15cm is not insignificant. If the car is only 2wd the deep snow will build up in front of the driving wheels and block progress.

I posted yesterday about an XC90 I saw with wheels spinning, yet it is 4wd. The car systems were trying as rears would spin, then fronts, then front and back. The problem was very wide low profile (probably worn summer) tyres and the car had stopped on an adverse camber junction.

Deeper snow was then pushed up in front of both front and rear wheels and was acting like chocks, so the wheels were just spinning against the snow.

Its always a compromise and the CCs will have done better than worn summer tyres, but without 4wd and winter/off road tyres getting stuck in deep snow is still a possibility

Yeah, it's hit or miss where I am.
I'm in the central belt but about 750ft above sea level, so there is good chance of snow at some point in the winter.
The roads are usually well prepped when given warning, but the hill on the track I live along can be challenging. I usually clear and grit it, but was no stopping the fall yesterday and I naively thought the cross climates would smash through.

When I bought the 118D BMW in 2008 I was working in the Derbyshire Dales and bought a a set of Kleber Quadraxer All Season Tyres (3 peak snowflake symbol on them) and they were brilliant. Never failed to get home when the weather was bad despite the 1 series being a car that most said was undrivable in bad weather.

Subsequently fitted them on the wifes Ceed SW, my Leon (the tyres off the BMW were used again - they did not seem to wear out) and the Micra.

The wife at that time was working on the Derbyshire/Yorkshire border and making weekly trips to Yorkshire to visit her elderly mother, never had an issue.

Simply brilliant tyres, made by Michelin and unsurprisingly the current version is pretty much a Cross Climate copy. But just looking on line there is very little difference in price thus it would probably be the Michelins we bought. Don't need them now, both retired, if its bad we simply don't go out or walk to the shops.

Also had a set of Nokian all season tyres on the Note. Quadraxer was not available in the Note size at the time and looking now the Nokian is quite a bit less than the Michelin and Quadraxer. Like the Quadraxer we never had an issue with the Nokians even in possibly the most severe weather had driven in since the 80's, would certainly see if they were available in our required size.

But as has been said above living in Scotland full winters would make far more sense.

I'm in the central belt but about 750ft above sea level

The house we lived in form 1983 to 2016 was exactly 600 ft above sea level (the 180m contour went through a lower part of the garden) and the difference in weather compared to our local town that were a few hundred feet lower was very noticable. Our office in the Dales was by a river and according to OS only 70 feet above sea level. We rarely saw much snow there but as soon as you began to climb the roads changed quickly, back at home it was almost alpine at times, we had 17" of level snow on the garden one year, the drifts were huge.

Edited by skidpan on 06/01/2025 at 11:09