jonnzee

Yeah I completely agree. I've driven for years in front wheel drive vehicles in bad conditions especially snow and never even touch the brakes, purely use the gearing system to brake. I just haven't got any experience of RWD cars in snow (having seen loads sliding everywhere it makes me feel uneasy) but now I'm going over to a xDrive hopefully there's more grip and once I sort the tyres out it should be a lot easier. To add to it all, the gearbox is an auto too so I'm wondering how good it will be using the manual shifter to try to brake that way as opposed to stamping on the brakes. It'll all be good fun I guess!

Thanks mate, I think winter tyres may be the way to go. I know german motors, particularly BMW's and Mercedes are well loved in eastern europe where the weather is known to get bad during winter and they never seem to have much of a problem getting about. That being said, would an xDrive still face similar problems running the usual summer tyre on an icey road? I can't see it being great but on winter tyres it should probably be a breeze...

Hiya mate, Thanks very much for the reply and advice. Crazy as it may sound, I'm planning to now swap the 5 Series in for a 330D xDrive F31 (Touring) which are sadly also coming with run flats. Not sure how these will fair in bad weather with the xDrive but will most likely run them down then possibly swap for a winter tyre to use all year round but its just choosing the right tyre I suppose. Most of my miles, mainly to work are motorway miles and I don't live too far away before getting onto a main road so it should be ok even if we do have snow/ice covered roads as predicted soon this year... I'll definitely look into the winter tyres, any idea how much yours set you back? Cheers

Hi all, I managed to find this forum via google and just looking for some advice. I've only owned my 2013 BMW 520D for about 6 months and although I have been driving for some years this is my first RWD car as I've come from owning Ford's & VW's mainly. Although now approaching the Winter months I've noticed the tyres slipping a bit and recently coming out of a muddy firework display car park the other week the car felt like it didn't want to drive at all. I'm currently on Bridgestone Turanza ER300 245/45R18 Run flats which are coming towards the end of their lives on the rear end and just wondered what you would advise to change them with? I was tempted to get a complete set of alloys fitted with winter tyres but I honestly don't think the weather in the UK ever really get THAT bad to warrant forking out on them. Any advice or even driving the 5 series in wet, ice conditions would be much appreciated. Cheers, John.