E class in the snow

[mybrainhurts]

Does anybody have personal experience of a W212 E220 estate in difficult snow conditions, including hills and snow up to, say, 20cm deep?

If so, how does it cope?

[Etretat]

Unless you have winter tyres, forget it.
My E350 stays in the garage when it snows

[mybrainhurts]

Yes, that's what I meant, sorry.

Experience with snow tyres, anybody?

[V8convert]

Had E Class and present CLS on winter tyres, not snow tyres, in Aberdeen and as good as many cars in snow and cold conditions but 20 cm is pretty extremely weather and would need chains. This year very few days of snow in Aberdeen or Yorkshire.

[popeyewhite]

mybrainhurts said:

If so, how does it cope?

My W211 E63 wore winter tyres for 6 weeks a few years ago for my commute across the Peak District. It was good in very deep snow, faultless. Took the tyres off in the end because the rest of the time the softer winters ruined the handling.

[Monkeylegend]

Had Conti TS830's on mine for the last 5 years or so, brilliant in the little snow we had but also just as good in the wet. I have run the current set through the last 2 summers as well with no issues, and they went through the MOT easily in January having covered 57k miles so far.

Without winter tyres they are absolutely useless

Mine is the saloon by the way not the estate.

[mybrainhurts]

popeyewhite said:

My W211 E63 wore winter tyres for 6 weeks a few years ago for my commute across the Peak District.

This was my worry. We've been running a couple of Volvo V70s from Sheffield to airports, mainly Manchester, and have
taken a gamble on a W212 now.

It's on snow tyres, but we had no opportunity to try it with this winter's lack of snow. Coming up to replacing the other V70, so need to know.

All sounds promising, thanks for the advice, lads...

[anonymous-user]

I used to run a W210 and had 2 sets of rims for summer and winter. It went to the Alps for a few years on ski trips and was no trouble at all with it's winter boots on. Having a boot full of luggage did help the traction somewhat I would think though. The tyres were Avon ice touring by the way, I've had them on several cars over the years and they've always seemed to cope well on snow and ice.

[mybrainhurts]

Thanks...

[Mr E]

The 500 is ok on conti winter contacts as long as you remember that it's a big old boat and your really rather removed from the driving experience at the best of times.

Not sure I'd like to rely on it in heavy snow.

[mybrainhurts]

Bugger...

[Stegel]

We run E320 211 (on Michelin Alpins A4) and 219 (Continental TS810) and they go out in all snow, ice and frost conditions. They have probably never seen more than 150mm of snow, but cope with it without issue. I could not believe the transformation winter tyres had on their ability to go, steer and stop.

[mybrainhurts]

Yippee. ..

[popeyewhite]

[gizlaroc]

My cousin lives up the mountains just outside Geneva, to give you an idea of snow he has to get up at 5am and clear snow for an hour to get off his drive, he then has 20 minutes down a freshly snow laden alpine pass to get into Geneva and he drive a RWD E-Class. He also drives at speeds that scare the living st out of me. He has no issues.


It is all about the tyres, doesn't matter if it is FWD, RWD, AWD once you have the correct tyres on.

[gizlaroc]

Oh, I drive an E350 estate on Vredestein winters, never had a problem anywhere across Europe in it.

[Monkeylegend]

It's really more about the tyres than the car. Mine on summers was useless in the snow, on winters it is brilliant.

[Dicky Knee]

I have a W211 E280 Sport Estate.

I agree with all of the above, if you are going to go out in the snow it must have winter tyres.

I run winters all year round on the original rim size without an issue.

I have had Yokohama W Drive, Vredestein Winter and Conti WinterContact which have all be fine although the Contis seem to have more fragile side walls.

[Monkeylegend]

Agree with the Conti sidewall comment from bitter experience. Having said that my current set which I have run continuously since 2014 have done 57k miles and still went through the MOT last month. They will need replacing later on this year though before we get any snow

[Smokehead]

mybrainhurts said:

Does anybody have personal experience of a W212 E220 estate in difficult snow conditions, including hills and snow up to, say, 20cm deep?

If so, how does it cope?

I've got an S212 E220 which is still on it's snow tyres. I'm not changing to the summer wheels until about May (Scotland ), but I haven't actually had to drive in snow yet. If I do, I'll let you know.