Can we assume the original poster lives in Berlin? Or needs to travel by car from there.
By my reckoning (well TomTom's) it's 7 hours 39 minutes and 486 miles. Might a budget flight and local transport not be better, i.e. no hire car. Once you get to the resort you won't need a car which is a saving that might cover the flight etc.
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Many thanks to each and every one for all your thoughtful replies.
Living up here in Estonia I know just how effective winter tyres are in snow and ice. I have a set of studded ones on the Forester and a set of non-studded on the other 4x4.
There are four of us (2 adults, 2 kids under 10) heading off to the mountains and we enjoy the thrash down the east of Germany, staying one night off the beaten track before arriving at the ski hotel. Does anybody have any recommendations for 3* hotels/ restaurants en route?
The Easyjet flight to Berlin is already paid for months ago and only came to £230 return for all 4 of us!
The actual Avis rental on a large estate car is pretty good at around £230 for 9 days and I have noticed that hiring from Munich and other places closer to Austria is around a hundred quid more. But these have free winter tyres! LOL.
The previously hired car came with the top-of-the-range Opel sat nav (at no extra cost and with the English dvds in the glove box). An amazing piece of kit!
> if the [Bavarian] police did stop you or decided you should be fined for incorrect tyres you cannot move until the correct tyres are fitted.
This would be a major major headache!
>By law, cars driving into Austria must have winter tyres from November to April
That is very interesting - nothing about mandatory winter tyres in Austria mentioned on the AA website. This is what is stated: In winter months, winter tyres are highly recommended and, in extreme conditions, the authorities may require cars to be fitted with snow chains. The international road sign for the compulsory use of snow chains is then used. Spiked tyres may be used from the 1st October until the 31st May, special local regulations may extend this period. END quote.
There is no mention in the Arrival by car section on the Hinterglemm town website (Saalbach.com) of any winter tyre requirement. The hotel is only 60 kms by road from the German border.
Whilst I thoroughly enjoy the art of keeping costs down (up to a point), a once a year, 900 mile blast up and down autobahns in a hire car is definitely part of the holiday for me. (I have driven only about 10 urban miles a day for the last few months so I have the need for speed).
The main issue was the necessity of the winter tyres. I did not want to end up paying an extra £100 for an option I did not need. So it looks like I will order the tyres and at the same time have a moan to Avis about the costs (using Zub?s and Cockle?s arguments).
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My one experience of going to Saalbach/Hinterglemm was slightly warm slushy conditions and roads completely free of snow even in the resort. Hope you have more snow...at least for the skiing.
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I called the Berlin airport office this afternoon (Skype) to quiz the desk fellow about this subject.
Here is an extract (not verbatim):
Me: I would like to ask if all compulsory equipment is provided such as warning triangle, first aid kit. [I start off with a couple of easy questions!]
Avis: Certainly, all compulsory equipment is provided.
Me: And does the car have a new Plakette for the Berlin city centre environmental zone?
Avis: Certainly, all our cars have this.
Me: And due to the recent change in German law, are all cars currently fitted with M+S winter tyres?
Avis: Ah, no. In fact, German law does not require mandatory winter tyres, only when travelling on snowy roads. Generally, around Berlin and much of the country there is no snow on the roads for most of the time. If the customer forsees snow on the roads he must request snow tyres. It is the customer's responsibility. About 70% to 80% of our fleet in Berlin has winter tyres fitted. The rest have normal summer tyres, which are often perfectly adequate (and legal e.g. for short hires around Berlin).
Me: May I ask what kind of tyres are fitted to your private car?
Him: Winter tyres. :-)
Me: Why are Avis snow tyres so expensive (double) compared to Budget?
Avis: Ours are euro 15 for the first 2 days and thereafter euro 10 per day. [Not what it says on the website] The customer is free to choose which company he uses and whether or not to order snow tyres. :-)
Me: Snow chains are not shown on the website, are they available?
Avis: Yes, euro 25 [£19], on a first-come, first-served basis.
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Why not take some snow chains. They pack down easy and aren't heavy.
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Because snow chains can only be used in snow. Whereas the effective grip of normal tyres is greatly reduced at low temperature unlike winter tyres.
It sounds like the hire company has winter tyres on most cars but if you need them for definate you pay extra. That sounds fair. A lot of the hires from Berlin are not going to drive 500 miles south to a ski resort.
The fact the OP is going to a ski resort I think he knows the answer. And if thinking is it worth the risk - snow tyres are needed for safety, including his. I would not risk my well being for the sake of a few quid.
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Yes, I know what snow chains are for. Ski resort = snow.
