Hi Guys
I have just joined having recently bought a 2010 Fiat Panda Cross to replace a 2005 Toyota Hilux pickup.
I live half way up a mountain in the Scottish Highlands where winter conditions can be severe and I would like to fit 6.5J or 7J x 15 deep dish steel wheels together with 185/65 R15 all terrain tyres to get me through the winter. So I am hoping that you can give me some advice as to where I can source the wheels and tyres. There are plenty of 6J x 15 steel rims and 185/65 R15 "winter" tyres but I can't seem to find wider rims or proper all terrain tyres.
Any help would be very gratefully received.
Thank you.
Tim
Congratulations on your new purchase - envy you as I've been hankering after a 4WD but for me it would have to be a MK1. I used to go to school near Auchenblae in the late '50's and we sometimes had to take sledges down to the village for winter supplies! Seriously deep snow! Do keep us updated as to how the Panda fares through the winter won't you?
Now on to tyres/wheels, a subject which I find very interesting. Initially you might think it logical that a nice wide tyre, with lots of tread presenting itself to the road, would be best. Purely in terms of mechanical grip, if the road has a decent surface, is dry, and the vehicle has suspension which can exploit the tyre, then this is true. Introduce water, gravel, mud, snow, etc and the game's up the pole - as they say! With regard to your situation it makes me think of the house we bought when first we returned from the south to Edinburgh. It was in a small village up a steep, long hill, in the hills south of Edinburgh. I had sold my lovely 1500 GT Cortina (Dragoon red!) To help raise the deposit but still needed a car to get into the town where the garage that I worked in was situated. With very little cash and not wanting to take on debt, I found an unloved Citroen Dyane (fitted with the "big" 602cc engine - oooh!) Hiding in the back of a local used car salesroom. No-one wanted it so I got it for sweeties! Anyone familiar with these small Citroen's will know that the tyres, which look like big bike tyres, are 135×15 - very narrow. Anyway the fascinating thing was that as soon as the snow came down in the winter, the only cars which could get up the hill into the village were the local farmers 4×4's, tractors and my Dyane! Everyone else left their cars in the layby at the bottom of the hill. The combination of very good ground clearance, a gutless engine and those super slim tyres ment that the tyres could bite through to the road surface and wheel spin was only a dream! Solid ice was a bit of a problem though. Later we noticed the same thing when my daughter got her first car - a Panda 750. It was on 135×13 tyres and had only slightly more power than the Dyane. Same thing too with good ground clearance, it would go where most others got stuck! Interesting too that ice racers and rally cars when in very slippy conditions run on VERY narrow tyres with lots of studs. They always look rediculously inappropriate under those big wide flared arches!
Nowadays we have a Jazz on 185/55×15 a Punto on 185/60×15 an Ibiza on 185/65×15 (weird size?) and a Panda on 155/80×13. It hasn't snowed since we bought the Panda but the other 3 are "manageable" when it snows and behave really quite well in generally inclemant weather. We also have an Astra on 205/55×16 and a Fabia Scout on 205/40×17 - or maybe they're 215's? (they look like rubber bands - almost no side wall to speak of). In the dry there's no denying that both "hang on" very well indeed. But, in the wet, you really need to be careful. You get used to how well they hang on in the dry and before you know it, when it's wet, you're experiencing a little understeer on roundabouts etc! When there's snow about you really have to watch it! The tyres are just too wide and plane over the top!
I have some experience of winter tyres. They generally have tread patterns which are very good at dispersing water and tread compounds which are soft so more "grippy" on cold wet surfaces and, to some extent, on ice (better than an ordinary, summer, tyre). Well worth considering for road use in winter (but will wear quickly on dry warm roads so not for summer use). Grip in deeper snow and mud depends on the tyre tread pattern's ability to engage with the mud/snow so a bold pattern works best. That is unless the tread gets clogged in which case it's going to spin uselessly anyway! The exception is if you've got something very powerful that can really spin the tyre and throw the mud/snow out of the pattern. For example (and very entertaining to Google) the Icelandic V8 hillclimbers, the American mud bog drag racers, the most powerful "pulling" tractors etc.
I think it's also interesting that both the family cars with the widest tyres suffer wear problems, especially on the inner shoulders and invariably need their track set when new tyres are bought. The others? - not so much. Suspension components wear rates are higher too, but most of all I just don't find them so "nice" to drive in that they both tend to be "jittery" following surface imperfections etc and in the Skoda you feel all the little bumps, due to that skimpy sidewall. Perhaps also worth considering is that they buckled a wheel rim on it last year - big pot hole - but I think a taller sidewall would have just "swallowed" it? Being a wheel only fitted on the Scout model, it wasn't cheap to replace either!
Phew! Went on a bit there didn't I? Still, although there's lots more I could mention, better stop here I think. Hope some of it was useful?
Regards
Jock