Idiots without / who can't put on chains & think winter tyres will be ok

A snowHead

Even more confused than ever over the issue now! Great thread though Very Happy

Driving for the first time at Easter to Arc1950 and then to VT the following week in a current model XC90 T8 which has AWD. As has been mentioned, there's crap clearance between the arches and the tyres, not helped by the wheels being stupidly big. Not our choice, just the wheels that came with the off the shelf vehicle we went for. Anyway, by all accounts snowchains are a no-no due to the clearance or I'd have just gone for that.

I'm guessing its all season tyres are a bad idea, so it looks like we need to invest in a set of winters which I'm mostly okay with. Snow socks have been mentioned but again I'm not sure about the clearance and after reading this thread it sounds like they'd be a bit pointless anyway if we had winters.

Obviously nobody has a crystal ball, but would we be numpties for doing the journey with winter tyres and no chains or socks in April? Given we don't exactly have a lot of choice, mind..

Also, on a related note - I'm assuming most Alpine undercover car parks allow enough space for a roofbox, right? Or wrong?

A snowHead

@sparklies, sometimes it is a bit of a gamble if you can get in the undercover carparks with the roofbox depending on how heavily laden your car is! We scraped through one in Morzine before Christmas we worried me no end but David wasn’t too concerned. We did get completely jammed in a Chichester once when we had a Berlingo which was a bit higher. So embarrassing when he had to take a screwdriver and take it off the roof with a queue of very patient drivers behind us who seemed to see the funny side.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@sparklies, I reckon you may be able to get away with some 9mm chains on the back. There is also the Michelin Easy Grip which as far as I can tell sits somewhere between a sock and low profile chain.

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@sparklies: You have the standard problem created by manufacturers assuming that a UK spec' must have ridiculously low-profile wheels+tyres. To be certain, read your Owners Manual or contact your local Volvo Service department with your VIN and double-check whether your car is certified to take chains or not. Odds are, the manual/Volvo will say 'No'.

So if it's officially 'No', then there's simply not enough space between the inside of the tyre and your suspension, drive, steering, brakes, pipes etc. for conventional chains to safely rotate. Do not try 'thin' chains i.e. 8mm/9mm or Michelin EasyGrip etc.

Your next option for fitting chains to your 'summer' tyres is then the front-fitting ones I mentioned earlier (Spikes Spider Easy Alpine, Thule Summit, etc.). These have no anterior components so there's no problem with them fouling the mechanical stuff behind the wheel.

But I suspect you're now asking yourself "Well, winter tyres seem great, why not get a set of those and I won't need chains anyway?". Personally, if you're going to be going to the Alps annually then for me this swings the decision in favour of getting winters. They're still very useful even in the wet and cold UK - the snow capability is 'icing on the cake'. And your summers last proportionally longer as they're obviously nice and snug in the garage. So the main real cost is the twice-yearly switch-over. And they'll take you 90% of the way to not needing chains.

But there's still that remaining 10% of situations where even with winter tyres, you still need chains .......

A lot of the discussion on this thread is around just how far winter tyres take you before you need chains - sadly, there are still circumstances where you need them, even with winters on - the OP was basically complaining that people get winters and then think they'll never need chains, when the first post illustrates exactly why this is wrong.

So now, you have not only spent money on those nice winter tyres, but you still have to buy a set of chains for them too, probably around the £300-£400 mark for new, front-fitting ones.

And so you're back where you started, thinking "Well if I have to buy chains anyway, why bother with winter tyres?"

the following chart is my own summary of the various choices:

and shows the relative relationship of the different options for summers, winters, 4x4, chains and socks. The big challenge with chains on summers is that they're impractical in those mixed tarmac↔slush↔snow situations that you often encounter around the Alps. And in the Alps, it's likely that most locals have winter tyres on so they're not 'in the zone' where they need chains yet.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

@sparklies, investigate getting smaller rims for your winters. Your car seems to fit a very wide range of rim sizes and I bet your summers are on the largest and fattest (10" x 22").

Start here and select some small rims (8" x 19") and tyres to suit:
https://cars.tyreleader.co.uk/tyre-pack/16026/?rimsType=all&mount=0&season=W

I bet you'll easily be able to fit chains on the narrowest tyres because of all the space involved in accommodating the wider tyres. Not only that, the narrower winters be cheaper and have more grip in deep snow than wider ones. No brainer really.

After all it is free

I’m interested in how all the pro’s and cons of a big 4x4 balance out when driving on snow.

