Nov 1st Winter Tyres on or chains in vehicle in French Alps

A snowHead

just ordered Michelin cross climate 2s for my Audi, as I had had them on the previous vehicle (VW Tuareg) and they were great, in all weather, and on snow both here in UK and in resort, chains carried but not needed. Marked as M+S plus snowflake symbol.Highly recomend them, quiet too.

a while back had a 4wd that had M+S tyres only and it too was fine in some really heavy snow; in fact we traveled down to Tignes through some heavy weather from half way down France that had the police closing autoroute to HGVs which were stacked south of the Poulet de Bresse services! Road surface covered maybe 2/3" deep, in a few places a wandering set of two narrow "black" strips could be seen; most of the few other cars followed them so made overtakes on the "virgin"snow surface past them hilarious!

I did see one car having some fun on the way down from Tignes, sliding around all over the place....however it may have been because he had put chains on the rear driven wheels and therefore had no steering or indeed braking!
He stopped (eventually) and had a chance to reconsider his axle choice when one of the chains flew off and in doing so re-arranged the bodywork around that wheel arch...Oh how I wished I had a dashcam!

A snowHead

Some M&S but no snowflake tyres are not intended for winter use at all. My LR Defender had some some when I bought it, which were actually also labelled 'light truck' and they were completely useless in icy weather. Rock solid compound, probably many years too old and gone even harder with age.

They were kinda OK on fresh snow, but I had loads of issues with them slipping on the hubs (they were not tubeless) and eventually got some new alloys with proper all-season, peak+snowflake-marked all terrain tyres for it.

Not really relevant to ordinary cars, but just making the point that if you don't have a snowflake, the M&S gives no indication whatsoever that they'll be any good in cold conditions.

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

One point which has not been mentioned is that regardless of what wheels you have, you need a spare one. If you get a puncture on an alpine road as dusk is approaching (and the way the roads deteriorate in winter, with some savage pot holes that's not uncommon) you will be at least in great discomfort, possibly danger, if you can't change the wheel and get swiftly on your way. Especially if it's one of those times when all the local garages are making money for old rope pulling impatient drivers out of snowdrifts or forests, you could well not get anybody to come to your rescue that day.

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the sort of damage a good French "nid de poule" can do to a tyre is well beyond repairing with that pointless foam stuff. And even if you are too feeble to change a wheel yourself, if you have one, you can hope that some passing motorist will help.....

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...and ideally your spare should be a (full size) winter tyre, if the other 4 are. There's also the question of 'should it be a nearside tyre or an offside tyre?'. I was told by a tyre fitter you're more likely to get a flat on the nearside, which of course is the other side, outside the UK.
There's no end to these 'winter wheels' threads, is there? Laughing

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Summer tyres + chains is not an ideal combination. More often than not you are going to have situation where the road is lightly dusted, or just has patches of old snow and ice, especially on the parking lots and soft shoulders.

These are enough for the summer tires to be in a free spin. Chains help, but the experience is horrific - slow, painful and noisy drive.

Snow socks however plug this gap nicely. I had an experience in VT - drove up all the way on summers without any trouble only to get stuck on a parking lot at the agency. Not only socks got me out of trouble, but they performed excellently on a snowy downhill road to the residence, and back up to the parking.

I switched to cross climate tyres since and didn't have to use the socks in similar situations.

Regardless of summer+socks or winter/all season tyres, I always carry chains. Have never used them through

After all it is free

You can stuff your ski socks and base layers into them.

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Now we have been educated with the term 'nid de poule' I was wondering what the translation of pothole in German is and there seems to be two options according to google translate: Schlagloch and Gletschertopf. Can any native speakers explain when one is used in preference to the other ?

In fact are either ever used ? All the German roads I have travelled on seem to be smoother than a bowling green, I've never seen a pothole there as far as I can remember.

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@JohnS4, my German friend tells me that in general, schlagloch refers to roads, and gletschertopf is a technical term in glaciology.
I have been trying to remember exactly where I hit the 'nid de poule', and I think it may actually have been in France. I can't recall ever having seen a pothole in Switzerland....