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Nsar never thought you or anyone didn't know what snow chains for. But the issue for the op is low temperature as well.
My brother now living in California used to ski. To get there you needed a good 4x4 and snow chains for the last bit. A weedy v6 jeep no use you needed the v8 of the time :-)
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I am actually a pretty sensible guy :-) This is why I am seeking other opinions and advice.
But can you explain the results of the latest annual AutoBild winter tyre test where they put a summer tyre and the best all-season tyre through the same tests.
The summer tyre beat ALL the others in ALL wet road tests plus dry road braking and handling. It was not the winner in the noise test nor rolling resistance (as well as coming bottom by a long way in all the snow tests).
download.autobild.de/dl/335998/2007_40052_Winterre...f
According to my understanding of AutoBild, by fitting winter tyres, I will be DECREASING my safety on wet and dry roads which may make up 99.9% of my 900 mile trip.
>Whereas the effective grip of normal tyres is greatly reduced at low temperature unlike winter tyres.
I have not been able to confirm independently that winter tyres do indeed outperform regular tyres in any conditions where snow or ice is NOT present. This 7 degree issue seems to originate from manufacturer's and retailer's blurb and is trotted out as gospel (also by me until I started googling it).
On snow and ice, winter tyres are VASTLY superior. I can vouch for this with personal, measured experience.
This comes back to my original question - how much snow and ice can I expect on my drive from Berlin to Hinterglemm?
(Edited for spelling and punctuation.)
Edited by Billy Whizz on 13/01/2008 at 00:34
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>This comes back to my original question - how much snow and ice can I expect on my drive from Berlin to Hinterglemm?
How long is a piece of string?
The Germans are usually pretty efficient at clearing ice and snow. The problem is that if the traffic builds up while it is snowing or shortly thereafter the fleets of snow ploughs can not get through. With trucks on summer tyres, the result can be blocked roads which take 24 hours to clear.
You may be OK on summer tyres in Germany but equally, you may meet bad weather and have to suffer the consequences of either not driving until it is cleared or risking the fine. The end of Feb. is probably a risk - Winter tends to drag on until the end of March.
BIG
Edited by Brit_in_Germany on 13/01/2008 at 09:47
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I have driven several times to the Alps from the UK. I have always carried chains and never used them, even in Tignes when the car was buried by a snowfall. The roads are generally only snowy in the resort, and by the end of Feb it is likely that somewhere low like Hinterglemm will be clear. My guess is that if a snowfall is bad enough to give you problems on the Autobahn then the traffic will be so blocked up that you won't be going very fast at all!
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from the phone call to Avis it looks like there is a 70-80% chance of winter tyres anyway.
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Inform the car hire firm that you are driving to Austria and need winter tyres (Winterreifen).
Ask if they can hire snow chains (Schneeketten) or even snow socks (Schneesocken)
They will reply that all cars are fitted with winter tyres.
The penalty is 30 Euros if they you are stopped and they are not fitted, and no insurance cover if you have a bump. They are also libel if the correct tyres are not fitted, but it is your legal responsibilty to check.
It is also acceptable to have all year tyres (Ganzjahresreifen) in many places.
I am in Germany now and all cars on the road have winter tyres.
Most people have steel wheels - they haven't lost their hubcaps !
Although you can now buy lower profile tyres with wheels.
Private motorists usually buy a complete set of winter tyres and wheels (Felgen).
The tyre dealers charge about 25-30 Euros for storage until the spring.
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>They will reply that all cars are fitted with winter tyres.
That's just it, they aren't !!! See call to Avis above.
>The penalty is 30 Euros if they you are stopped and they are not fitted, and no insurance cover if you have a bump.
ONLY if you are on a snow/ ice covered road. What are the chances of this in one month's time?
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Sorry to drag up a wek-old thread, but this is very relevant to me. With regards to Austria, a simple search threw up the official Austrian line on the government website in english - see www.help.gv.at/Content.Node/134/Seite.1340000.html...s
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Mike H, thanks for that very useful link.
Quote:
Passenger cars and trucks with a permissible maximum weight of up to 3.5 t may be operated only between 1 November and 15 April in winter conditions such as snow, slush or ice if winter tyres have been installed on all wheels.
As an alternative to winter tyres, snow chains may be used on at least two driving wheels, however, these may only be used in case the road is covered by a complete or scarcely broken snow cover or sheet of ice.
Please Note: Winter tyres are tyres with a certain depth of profile used as snow and mud tyres or as snow, mud and ice tyres, i.e., tyres marked "M/E" or "M/S/E".
End Quote
So this confirms that winter tyres are NOT compulsory in Austria. They (or snow chains) are only mandatory when driving on snow, slush or ice.
