Driving to 3 Vallees in my 1.6 Sport

jamjia

Member
Hi guys,

Anyone here have experience in driving the A2 in bad winter weather??? I'm planning to drive to the 3 vallees in france and on their website it is advised that winter tyre and snow chains are fitted? I've been to the region once before and did not see any cars fitted with the recommended equipment and they managed fine, I'm just a little worried that with my 17inch low profiles that I'll struggle. I have 40/205/17 Michelin Pilot Exalto PE2 on the front and Pilot Sports on the back... What is the general opinion on driving in the winter with those tyre on my A2 in the mountains of southern france? A little less speed and more care? Or is that not gonna be enough?

Thanks

Jia
 
I have a fair bit of snow driving experience and drove the A2 in snow as well. I have 185/50/16 Dunlop SP9000 all round. In my experience, the A2's traction control/ABS took care of many things (but not all). I climbed a steep slope which leads to a roundabout all covered in snow. I floored the accelerator all the way and the ASR worked overtime to make the car travel at about 10mph, which I think was top speed with the available traction.

The most important thing driving in snow is never carry too much speed into any corner. Slow right down before changing your direction and you'll be fine. Snow chain is mandatory at many ski-ing resorts too, but you need to find the right size that fits your wheel. Or you can get a couple of steelies and have the correct winter tyres. You can get away with just the front for FWD, the rears are not as important and won't make as much difference as having the fronts.
 
I don't want to spend any money as its a budget holiday lol... But I saw many other oldie cars with no ESP or traction control do just fine around the winding mountain roads... A friend had a 307SW which was fine, the roads were not covered with snow or ice so guess that helped... Can you confirm that the roads were really bad when you were driving in your A2? Thanks for the input, puts me to rest as I've been a little worried that the A2 would totally suck in snow...
 
get some decent winter tyres like conntinentals - absolutely brillinat snow and muid use!

enjoy!
 
jamjia said:
I don't want to spend any money as its a budget holiday lol... But I saw many other oldie cars with no ESP or traction control do just fine around the winding mountain roads... A friend had a 307SW which was fine, the roads were not covered with snow or ice so guess that helped... Can you confirm that the roads were really bad when you were driving in your A2? Thanks for the input, puts me to rest as I've been a little worried that the A2 would totally suck in snow...
yep, I drove the A2 over very ice and snowy roads. All you need to remember is the traction control on the A2 (and many other cars) won't be able to correct corner entry speed being too high.
 
Thanks for the reply humps. Thats excellent news, don't want to spend money and glad that the A2 is up to the task. Cheers!
 
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