Big wheels and small tyres aren't everything

[Neil Brown]

Just returned from Italy for my annual pilgramage to pay homage to the great white stuff gods of the mountains.
On my way there, in Switzerland, I first encountered the ice. Slid at 35mph straight. should really have gone left around the bend, but the pirelli's decided to take me and the wife on a helter skelter, removing a six-foot post, bouncing off the three-foot snowdrift, across the road into the path of an oncoming fearless swiss driver. Readjusted in time informing said pirelli's to behave, and a few hundred metres later, stopped to an expected massively damaged front end... boy did I get a surprise. The drivers side fog-light binnacle was pointing at me as if to raise a shocked eyebrow, and I pushed it back into place, but that was the entire damage. I was absolutely gobsmacked. You see the swiss put these plastic poles at the side of the road, not as edge markers, no that would be too easy. No grit or salt on the road either. It turns out that the poles are to show the depth of the snow..... Why? can they not see it is deep?
Anyway, soon afterwards on an incline foretelling the pass o the Vereina Tunnel, the car decided'Stuff this, I cannot move another inch on these slippery fellahs. Pirelli's just aren't any good for climbing hills. At least not with a little snow on them. Out with the dreaded Snow chains. I only bought them because it is a legal requirement to carry them. I had no intention at all of actually using them. Have you ever tried fitting them? Me neither. it looked easy on the video.... but when you slide into a drift, backwards, just a few feet from an oblivion drop over the edge, and cannot open your driver's door due to the depth of snow, it becomes a reality check. Wife with coal scuttle shovel, freezing fingers, snow blowing into every nook and cranny, and a general feeling of 'why do we do this? seemed to add to the confusion, and it took some twenty minutes to get each chain around each unforgiving piece of useless pirelli. Truth is, you fit them, drive a few feet, lock and adjust them. Well mine went OK, but my travelling partner put his wife into the driving seat for that bit. 'Move a couple of feet forward dear' suddenly became a Le Mons GP start. Bang, and bits of chain link fly everywhere. It is amazing what you can do with plastic tieclips.
Anyway, we got there, had a great holidaY, got the chains repaired there, and drove home from Italy in 12 hours and 14 minutes.
Now the moral of all this entertainment is that you should ALWAYS prepare for a long trip, and the unexpected. and change those crappy 17" rims with sporty pirelli wafer-like tyres, to something that you can really USE on a 170 TDI sports Passat.
VW, I hope you read this, and realise how close your decision to fit ridiculously uncontrollable wheels and tyres as standard fitments came to causing two more fatalities on the European roads.

My next car may well be another Passat, but I shall specify some useable rubber to hold it on the road. Ouch !!!

Neil.