Of course, in practice that means that almost all Austrian cars will have them fitted to enable better mobility. But I need to travel only 75 easy miles in total in Austria. Many Austrian roads are free of snow, slush or ice at the end of February, beginning of March.
Would you pay £100 for winter tyres? For the remaining 900 miles I will be safer on summer tyres (unless caught by a freak snow storm in Germany).
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At the moment, I have reserved the car but not ordered the winter tyres. I have until 5 days before pick up to order them.
I am continuing to seek advice and specifically to check the weather forecast websites and webcams. Then, if it looks like there will still be a significant risk of snow cover on the roads I will book the winter tyres.
Does anyone know of good webcam sites for German autobahns?
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Trip report - including Galaxy mini-test, GPS on the laptop, smart route planning and YouTube-style sat nav error!
I arrived at the Avis desk at Berlin Schönefeld Airport to be told that my reserved car, a large estate - a choice of Passat, Mondeo or Vectra, was not available as they were all out but would I like a free upgrade to a Ford Galaxy? Well, Ok. The Galaxy will be slower and thirstier but should be nicer for the kids.
Whilst the family are still in the terminal tucking into a snack, I give the car a once over - a 2007 model, 2-litre petrol manual in silver (see photo in the link in my profile) with just over 3000 miles on the clock. Looked smart and I noticed it was fitted with 215/60 R16 99H Pirelli Winter 210 Snow Sport tyres (foc, yay!).
For UK Galaxy owners it was curious to note what an odd spec it was (I now see from the ford.co.uk website) ? auto-headlamps, auto wipers, parking sensors, auto-rear view mirror, Sony audio, electric windows all round, full length roof console but no heated front windscreen (that I could tell), no alloys, no drivers seat power height adjustment (just manual). All in all a very nice quality package.
As I am stuffing in the luggage I am not impressed by Ford's so-called Fold Flat System which was not flat at all in our car. The rear-most seats still take up a lot of space even when folded down. Certainly not as good as my dad's 2003 Zafira which loads just like an estate or soft-roader. But I still got everything in with ease. (Another benefit of the new style carver skis is that they are much shorter and can now be fitted in crossways in the luggage space).
I notice the odd handbrake lever and it takes me just a few moments to change the trip computer language to English. Off we go, steadily, as I get used to a different car in a different country in the dark, heading off into the unknown.
Our first stop is Hotel Grüne Tanne (www.gruenetanne.de/) about an hour and a quarter south of Schönefeld in Saxony, former east Germany. This is a great value 3 star hotel built on the location of a 400-year old former knight?s residence on the edge of a hamlet yet not too far from the autobahn. ?26 per person per night including a nice German breakfast. I found the hotel on viamichelin.com and we were frankly amazed by the accuracy of the driving directions printed from the website.
Started off the next day bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with 8 hours driving ahead of us. Weather: +8 degC to a balmy +15 degC and bone dry with a thin cover of high level cloud. Simply perfect driving conditions. On the short drive back on to the motorway I notice how comfortable the suspension and seats are.
I love autobahns! The A9 Berlin ? Munich is wide and unrestricted for miles and miles. The 2.0 Duratec engine is torquey and pulls well in 5th from 50 mph to its top speed of 121 mph. But, to me, this car is crying out for another gear. Many of the diesel engines have it as standard. Also I noticed on several occasions the gearbox baulked going into 5th. I had to check too if the rear hatch was closed properly as the exhaust note could be clearly heard. It was latched properly and thus I was surprised how noticeable the exhaust sound was. Engine, tyre and wind noise was well damped.
I was not impressed with the Ford trip computer ? there was no instantaneous fuel consumption reading and only one trip meter. On the Toyota Corolla we hired in Ireland I set the trip meter for the duration to show instantaneous fuel consumption which enabled me to make significant improvements in my brim-to-brim fuel economy. Having only one trip meter meant that I could not easily record my daily mileage plus, separately, the distance from my last refuelling stop.
For navigation we were using Microsoft AutoRoute 2006 with a new state-of-the-art USB GPS receiver on my laptop powered by a new 150w 12v ? 230v inverter. This proved to be mostly excellent and as we came up closer to Munich we could hear on the radio about the usual and expected winter sport stau (traffic jam), some of them 30 miles long. When the average speed on the autobahn dropped below 50 mph we simply re-routed onto the much emptier A-roads through the attractive Bavarian countryside.
