E61 Touring Discussion The touring is also known as the wagon version of the 5 series.

Winter Tyres

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Old 01-11-2010, 12:09 PM
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Old 01-12-2010, 01:52 AM
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Originally Posted by bertolli' post='1088307' date='Jan 11 2010, 08:54 PM
Wow! hope your car or alloys weren't damaged Kell?
I already was surprised you managed to get up here.
Good luck with the winter tyres though. Hope they make the difference the manufactures say. I never had the opportunity to test them in snow
Everything was OK thanks. I eventually got Kwik Fit to swap the wheels over as my missus was unhappy with me doing it. Charged ?44 which wasn't too bad, but next time I'll do a bit of shopping around to get a better price.

The new tyres do make life easier - of course the snow is disappearing now, but with a planned trip to the Alps and the threat of more snow soon, I still think it was a good decision.

Just canb't believe the luck that of all the international members of this forum, one happened to have tyres and wheels and lived in the same town as me. What are the odds?
Old 01-24-2010, 02:32 PM
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Originally Posted by CarloTT' post='1085526' date='Jan 6 2010, 11:31 PM
Hi

I did the winter tyre swap for a couple of years with a previous car and you would be surprised at the difference M&S or plain winter rated tyres make even in the UK. As a previous posted mentioned 7degC is the accepted min for summer tyres. November to early April gave me enhanced stopping distances and grip when required, stopped my shiny 19"s getting caked in winter salt and helped extend the life of the more expensive Pirelli PZero Rosso's I ran in the summer.

I run 18's with Goodyear RFT's ;-( at the moment but will investigated some 17" rims from a 525 for example with winter tyres.

C
I can't tell enough people how good it is to have winter tyres on a BMW. One skiing holiday with huge snow dumps and we had to spend 1 hour to the resort each morning. We wouldn't have got out of the drive on normal tyres. The car was incredible. My wife now has the E61 and these went straight on in December when the snow arrived. Here's a suggestion to get underway - Buy a second hand set of 17inch wheels from someone upgrading (ebay has lots) and then get a new or second hand set of standard 'S' width (225) winter tyres - ebayer german tyre warehouse has been very good to me. If they have 4 - 5mm tread they'll last at least 3 winters if you just put them on when the snow arrives. Probably about ?300 all in and you'll never look back. I had dunlop graspic 2s which are pretty wooly in normal conditions but amazing grip once the ice comes. It has to be a trade-off. Tyres can't be good in both scenarios. I put the same tyre make on a forseter turbo and it was much better. I now have a freelander with a set of pirelli scorpion snow & ice for the snow days and they are fantastic in normal conditions so I've left them on. Also very good in the recent snow, but not sure they're the most extreme ice tyre but didn't have any problems when all mercs and bmws were spinning merrily and they certainly did manage anything I could find to throw at it. 4wd does make you smug though. Good luck all - let me know how you get on.
Old 01-25-2010, 12:35 PM
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Originally Posted by Kell' post='1087729' date='Jan 10 2010, 10:44 PM
Well I picked up a set of BMW OEM 16" wheels and Dunlop Winter Sport tyres from Bertolli today. Not really had a chance to test them as yet, but I can tell you that driving away from there was the most scared I've ever been in a car.

On my way to get the new tyres put on, I went down the hill at the end of his road and slid the entire way down. Had to put the car into the kerb to slow it down and wasn't sure if I was going to make the corner at the bottom. It was a weird feeling knowing that you were sliding and completely out of control and there was nothing I could do to change it. Brakes on or off, it made no difference. Steering left or right made very little difference. Luckily, the residents must be all all aware of this as no one had parked their car there.

I only hope these tyres make a lot of difference. Because I don't want to go through that again.


I had a similar experience with 535d when the first snow came in December and I still had my SportConti 3s mounted. Needless to say that I only saw drifting action. It took me an hour to get literally nowhere. I had a feeling as if any moment I could lose it all. It really sucked, as it made me feel like a passenger while at the wheel.

Effectively, it came down to too much torque and no grip.

My solution:

As an interim step I mounted a set of used Pirelli Sottozero Winter 210s, and that helped a whole lot - much more confidence. Today I mounted my long-awaited Nokian WRG2s. I hope they are better in snow/ice action, so hopefully bye bye slippage.
Old 02-15-2010, 08:13 AM
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I've just read in a UK mag a test of a Jag XF on a snow covered track. 2'34" on normal tyres. Just over 2'00" on winters (can't remember what they used).

For comparison, they put an Evo on normal tyres on the track too and it posted a 2'27" IIRC.

They definitely work.
Old 02-15-2010, 12:51 PM
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Winter tyres rock. Nokian 17" to replace my Conti 19". Watch the Autocar video on their website to see the difference. I'm getting winter tyres on my wife's 4x4 next winter
Old 02-18-2010, 06:10 PM
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Dunlop Winter Sport M3s on 17" OEM rims. Had the same type of tires on my 996 C4, and on my A6 Avant, driven through 10" of snow no problems at all.
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