Hi.
As every year winter is coming. Today we got somewhere around 15cm snow, it has been cold and icy for two weeks.
Today I’m driving a V60CC AWD with Hakkapelitta 9 studded tires.
My new DS4 will be front wheel drive and I’ve bought Nordic friction tyres for it (premium brand) on 19" DS alloy rims.
A positive thing is that the tyres are narrower, 205mm on DS4 vs 215mm on V60.
DS4 is roughly 100kg lighter than the V60.
How does the DS4 perform in winter conditions? It has the ground clearance going for it but how does the safety systems work? Does it have som sort of “eLSD” or could I end up with only one front wheel spinning?
I haven’t had any problems with traction on roads that are normally maintained.
Narrower tires have a bit better traction on snow and ice due to more weight on the “rubber” however they tend to have a bit longer brake distances.
I’ve watched tests of tires from 195 to 275 on BMW 3 series and it seemed like 215 and 225 is the best choice of them all however differences weren’t big so they said that tire class and manufacturer has MUCH bigger impact on traction, braking etc. than tire size.
If I remember correctly difference in braking distance between 205 and 225 was around 0.6m which was somewhere around 5% difference.
Sounds good - What I don’t like with my V60CC and most modern cars with wide tires I that they “float” on top of the snow instead of digging in to it for grip.
Yesterday was a good example. 300mm of snow during mid day and about -7C. Road maintenance didn’t have a chance keeping up with all the snow.
Result was a road surface covered with 50-100mm compacted snow.
That Is the absolutely worst condition to drive in regarding traction. Car was floating around on top of the compacted snow and all over the road even though I kept the speed down.
Studded winter tires doesn’t help, four wheel drive doesn’t help (except in acc and straight line) but I do believe that a set of 175mm tires would have helpt a lot. But - as modern cars is so heavy I don’t think it would be legal (in Sweden) to put that narrow tires on the car. Also it could be quite bad on dry roads, cornering with almost 2000kg trying to push the tire of the rim (loaded car).
Well yes every tire has a maximum LOAD capacity and You have to remember to be “in the limits of the tire” with car FULLY loaded, full gas tank and all passangers onboard.
“C” marked tires for heavy load should do the trick. But - In Sweden, if you are involved in an accident not really caused by you, you can be deemed responsible for the accident if you have a tire width that doesn’t correspond with the cars approval.
From memory 19" 205 width was the narrowest possible for the PHEV?
In my country 205 were only on Pure Petrol and Diesel.
Phev always have 225 but You would have to ask in dealership what sizes are approved for PHEV in Your country.
Ah ok, 19" 205 was standard for the PHEV executive in sweden.
Also when I bought the winter rims and tires from the dealership I asked for the narrowest tires possible and got 19" 205 on a different DS rim.
Going down to 18" would have ment wider tires, I believe those are 225.
Going up to 20" also ment wider tyres.
Anything below 18" would (,in my opinion) look kind of quirky on the DS4 with its relatively big wheel arches.
Agree, 19" is optimum in terms of comfort and looks.
20" looks probably better however I didn’t like rims style.
I prefeer comfort over looks however I have to admit that DS4 has big wheels and big wheel arches so car looks very massive
Besides that, tyre profile 50 and 55 protects the rims since there is much more rubber between the road and the rim edge.
Hmm, just heard from my friend with Cupra that I should order studded instead
He comes from a Skoda Kodiaq 4x4 running studded tires.
Apparently the drop from 0 to minus 13 wasn’t that good for traction running friction tires and fwd.
But it was the grip when cornering, or lack of grip that caught him by surprise!
He’s also running premium Nordic friction tires, Hakkapelitta R5.
I’ll be running continental Viking contact 7 and put my hope to them being a little bit sharper, in combination with my (compared to my colleague) more defensive driving I hopefully will manage.
At a price of over 350eur per tire they better be good
