[jwi]

In northern Sweden the winter is about 6 months long. I never used snow chains in 20 years of driving tiny front wheel drive cars. And I don’t know anyone up there who has ever used chains on anything but a tractor. (Winter tyres being a legal requirement regardless of conditions)

[GCW]

Thanks all. Sounds like snow tyres plus chains in the boot.

At least the car is AWD.

[SamT]

4 wheel drive and snow tires... 

Pretty sure the chains will be forgotten about in the boot.

[SA Chris]

Thanks all. Sounds like snow tyres plus chains in the boot.

At least the car is AWD.

If it's something you are thinking about doing regularly, it's probably worth looking on breakersyard.com or similar and getting a second set of basic hubs to put the snow tyres on, and save the £80 or so that fitters will charge twice a year for changing the tyres over. I got a set of hubs for our Focus for under £100.     

[GCW]

Cheers Chris. I think this will be a one-off though.

[GCW]

Just to close the loop.

I took the risk on keeping the standard tyres and took chains. Despite having good dumps of snow (six inches on one day) it was fine. We didn’t drive much but when we did there were no issues.

I suspect the type of car and having pretty new tyres with good treads helped.

I think if there was more driving involved, in future winters tyres would be the way to go.

[Fultonius]

Only 6", that's barely even a powder day....

Good trip then?

[andy_e]

What are the roads likely to be like in Brione/Val Bavona in late December/early Jan? Currently running Michelin CrossClimates, would these be OK with snow chains as a backup?

[Fultonius]

As long as they've still got decent tread (>4mm) then nah, you'll be reet.

[andy_e]

Cheers, just need to think about getting a diesel heater installed then!