Winter tires rental in summer

Where is the hottest summer?

Hady There is a real concern about longer braking distances due to generally softer compound of winter tyres. I'm not up to date on the legal issues surrounding culpability, so won't comment on that. If you want to swap the car, and have some time on your hands, I'd try a big rental car branch (perhaps more than once), see what they have on the lot, and then ask nicely for a swap. I'm not sure who you're renting with and where you're usually based, so it might be helpful to disclose that here so people can make suggestions for where to try a swap. I am not aware of any XDAR vehicles with all seasons or indeed summer tyres installed, though. BMWs at Sixt used to have summer tyres when fitted with the M-Package, but I'm not sure that's the case anymore. Anyway, best to supply some details and hope that people from this forum can give you some pointers as to where to try.

Good luck!

Zitat von chm80

Where is the hottest summer?

Dunno, here in Munich we barely hit 12 degrees today.

BTT, At higher temps I too would be concerned if I had a vehicle with winter-specific tyres. I had to slam on the brakes in 26 degree „heat“ and wrestled the car to keep it in the lane on a straight stretch of road.

This is compounded by the fact that some countries have rather odd rules (cough Italy cough) meaning winter tyres are currently not allowed unless the v-max rating of the tyre is higher than the maximum speed the car is capable of according to its registration papers. This is also a very real concern for me as we‘re planning on heading to Italy in a fortnight.

You need to keep in mind that the higher the vehicle class, the less wiggle-room they have to find a suitable vehicle for you, considering a metric shit-ton of the current fleet were all mothballed vehicles with winter tyres.

So all you can do is explain the problem you have to an RSA and hope they have something available. BUT (huge heads-up) double check your rental contract and ensure you aren’t required to return that exact vehicle to the exact station you rented it from - I’ve seen this in a couple of X*** rental contracts with ridiculous fines - I had one rental contract that stated a recovery fee of €1,500 if I dropped the car off elsewhere. I don’t think it’s standard, but happens.

So where does this leave you? Well, between a rock and a hard place. But at least your hard place has rather comfortable seats.

First of all Hady,

Happy to see that the station was able to organize a XDAR car for your booking. Is it correct to assume that this car is part of your seasons-rental? If that is the case I belive that limits your choice of stations for a potential car change, as discussed in the other topic.

You said that you plan to travel all-across europe with your car. Please keep in mind the regulations of Sixt when travelling to foreign countries. I am not sure if this applies to your seasons-rental as well, but in general with a XDAR car your are only allowed into countries of category 1. Category 1 includes:

Note especially that Poland and CZ are missing, in case you had plans to go there. If you ignore this you´ll loose all coverage of your insurance. Just keep that in mind, as a general advice.

As for the tires: afaik it is legal here in germany. Only during winter times you are required to have winter tires, or at least all-seasons, but not summer tires. Again, afaik there are no such rules when it comes to summer since - as you said - the only downside to winter tires in summer are the higher wear plus a slightly increased distance required for stopping.

If I recall correctly however, Italy in particular is pretty strict when it comes to the tires. It might be worth reading into it. If you´d discover i.e. that italy requires summer tires by law, I´d then just tell sixt that i´d plan to travel to italy and that i´d require a car that complies with local law. I guess that would be your best way to go about it.

But in all honesty winter tires on your car shouldn´t bother you too much. There is a marginal difference, sure, but nothing that a safe driver, a drive that respects minimum required distance etc., should have to worry about under normal circumstances.

So, enjoy your stay and drive safely!

Zitat von FrankK.

There is a marginal difference, sure, but nothing that a safe driver, a drive that respects minimum required distance etc., should have to worry about under normal circumstances.

Keine einschlägigen Informationen über Methodologie der Tests, aber erste Anhaltspunkte wären:

https://www.adac.de/rund-ums-f…heit/winterreifen-sommer/

https://www.meinauto.de/lp-bre…Wechsel%20zu%20verzichten.

Yeah, that's a bit scary - up to 16 meters difference? That's the difference between "Puh, that was close" and the cops telling your family "Don't worry, he didn't feel a thing. Neither did the occupants in the 3 cars in front of him".

You can try to point out the legal situation in Italy where the tires' speed index have to be greater then the car's maximum speed. This is normally not the case with winter tires.

I wouldn´t focus to strongly on the linked articles.

Lets do a quick check: In Germany you need to keep appropriate distance to the person in front of you (otherwise you put yourself and others in risk and may receive fines as well). The rule of thumb is: half of your speed should be the minimum distance. So at 100 Km/H -> keep at least 50 Meter distance to the car in front. Lets keep that in mind.

