Snow chains

[Cygnus]

Has anyone used snow chains on their Polo GTI? Are they needed? I'm contemplating whether or not to drive it down to the snow this year.

[MissVuks]

From what i gather every car needs to have chains available except for 4WDs. Theres some days you might not need them, theres some days you will.. I went 2 winters ago in my mums mazda sp23 and we always had chains in the car in case there was a big dump of snow while your on the ski fields..

better to be safe then sorry

[neil]

Has anyone used snow chains on their Polo GTI? Are they needed? I'm contemplating whether or not to drive it down to the snow this year.

Don't get caught in the snow fields without snow chains, big big fine.(4WD ok).
You can normally hire them where you hire snow gear.
Have a sleep in and hit the snow mid morning and let the early birds break
up all the ice before you arrive.

And make sure if you need to put snow chains on put them on the front.
Chains go on the drive. seen plenty of people with front wheel drives and
chains on the rear.

[Ben_GTI]

Well you can use chains, or its like a free skidpan day. Well I had fun anyway.

You will get fined if you don't carry them, but I don't think you have to use them

[gareth_oau]

saw the funniest pratt at Thredbo last year - in a commodore.

From our apartment window watched him attempt to drive up a hill with no chains on - tried about 5 times and slid back down each time.

eventually he got a set of chains out the boot, but they really didnt look like they fitted properly.

anyway, he had a "pretty good try" at fitting them and on the way up the hill, they flicked off and damaged all his paintwork

[callen]

If your hiring chains to put on your pogo make sure you check if they fit before driving up the mountain.

The reason for this is the standard chains that you hire are very thick and will struggle to fit under the guards on a pogo and definately won't fit under a lowered pogo. They have a different type that you need to hire that cost twice as much.

I went to Buller last year in a friend's Saab 93 turbo which wasn't lowered and has much more wheel clearance than a pogo and we still couldn't fit the standard chains which are about $20-25 to hire for a weekend. The ones we had to get were $60 to hire for a weekend.

[Ben_GTI]

Driving back from Perisher Blue on a family holiday, we drove past the police 4WD putting snow chains on in the XR6 whilst sideways. The coppers just watched with their mortified looks on their faces while we went around the corner and fishtailed the next kilometer up the hill. Great fun, it was more fun than the snowboarding the week before

Best bit is the cops didn't try following hahaha.

[neil]

Well you can use chains, or its like a free skidpan day. Well I had fun anyway.

You will get fined if you don't carry them, but I don't think you have to use them

Don't drive past the chain fitting bay if the notice board states to fit them.

[Cygnus]

Thanks everyone for their replies. Just a couple more questions, when I fit the chains onto the wheels, how well does the ESP behave? Also, do I need to add any anti-freeze or is the coolant good enough? Any other prep work I need to do?

[tobes]

Any other prep work I need to do?

You could try a snow dance or two it looks like we'll need it this season. Hopefully it snows before I get down there at the end of August.

On another note you only need chains if you're going to Thredbo, Perisher you can just catch the Tube up.

Tobes

[gareth_oau]

its actually snowing today (you can see it if you use a magnifying glass) but be quick, it'll all be melted in another 10 minutes

According to BOM, the official snow depth near Charlotte Pass (@ 1830m) is 8.7cm

[leasaunce]

arent snow chains illegal (here in Australia) on the road...?? I know they're illegal in Vancouver.

[goodfella]

does the 4motion on my bora count as 4wd?

I am thinking of taking the family to the snow this year but havent done it before, where do people recommend...don't mean to hijack this thread.

[Buller_Scott]

chains are not illegiol

the difference is that vancouver only has spatterings of snow here and there, and with huge city traffic, the snow never really stays solid on the tarmac for long enough to be problematic (in around the city).

up in the australian alpine region, however, with much less traffic and the tendency to snow more when it DOES dump (especially in ski resort villages etc), you get all sorts of wogs not knowing why their cars are slip sliding all over the place.

if you're in the market for chains, check out the carmate biathlon snow belt- polyeurethane 3 piece belt with titanium studs in it- 3 step fitting process, and no having to drive forward for a couple of hundred meters to retighten. they're pretty sweet. and japanese, so you know they're gonna be the quickest to fit, seeing as japan has the best snow in the world and yet them buggers dont fit chains to their tyres......

EDIT: i only know this from experience i.e. ive seen it snow in both Vancouver and at Australian ski resorts- and im in no way saying australia gets more snow than north van or bc (yay! its now almost july and there's no god damn snow), but what i meant to say is that the use of chains in downtown Vancouver would be much more detrimental to the roads than it would be to the last 4-5 kms of road leading up to mt buller, because of the on-road snow levels......

[Roodosutaa]

Not as good as the Carmate one but this set of Korean chains look like they'll fit the Pog:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/LUXURY-COMPACT-URETHANE-SNOW-CHAIN-SIZE-7_W0QQitemZ200233999027QQihZ010QQcategoryZ21232QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Not too sure about the strength of the bungee cord though...