Then there followed an interlude of 7 days of skiing in beautiful sunshine staying at the perfectly located 3-star www.alpenblick.st
On the morning of our departure it started pouring down with rain and I got soaked stuffing the luggage back into the car. We waited until after lunch to allow the bulk of the Dutch tourists (aka Cloggies who seem to make up 90% of the holidaymakers in this village) to leave before us and we spent the morning keeping an eye on the huge number of traffic reports on the internet. www.verkehrsinfo.de/ and www.oeamtc.at/verkehrsprognose/
As expected, the motorways around Munich, to the west of Munich and to the south of Munich became totally blocked with skiers leaving and arriving. We planned a cross-country route north, our goal: to avoid all delays. Five minutes before we left we saw from the web traffic report that the mountain pass one hour ahead had just been completely closed, blocked by fallen trees due to the storm (that preceded Hurricane Emma). No problem for us: we simply re-routed onto a different road adding 15 minutes to the journey time but saving possibly hours stuck on a closed road with no options but back all the way you?ve come.
The temperature had been dropping steadily and by the time we were ready to go it was snowing heavily. As I pulled out of the car park uphill I felt the traction control momentarily (and saw the large dash warning light). We drove for about 3 miles through slush before the snow turned to rain as we descended altitude.
Traffic was flowing freely and we remembered to buy a Vignette for the Austrian motorways and fill up the 70 litre fuel tank before we left Austria as 95 Super was about 20% cheaper than in Germany. With the rain now behind us our route took us north on the dramatic A10 motorway to Salzburg and then on A- and B-roads parallel to the border to cross into Germany at Burghausen, site of the longest castle in Europe. From here we picked up the lovely, fast and empty B20 which took us 60 miles further north to connect up finally with the autobahn network. At this point I blasted 270 miles as fast as conditions would allow, returning a commendable 28.6 MPG brim-to-brim since Austria.
Coming off the motorway we had 11 miles to drive to reach Hotel Grüne Tanne. AutoRoute told me the quickest way was 17 miles (the long way round) taking 27 minutes, but I selected the shortest route option through 3 villages; 6 miles shorter taking only 3 minutes longer.
Firstly, we had the longest wait in stationary traffic of the whole day waiting a full 5 minutes at a level crossing before the train passed (which is 5 minutes too long at 9 pm on a Saturday night after 8 hours driving) but then the fun started?
With 4 miles left to go, the sat nav took us through a sleepy little Saxon village with cobbled streets to a mud track at the edge of the woods with a No Vehicles sign. Our hotel was on the other side of these woods, a mere one and a half miles away, as the crow flies. This track was clearly shown as the main road Lindenstrasse on the laptop screen.
On one hand, the track had been fairly recently used by a car; there was no one around to tell us off, I had new snow tyres which might be a bit M+S; plus I had noticed the same sign by the hotel and seen a car emerge (though the sat nav showed it was not same track as the one we were on.) We have tackled far more difficult tracks in our Forester, it should still be a doddle in the Galaxy.
On the other hand: the ground was very soft due to the previous rain, and from the bit I could see in the main beams it was sloping very slightly downhill which could be tricky getting back up if it got steeper.
Let?s try it. For half a mile it was fine though it got narrower and slightly more of a downhill slope. I had to get out a couple of times to remove recently fallen branches but the main reason I wanted to turn round was that we were clearly deviating from the indicated route by about 30 degrees, heading off into a blank area of woods. It was therefore not simply a case of incorrect road status (a track mis-classified as a road) but a full blown map error.
I had to continue a little further until I found a space where I could do a 5-point turn as I did not fancy reversing through the chicane of a cut up long-fallen tree trunk and all those paint scratching, Avis-charging twigs.
Of course, I got stuck in mid-turn, exactly ninety degrees to the track. Couldn?t go forwards, couldn?t go back. Kids were now wide awake and bleating No, no, don?t get us stuck?(as if). Wife has to get out in the mud and push in her fancy boots. Luckily it only takes one good shove from her and the full use of my 4x4 mud-plugging and production car trialling techniques to get us rolling again. Traction control is working as the snow tyres are finding it hard to grip in the soft mud; M+S they are not.
There was a good-natured sigh of relief all round when back on hard surface again and 15 minutes later we were enjoying a warming bowl of soup at the hotel.
The following morning we had the easy one and a quarter hour autobahn trip back to Avis at the airport. Fortunately it was pouring down with rain so all the mud got washed off as we aquaplaned along at 75mph.
Cost for the hire of the Galaxy: £24.90 per day. Well done, Avis!
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BW - thanks for that very full and interesting report! When I hire cars in Germany in the winter months, flying into Hahn in the Eifel, the cars always have winter tyres and there is a nominal surcharge for them, just a few euros. German law may be different to Austrian in this respect.
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