High CoG = definitely bad
Higher ground clearance = can be a major plus in extreme circs
Proper four wheel drive = definite plus when trying to proceed - no difference when trying to stop (I assume. Any four wheel braking advantage?)
HDC = definite advantage

Significant mass = this is where it gets interesting. I assume that 4x4’s have tyres in proportion to their weight so, all other things being equal, their grip should be the same. Or do the manufacturers change the usual ratio of mass to footprint? Is greater footprint definitely a disadvantage on snow? Is greater momentum actually a problem?

@LaForet, How did we all survive driving out to Austria or Switzerland in rwd BMWs in the 70s and 80s before winter tyres were a gleam in a marketing man's eye? Laughing

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Thanks both! Food for thought. I didn't realise there were possibilities for something like chains at all, so that is definitely worth looking into. The obvious choice is the winter tyres + chains approach but of course that is by far the most expensive. Chances are high we'll change the car in about 2-3 years, and we are only likely to do one trip a year. As this is our first year driving we may absolutely hate it and swear never again too!

With the recent snow that turned into hardpack ice (which I fell on and still have the nasty bruises) and our drive being on a bit of a slope, it was interesting to test the car out recently. As others have mentioned, you can select AWD but the default is 2WD. When pulling away up the hill on the drive with 2WD (I forgot to change the mode) it was obvious there was not much grip Popping it into AWD and it was like the ice wasn't even there, and that was with all season tyres. Now, I am not stupid enough for a moment to believe I can compare the gradient of our drive with some of the roads in resort with much more ice and steeper, but the difference AWD made really did impress me. I have also heard good things about how the XC90 handles winter conditions.

May have to get winter tyres anyway, if nothing else I'd feel happier driving around in the winter here - anyone who knows Hemel (where we live) knows it has some fairly steep hills which are rarely gritted. Why else build the Snow Centre there? snowHead

If we did buy some of the chains mentioned and assuming they're compatible, is it likely we could use them with any future car which may have slightly different wheel sizes?

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@LaForet, slight variant on your post: my car had lowish profile 235/50 R18 tyres which didn't permit chains.

However the recommended winter tyre was a smaller 225/55 R17 wheel, and this does permit chains as well.

I managed to get a set of 4x"used once" Pirelli winters off eBay for the price of a single one new, and had these fitted on cheapish steel rims so there's no need to switch tyres between one set of rims (which can't be good for the tyres).

<Edit>exactly as @altis is suggesting </edit>

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@altis Yes, you're spot on. @sparklies will almost certainly find that their Owners Manual or local garage will specify a set of wheel sizes and corresponding narrower tyres for winter use.

Not only will these narrower wheels and tyres be able to take conventional chains, but narrower tyres are less prone to aquaplaning in the wet, so they're good for a wet UK winter anyway. As well as giving better snow traction. Also, you'll probably find that there aren't many winter tyres on offer in the very wide 'summer' dimensions, and that going to narrower will mean there's a lot more choice and cheaper.

But, as we've seen on the postings here, there is still some merit in going for the more expensive, front-fitting chains, because they're very easy to fit (independently of fitting lower-profile wheels). By the time you've forked out all that for new wheels and winter tyres, you may think the extra £200 or so is worth it to get the fitting time down to a couple of minutes.

{is it likely we could use them with any future car which may have slightly different wheel sizes?} Yes, more likely anyway. In my experience with the Spikes Spider Easy front-fitting chains, I concluded I should have bought them sooner, as they fit a much wider range of wheels+tyres than the conventional chains I'd bought for previous cars (three sets of which are still in my garage, unsuitable for my current car).

And by the way, I do appreciate that the choices here are not clear-cut: you could spend a fortune on new wheels, winter tyres and front-fitting chains and in the time before you swap to your next car, never need them. If it's any consolation, when a car is new is the best time to get your winters, as a set of winters plus summers will mean you won't need any new tyres before you change the car. And your winters will be beneficial, even in the UK, albeit perhaps not obviously so.

You know it makes sense.

@francium., Interesting! We had a disco (for a few years) and indeed drove to and fro La Rosiere in it, on the way up it was snowing heavily and we did not need the chains tho` most folk did. The last few years we`ve taken an Audi quattro (no longer need a 7 seater) and it did fantastically well in the snowmageddon of a couple of Xmas`s ago, we made it into resort when most could not. My husband who does the driving in poor conditions feels the disco is ultimately better, but only if you are talking about really deep snow!