Different sized rear vs front wheels/tyres ('staggered'):

Yes, this is a feature of many BMW performance models and is called a 'staggered' setup. In my case the summer setup is 8" wide rear wheels and 7½" fronts, with correspondingly wider rear tyres. The BMW recommended winter setup is 'square' i.e. 7" or 7½" all-round. But following this recommendation means that you have to buy a separate 'square' set of winter wheels and tyres with the obvious extra cost of 4x wheels, plus have the space to store the unused set. However, having a performance model for me swings the case for separate winters, because they're much less prone to aquaplaning (something useful even in the UK) and the handling compromises of an all-season tyre are too great in the summer, compared to a full summer tyre.

Some owners of BMW 'staggered' wheels don't have the space to store a full set of wheels, or don't want to go to the cost of a set. So they just put winter tyres on the summer wheels. It's a compromise (narrower tyres are less prone to aquaplaning in the wet and slipping in the snow) but a very small one overall. Unfortunately, a lot of winter tyres don't come in the requisite sizes (you can get rears but not fronts, or fronts but not rears). However, if they can get the necessary sizes, they will often find they need more expensive front-fitting chains because the rear wheels don't leave enough space behind the wheel for conventional chains to rotate.

How about carrying just a spare tyre? Especially if you have runflats.

Carrying just a spare winter tyre deals with two problems (a) directional-ness (see below) and (b) availability: Winter tyres are produced in a relatively narrow time 'window' - usually in the autumn, to provide stock for the winter swap and some replacements. Later in the season, it can be quite hard to source a specific brand because stocks are running low. If a tyre failed en route to the Alps, this could mean you having to wait 'a few days before the dealer gets the replacement, which would be extremely inconvenient. You can mix different brands, but the results can be quite unpredictable, especially on performance models or SUVs. If you have runflat tyres, then this further reduces the need for a spare wheel as well: the idea is that the runflat will get you to a garage/dealer for the spare tyre to be fitted. This has also happened to me on one occassion. But of course, there are still some types of tyre damage that are too severe even for a runflat.

Directional Tread:

The problem of carrying a spare for a directional tyre is common to all types, whether summer, winter or all-season. Many summer tyres are also directional - you'll see a 'Rotation' symbol on one side of the tyre (just like many road bike and MTB tyres). The consequence of which is that once mounted on a wheel the combination is either left-side or right-side. If you wanted it to work for the opposite side, so to speak, then you'd have to dis-mount the tyre, turn it 'round, and re-mount it on the wheel. In which case, you might as well just be carrying the tyre on its own.

Spares and Limited tyre age:

Tyres in storage/unused have a finite lifetime. The compounds degrade over time and can make the tread brittle or inflexible etc. The standard recommendation is not to keep an unused tyre more than five years. Yes, this seems surprisingly short but it's what the manufacturers recommend. The manufacturing date of a tyre should be visible on the sidewall. This is as much a summer as a winter tyre issue - more likely a problem with a car that's been around for some years, with the spare left unused.

You know it makes sense.

I have used Michelin Cross Climate tyres on a Land Rover but cant get them in the size of my Range Rover wheels sadly.
They were great tyres and handled the wet roads and what was a couple of inches of slush on a dual carriageway when coming across the middle of France, very well
They were also reasonably quiet on the motorways

On the run up the hill to Les Arc from Bourg in snow, they never missed a beat even on one steepish switchback. The police who were stopping people to put chains on waived us through once they looked at the tyres. They have the 3 peak symbol but he couldnt have seen that, just the tread and car

IN the building car park where the snow tends to settle, they did slip once but that was driving up a pile about mid wheel high that had been left from someone clearing their car.

I still had chains, the Thule K Summit, just in case it was really bad

the K Summit go on easily with the chains sitting on the part of the tyre in contact with the road and fastening to the wheel nuts

I have K Summit chains for the current car that has M&S tyres as standard

The manufacturer says chains should only be fitted to the rear wheels due to clearance issues at the front but the K Summit don't go over the rear/inside the car side of the tyre so clearance shouldn't be an issue

fitting chains to the rear seems to leave the front steering wheels in a position where they wont grip which could be an issue particularly going downhill

With M&S tyres and 4 wheel drive, I would guess that I would make it up and down the hill safely most of the time but I carry the chains for the one or two times the road isn't clear

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

I am driving from the UK probably with a hire car, usual car was pranged on Friday ( for which I had chains) anyone give any advice on where I can get chains from in France, do the supermarkets sell them? I am driving 31st December for a week to Tignes?

