we do:
For our car, the manufacturer recommends a narrower and smaller (225mm x 17") winter wheel+tyre compared to the summers (245mm x 18"). So I just went to an independent who got me a cheap set of winter alloys and the corresponding winter tyres. Somewhat annoyingly in some ways (but good in others) I've never actually had to fit the chains since I got winter tyres. The trouble with chains with summer tyres is when you hit 'transitional' conditions like these:
A bit further on, it went back to tarmac, and then transitioned back to packed snow and so on ... You might not be able to pull off to fit them before you run into trouble. And then you may find yourself repeatedly stopping to switch them off then on.
Last edited by You need to Login to know who's really who. on Tue 8-12-20 22:47; edited 10 times in total
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
If you have a garage get 17” cheap wheels with full blown winter tyres for the journey
Depends on the brake disc diameter and offset but you can fit smaller steel wheels and have higher profile winter tyres. I have gone from 20" summer alloys to 17" winter steel wheels. I got 5 plus 5 tyres for around £650 and keep one under the boot floor all year round as the car only came with a gunge kit and pump originally. The ride is much better on the winter tyres too.
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Quote:
they come set up for the smallest wheel in the fitment range and you have to spend 20 minutes or so per chainset re-setting the links if the wheel is bigger.
A friend who bought these for his Volvo in Albertville watched the guy who sold them to him making this adjustment. My friend is competent enough but said it took a long time, and would have taken him a lot longer - the salesman did several each week and was pretty slick. They were then quite easy to put on, apparently but one got lost somewhere on a very snowy and windy road (so perhaps hadn't been put on right)- we retraced his steps several times but the snowplough had been past at least once and it was never seen again.
If you have a particularly tricky set up you might have no choice, but for cars with decent clearance there's nothing very difficult about putting on the normal sort of cheap chains. Getting them off can be harder! A small spade (a child's beach spade is fine) for clearing the ground behind the wheel can be useful.
After all it is free
After all it is free
@pam_w Well, I'm no chain ninja - this (20 min) is what it took me each chain set, albeit using the spare wheel on the ground, which makes it all much easier. I have fitted chains to a hire car in the same location (in the underground garage prior to driving out) and that put me off 'budget' chains big time. And then we had to stop after 100m or so and re-tension the budgets again. The trouble for most of us is that we never get much chance to work with any sort: I've noticed that locals are just as loath to put them on as visitors, and will often leave it a bit late (e.g. when they're stuck on some churned-up access road), but seem to fit them (understandably) a lot quicker.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
Yes, stopping to re-tension is a pain, I agree. I was really reinforcing the point that you need to adjust the expensive spike things to fit your wheels well in advance of actually needing to use them. I didn't have the cheapest, basic chains - a slightly more up-market version and stronger version which was supposedly self-tensioning (but wasn't, quite..... if only because there's inevitably a big part of the circumference of the tyre that you can't deal with when it's on the ground, especially if there's a certain amount of frozen slush around). I suppose I looked at the price of the very expensive efforts similarly to paying a fortune for Flexiplus on the tunnel - too costly for the time saved. I didn't enjoy deploying chains - it's a messy, cold job but I confess to always feeling a certain excitement about it - it did, after all, mean there was a lot of snow about! And there's a satisfaction to being able to do it quickly and without fuss.
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Top tip for driving if a bit tired - apart from stopping and having a kip, of course, is to pull over, get out of the car and literally run around the car 3 times. By the time you're done with that you will be wideawake.
Plus seeing the reaction on your kids' faces is priceless.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
Yep, the driver of the refrigerated truck is texting...
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
Timc wrote:
@johnE wrote:
Quote:
Lots of arguments here about the tag, the only people I have seen arguing against having them appear to not have them themselves and those of us who do will never want to go back to being without.
I have also noticed that the people advocating them have paid out for them. Strange that.
and continue to pay
Big advantage as far as I am concerned, I don't have to wake my wife at the barrier, even bigger advantage, she doesn't have to wake me.
You pay for the tag only for the month you use it...
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
Thanks for the advice everyone, some really useful gems there.
Plenty of time to prepare now as pretty sure we wont be going this year!
FAQ
Poster: A snowHead
£200 and up, ebay here I come.