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

A snowHead

@nelly0168, Looking at the 47 reasons you need winter tyres, I would hazard a bet that the vast majority of those motorists DID have winter tyres. Not surprisingly, most of those clips seem to be from Russia where winter tyres are manadatory and from what I’ve seen the rule seems to be quite well enforced/observed. We’ve talked here about the phenomenon of 4x4 drivers thinking they are immune to the laws of physics, but I think there is also a risk that people put on winter tyres and then assume they can drive as they would on a dry road.

A snowHead

It is definitely worth looking on e-bay for winter tyres. I bought a good set of four with rims for £74. I then thought that I was going to have to spend a fortune to get them shipped down from Aberdeen. However, I was pleased to find that I could get them sent down overnight by TNT Express, via Interparcel https://uk.interparcel.com/ , for £30.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Sparklies - you will need to check the garage height in your accommodation. Last year we stayed somewhere with a 3m roof height and this year it was 2.1m.

In your position I'd get the winter tyres. Hopefully with those and 4wd you will be ok in April.

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@foxtrotzulu The downside of Big 4x4s is their weight, but the upside will be ground clearance. So in moderate road snow conditions, the Big 4x4s show a tendency to sink into the snow if they drift off a little, into what is actually soft verge or a ditch. The driver's aren't being stupid - I've seen this on a stretch of road (below) where most of the verge was pretty solid, but on one section, the camber dropped-off into a mini-ditch. This wasn't obvious with snow on the surface. Just beyond the bend a BMW X5 in winter tyres had just drifted slightly onto a soft verge and its weight had simply dragged the car off the road. A small Fiesta in our group of cars crossing the Jura managed to tow him back the 20cm or so onto where the snow was on solid tarmac Happy

To be fair, a BMW X5 isn't a 'proper' 4x4 in the Discovery sense and I suspect a correctly setup Discovery would have been fine, as was the Shogun behind us. The main problem the Shogun had was making sure to leave enough space to stop as it definitely took more distance to do so than, say the Fiesta or my 3 Series xDrive Touring. The trip across the Jura from the Swiss border to Besançon was very instructive: A small car obviously on summers just gave up about 50m into the first snow. A small Toyota was going incredibly slowly, and trying to keep its wheels in the deeper snow in the centre because it had chains on, but it gave up after about a km and turned 'round - on the lower parts (as above) it was alternating snow then tarmac and the poor Toyota was being shaken to bits. And this road wasn't a steady climb, it rose and fell a number of times, so half the time you were on pretty thin snow. The rest of the cars were 'ordinary' front and rear-wheel saloons obviously on winter tyres. The photo is at about 600m and we got over the highest part at 1100m with everyone doing around 60kph no problem, but leaving lots of room to stop between cars.

We actually opted to go over the Jura from Lausanne to Besançon, rather than carry on around Lake Geneva as the autoroute was slushy with ribbons of tall slush in-between the lanes. And everyone doing 80-100kph and driving like it was summer. Obviously, eveyone had winter tyres on but still wobbled somewhat when changing lanes. I don't know what I would have done if I'd been on summers - it would have been lethal.

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@LaForet,

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

@LaForet, Just wondering if you consider our current 245/45/18 tyres wide? These are my summer dimensions and was planning to get winters of the same size and have the local tyre place swap them over in November and after Easter yearly. Clearance does not seem to be an issue as the user manual states they should be low profile and placed on the rear wheels (e-class estate AWD). Planning to get the Konig Thule CU-09 104 chains. We will be driving to Chatel a few times a year in winter and summer from April.

After all it is free

it would be a shame to let this one die down after only 8 pages, so I'll try this question here. Having followed the typical snowheads advice to rent my car on the Swiss side of GVA airport so that winter tyres (see what I did there?) are included, what about chains? Are those automatically included in my Swiss rental or do I need to request (and presumably pay extra for) those on a Swiss rental car or does it even vary from company to company?

@Ozboy: 245/45-18 is moderately low-profile i.e. the sidewall height is 45% of the width - the lower the number, the lower-profile the tyre. This percentage is called the aspect ratio of the tyre. On my BMW M235i the aspect ratio of my summers is 35%, so a fair way more low-profile than yours. On my little Peugeot 206 the tyre's aspect ratio is 60% - so that gives you an idea of the range.