A snowHead

@vegas007, Off topic, but is your hire car insured/approved for use in France?

A snowHead

@vegas007, supermarkets, service stations all sell them. snowchains.com also offer next day delivery and they used to offer full refund for unused chains

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

Yes, supermarkets sell them as you get near the mountains. Might be fairly basic. Might be easier to get in the UK in advance (the Roof Box Company have a good choice and good guidance) but you need the exact tyre size and with hire cars you often have no idea exactly what you're going to get till you pick up the car. You'll have a good idea of weather before you drive but Tignes is high (good choice as the snow at lower levels is not great up to now) and it would be wise to be sure you can fix the chains quickly before you leave home.

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We rented a van in 2002 to drive down to our new apartment with loads of flat pack furniture (and more picked up at IKEA south of Paris en route). No problem - we used a local firm who were very helpful. Recommended an older, tattier, van with a bigger engine, which worked beautifully (even if we did have to use snowchains just for the last couple of miles, which meant we couldn't do a "sale or return"!)

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@pam w, so you'll be that person holding everyone else* up as you drive along at 25kph with or without chains when you don't actually need them, as you're overall too nervous for the conditions then Smile

Anyone who had seen pam w skiing at La Grave would not call her a nervous old woman!

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@welshskier, Cool

Those were the days.......I tell myself to ignore weathercam's evidence-free accusations. wink

After all it is free

@pam w, very easy if he's on ignore wink

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Cham Nord - the shopping complex at Chambery just by the motorway is a good bet as there is a hypermarket that sells chains and also a Feu Vert - a French version of Halfords

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When I rented that van we got chains on a "sale or return" basis beforehand, but having to use them for just the last big of the journey meant we couldn't return them! Still, they got us up the hill. They didn't fit our car, and ultimately I gave them to a snowhead with whom I had a rendezvous in a car park somewhere up the A3. Interestingly, we had been getting on OK, though with tenuous traction and a very light foot on the gas, when we came round an uphill bend and found a tow truck obliquely across the road, pulling out a downhill driver who had ended up in the woods.

So we had to stop, rather than plough into them, and of course we had no chance of getting going again. But we did have plenty of time to sort out our own chains. We discovered later that that garage made a tidy living in winter pulling drivers who had misjudged the danger of the downhill bend covered in snow and ended up in the trees.

You know it makes sense.

Just to liven this up again, what are the chances of chains fitting 235/50/19 and also 245/45/20?

Reason being, my current car is on a short term lease, and goes back very shortly after my Easter trip. The next car is likely to be with me for quite a bit longer, so it would be nice if chains could fit both.

I'd probably look at Thule/Konig easy fit type, if that makes a difference.

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

@SHAP I would think that you should be able to get some, but they'll probably have to be front-fitting type like the Spikes Spider Easy Sport and Easy Alpine etc. All I can say is that this type of front-fitting chain seems to fit a wider range of wheel/tyre sizes than some of the conventional chains I've had in the past. So they're more likely to fit another vehicle but by no means guaranteed to.

My Easy Sports have two adjustments: the outer frame can be set to small, medium or large and then within this, you adjust the links to cover a range of sizes within the S/M/L ranges of the chainset. My recollection when sizing-up originally was that they only have a few basic chainset versions, with each version covering a relatively wide range of sizes.

And as you infer, the icing on the cake is that they're often much faster to fit than conventional chains, and less prone to tensioning issues.

A snowHead

First one has a circumference of 225.47cm, second 248.89cm, so I'd say pretty good.

A snowHead

@SHAP, snow socks would fit both easily but with chains only way to tell is to try and fit them...

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

@Matt1959, How do you work that out? Maths not my strongest subject Embarassed

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@SHAP, you can get comparative calculation here https://www.tacomaworld.com/tirecalc?tires=245-45r20-235-50r19 to help, just enter the two specific sizes to see data.

