E Class Merc in snow

[MaxNg]

Bought an E 220 D estate car about 6 weeks ago. As a motorway "miles muncher", it is fantastic: very comfortable, great stereo, good satnav and over 50 mpg on a run. HOWEVER, today Aberdeenshire had a dump of about 2" of snow. What a disaster this car is on even the most gentle of slopes.

OK, it's got 17" tyres and they aren't winter tyres - I was rather hoping that winter was over for this year.

Would winter tyres help all that much with rear-wheel drive? Or maybe, whenever there's snow, I just need to stick to the old Skoda Fabia with thin tyres and leave the Merc in the garage.

[t955daytona]

My father lives in Northumberland and winter tyres on his 330d which is rear wheel drive transformed it from being unusable. I'm sure your Mercedes would benefit from the same.

[r129sl]

My older 124s on summer tyres have always been utterly useless in snow, even in the lightest snowfall, even on the flat. Yet on winter tyres they are unstoppable. The transformation is astonishing. Anyway, buy some winter tyres and you can guarantee the prompt arrival of spring: so do the world a favour!

I live in Northumberland too!

[Monkeylegend]

Hopeless on summers in snow, brilliant on Conti winters in the snow.

[Orchid1]

Put some Michelin Crossclimate tyres on. Not only are they good in the snow but are unbelievably quiet and excellent in the wet. Also put it into Comfort/Winter mode next time so it pulls away in second gear, should help.

[Monkeylegend]

Better with ESP turned off as well.

[anonymous-user]

Winter tyres would make a massive difference especially to an E Class Merc. People think AWD is the answer in the snow, but I would take a RWD with winter tyres over something like a RR Sport on its standard tyres any day of the week.!

[harrykul]

Monkeylegend said:

Hopeless on summers in snow, brilliant on Conti winters in the snow.

This.

[Griffithy]

Wintertires and some bags of sand in the rear will transform the car.

[MaxNg]

Thank you all for these helpful responses.

[Utterpiffle]

Piping in a bit late, but I am running Conti winters on my w211 e63 estate, and they are brilliant. Not just in the snow, but generally. I spend most of my time in Germany, so the usual town work, plus some fairly fast stuff too. I've had the car since October, and never yet driven it with summer tyres. Quite interested to find out - hopefully in a month or so...