When choosing winter tyres one option is always to just replace the tyres and not 'downsize' the wheels as well. On a 'non-performance' car this may well be what's recommended anyway (this is what we do on my little Peugeot 206). On a performance car, the manufacturer often recommends 'downsizing' (my term) the wheels - in my case down from 18" to 17" diameter and the width down from 8" to 7.5" or 7"

This is for at least two reasons. First, it allows conventional chains to be fitted (you're releasing an extra inch or so for the chains to fit 'round the anterior side of the tyre). Second, narrower tyres means more resistance to aquaplaning (and better snow traction). On a car like mine with 322 BHP all on the rear wheels, this extra resistance to aquaplaning is very welcome in heavy rain and standing water. For me, this is the main reason why I downsize my wheels and fit winter tyres - the snow thing is icing on the cake.

But you may find that staying with your wider, low-profile tyres greatly limits your choice of winter tyres. Whereas downsizing means you have much more choice and they're cheaper (relatively).

However, it is not uncommon for owners of performance vehicles to stick with their summer wheels and tyre spec's, and get winters that are the same, and then deal with the chains issue by getting front-fitting chains.

Unfortunately, the judgement of whether to downsize or stay on the summer spec' of tyre and whether to use conventional chains or front-fitting ones, and whether to have a separate set of winter wheels, is one of those tricky equations that only the individual can resolve. This is all discussed in the Guide referenced above.

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@mr.mike I always rent directly from the '.ch' website of the GVA hire cars and I have always got chains with my winters as a standard part of 'winterization'. But I have read postings from people who've used intermediary brokers and found that they've been surcharged for chains. Or not got chains at all. This is one reason why I don't use intermediaries. Also because of postings that people have booked with 'besthirecarsinthissectorofthegalaxy.com' and had problems with surcharges, class of car etc.

So if you're worried, I'd recommend emailing the GVA desk to confirm you need chains and also check on pickup.

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Definitely worth looking on eBay. I’ve bought two sets of winter wheels andbtyres and subsequently resold them. If you can change the wheels yourself, then that will save you c.£120 per year compared to just swapping tyres.

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@LaForet, Thanks for the very helpful reply. Based on this my current thinking is to stick with the same spec and at least I can use the chains on the summers if I am in a snow situation during the fringe months. I did a quick search on mytyres.co.uk and there are lots of tyres available in the size with known brands priced at around £150 per tyre. Next step is to just confirm with Merc that chains are 100% suitable - they do have very expensive ones listed as an option.

You know it makes sense.

@LaForet, ...aye up...I know that bit of road - just before Pontarlier. I've driven it safely in those conditions many times. And always 2WD on winter tyres (pirelli and currently nokians) and never felt the need for chains.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

A snowHead

Interesting discussions about HDC. I did some Land Rover training at the Baskerville Challenge site, and drove a 1960 LR down a slidey 45degree slope. Get to the top, first gear, low ratio, "wrap your legs round your neck" (i.e. don't touch the throttle) and let it inch down under engine compression.

If your car doesn't have this magic button, you can try that option. Not sure how well it works in a normal ratio gearbox, never tried it.

A snowHead

Arrived Geneva airport Swiss side on Friday 29th 22:00 to pick up the car and chains I'd booked in August. Car was there but they had no chains left.......

JUST managed to make it to the apartment. Had to hitch a lift to a local garage on Saturday to buy a set and am currently in conversation with Avis......

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Useful website if you're thinking of changing from a larger low profile to a smaller diameter tyre for winters is www.willtheyfit.com

The url I've posted shows the comparison between my standard 235/50 R18 & the replacement 225/55 R17 winters, but you can enter your own values

It gives details of all the changed sizes; clearances etc (including speedo %error) and does a rough sketch diagram showing the new tyre profile in relationship to the existing.

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@LaForet, we rented from Hertz via a phone call, albeit to the US desk, because my wife has a premium membership and had a discount coupon she wanted to verify we could us. Given that we went "name brand", google reveals they have their own outpost in the GVA airport and the confirmation states that the car includes "winterisation", I'm optimistic, but will ask at the desk and take a look in the trunk before I head off. We arrive Sunday afternoon and, while that is still a few days off, current forecast is for a decent amount of snow to have fallen or be falling near the destination.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Just sticking my head back in to say thank you very much to everyone for the really helpful information. Now to discuss it all with my husband and look at prices etc and come up with a plan! At least we have a few months to sort it.

After all it is free

@rob@rar,

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Help!!

Idiots without / who can't put on chains & think winter tyres will be ok

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