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@boredsurfin The radius of the tyre and wheel will be the half wheel size in inches plus the sidewall height. The sidewall height is expressed as a percentage of the tyre's tread width and is the second number on your tyre spec. So for the 235/50-19 the wheel radius is 9.5" and the sidewall height will be 50% of 235mm = 117.5mm = 4.63" and thus the radius of this tyre and wheel is 9.5+4.63 inches = 14.13" and from that radius (R) you can calculate the circumference in the usual way, as 2 x pi x R or 2x 3.14159265 x 14.13" = 88.78" = 255.5 cm

The diameter of the tyre+wheel should remain the same whatever combination of sizes you use. This is known as the rolling diameter (or if measured from the wheel centre to the tread surface, the rolling radius). A bit of leeway is OK but not too much, or else (a) the speedometer and mileometer will be wrong and (b) it can adversely affect the driving dynamics (as the car's designers assume a consistent rolling radius). The rolling radius will actually decrease as the tyre wears and marginally affect the milometer and speedometer, 'though not significantly. For example, a new 8mm tyre can be worn down to the legal minimum 1.6mm, so losing 6.4mm in rolling radius. That's 3.6% of the diameter (wheel+tyre) so you're speedo' will by out by that much (depending on how the manufacturer calibrates it in the first place) at the worst case, equal to 2.5 mph

When you buy chains, if the vehicle manufacturer's specification requires thinner links, the issue isn't usually with the part of the chain that sits on the tread, it's related to the space available for the rotating chains to freely move where they sit on the inside of the tyre, between the tyre and the suspension, brake pipes (and if front-wheel-drive, the steering bits). In many performance models and SUVs their low-profile wheels and tyres just don't leave enough space for the chains to rotate safely. Especially if they're a bit loose (which is not unusual). The few mm you save on a thin chainset may make all the difference although as mentioned, they're much more prone to snapping under load. The font-fitting chain designs entirely obviate this problem.

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@LaForet, @ski3, Thanks, for me it'll still be quicker to see if they fit Laughing

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One more thing that has not been mentioned on this thread (amazingly since almost everything else to do with wheels/tyres is covered !) is that if you have a car with limited clearance on the inside of the tyre between it and the suspension/brake lines you can help with this by using hubcentric spacers, which has a similar effect to fitting wheels with a smaller ET value, ie. they are pushed out a bit.

I have 8mm width H&R spacers all round on my Audi, these are the thinnest you can get in hubcentric form. I didn't fit them for the purposes of snowchains, it was for brake caliper clearance on aftermarket alloys that I use in summer but it's still a useful feature and means that you have the option of fitting conventional chains to a car that it would not normally be possible.

If you are thinking of doing this though, buy decent ones, eg with TuV rating, not some crap off ebay made out of chineseium which might disintegrate under pressure.

After all it is free

If you go to roofbox.co.uk you can find out what chains would fit both cars.

I have spikes spiders and originally bought them for an Audi A5, adjusted them for an Audi S3 and again to fit a ford focus. I did have to buy some extra parts at one point but overall much less than buying another set.

Useful, Cheers guys.

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@JohnS4 Yes but the potential problem with spacers is that on some cars, they may force the tyres to foul the external wheel arch (more so the steered wheels) and in the case of an accident claim, could invalidate your motor insurance on the basis of it being an undeclared modification. Yes, I know it's common practice for many car enthusiasts, but if a car isn't certified to have chains on the fitted wheels, it further threatens invalidation of driving policy if it means uncertified wheels are forced to take chains.

If you think that insurance companies don't check for this sort of thing, then here's a quote form a BMW Owner's Forum, from someone who works with claims management companies: "When I do accident investigations for insurance companies, tyres size/ profile, speed rating are all on the list of things I check. It can also be a con and use offence to use an incorrect tyre, in some cases. An example of this would be a tyre which protrudes past the wheel arch. Another would be where the tyre fouls bodywork at the max range of steering."

Help!!

Nov 1st Winter Tyres on or chains in vehicle in French Alps

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