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First Snow Today - New Snow Tires and Rear-ended!

1K views 5 replies 5 participants last post by  Steve (Austria) 
#1 ·
Hi All!

Just got new Continental WinterContact 4x4 installed today. This is the first time I am going with a dedicated winter tire on the ML. Until now I have had the Dunlop Grandtek OEM's. Since we are planning on going up to Finnland over the holidays, I wanted to make sure we had good equipment to handle the conditions in Lapland.

So of course as part of the tire inaugeration today, I had to break heavily in traffic and was promptly rear-ended by a small Renault. Needless to say, the ML won. I have the standard OEM Hitch, and it seems to provide moderate protection in the case of light collisions. Although his entire front section, license plate, bumber and cooler grill were smashed into pieces, I could only see a very small scratch on my bumper.

I don't know what the damage would have been if I had not had the hitch, but it would have for sure been more to me, and less to him.

Needless to say, the Conti's have great grip in cold weather wet streets!
 
#4 ·
I would still check to see if the hitch might have flexed the underpinnings a little. When I installed mine, I noticed how it could pull away from the frame in an accident.

Glad you won out!!
 
#5 ·
bocobod - 11/24/2005 6:44 PM

Ouch! Glad nobody was hurt. You've got me thinking about installing a hitch.
We've got the DrawTite hitch that sticks out about 3-4 inches from the bumper. And we've got this cool hitch cover that has a light in it, so whenever we brake the lights goes on.[:D] If we had the hitch receiver on it too that would stick out about 5 inches![:0]Awesome for an accident.
 
#6 ·
How bad do the Winters get over there? What is the most popular vehicle of choice in Austria in the snowy weather?
Do Renault and Peugeot have trucks on the market?


Actually I would say that our winters are a bit milder than say those of the midwest or canada. However, we do have a lot of mountains, which means lots of snow in those areas. Winter tires are more or less required if you leave the major cities, and the police will frequently close some mountain passes unless you put chains on, or have all-wheel drive.

The most popular trucks (only SUV's actually) are in the luxury end : MB, BMW, Range Rover, VW (Toureg?) and Porsche. You can see, that most are focused on high-speed autobahn capabilities, and not "hardcore" offroading. As far as I know, there is no "French" SUV at this time,
 
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