So you drive on a "Bundesstraße" at 100 Km/H (=speed limit) with winter tires, the road surface is dry, the car in front has summer tires and suddenly brakes full force. You do the same, but between you seeing it and applying full brake 0.8 to 1.0 seconds pass by, according to wikipedia. Lets assume 1.0 second. At 100 Km/h you traveled 27,7 meters forward during that second.

So in the begining you had 50 meters distance, now you have 22,3 meters left. Both of you continue to apply full brakes and both come to a complete stand still. According to the linked source this takes you 18 meters more than the car in front. Meaning you now still have 4,3 meters between you and the car in front.

So really, as long as you keep the required safety distances you should be fine. This all of course does not take in to account that a luxury-class sedan as the S350 has a very strong and advanced braking systems (usually disk brakes all around).

I couldn´t find any statements in the article regarding which cars they used, however, I´d assume it wasn´t a S-Class. So maybe they just had drum brake on the rear axle, which is common in small/mid-size cars in europe, in order to lower costs. Drum brakes however don´t stop the car as fast.

So I´d take the stance to say: with the S-Class the difference in braking distance would be less dramatical.

Anyhow - on the subject of your request: Best bet imho wouldn´t be to argue with them regarding safety. Its a S-Class after all. Try instead to check the local italian law regarding tires. If Italy indeed requires you to have summer tires, well, makes it easy, doesn´t it? Just tell Sixt you need to travel to italy on a frequent basis (they have no business in doubting that in any way) and therefore would like to kindly ask to receive a car that complies with local italian laws. I don´t see how they could deny your wish in this case.

That last posting doesn't make sense to me. The articles are based one science and measurements while the posting lacks logic.

The breaking-system is irrelevant as the difference is only caused by the tyres and the rest of the car stays in the way it was during testing.

And as soon as we move the Autobahn and assume that we go at 140, our breaking distance roughly doubles. If it was 35m vs 50m before, it is now 70m vs 100m. That is an 80kph impact.

If we (most likely wrongly) assume the car ADAC used was a Gf Mk II, we would be at 50m vs 65m at 100kph and 100 vs 130m at a bit over 140 kph. The Problem would stay similar.

And that's for breaking once. Plus you loose the ability to safely steer the vehicle during breaking, plus the tires overheat more easily and this increases the problem even more. (The S Class can go way more than 140kph and the tyres can already be stressed due to cornering, breaking before etc.)

So the wrong tyres significantly increase the risk of bodily harm and dramatically reduce the margin of (acceptable) error. The safe distances are out not to compensate for stupid tyre choices, but for unforeseen events. (The car in front might crash, it wont take 35m to stop then, will it?)

That said I wouldn't worry toooooooo much as keeping enough space does significantly increase the chances and the rules are made in regard to crappy cars, a high tech car like the S Class performs similar to a 30 year old car if it's ill equipped (in terms of breaking).

Still: That's completely unnecessary and the fact that people usually survive the consequences doesn't solve the underlying problem. Having experienced breaking a Renault Megane from 180kph to near zero using all-season tyres on a really hot day, I wouldn't even consider those remotely acceptable for my personal car.

The winter tire issue is an increasingly big problem, as it seems that every year there is an lower percentage of cars on summer tires, whilst the amount of hot days are getting more (https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/indikator-heisse-tage) and more extreme.

Even during low temperatures in winter, summer tires are more safe and better to handle than winter tires, as long as the roads are dry.


But for this special case Hardy , there is no solution, because as far as I know ALL XDAR cars in the fleet ATM are on full-winter tires. Even the new S-Classes with AMG package, which where infleet mid-may are on full-winter tires. The only cars I know are some BMW X5 40i on summer tires, and there might be some S63 AMG or M760li with summer tires.

For what I know, almost all current cars (which are no Cabriolet or real M or AMG models), are on winters, as BMW and MB seemed to have changed their habits and are delivering nearly every car on winter tires only, no matter if M package or AMG package. Audi has only a few A6 allroad on ST, but have almost always delivered their cars on winter tyres... so no news there.

I personally think it’s ridiculous - if they specifically mention that a car can be taken to Italy, then they bloody well should ensure it is actually legal to take there. If Sixt is ok with having winter tyres specced on all their vehicles, then at least they should ensure that the V-Max index is correct for that car so it meets the guidelines.

or Sixt just straight up removes Italy from the list of countries that you are allowed to take their cars to during the restricted period.

Imagine if Ryobi sold a tool specifically stating in the fine print it was ok to use domestically, but failing to disclose that you can only do so if said tool comes with a certain expensive accessory, otherwise it invalidates your home & contents insurance and even result in a fine for using it indoors without said accessory? For some reason people are ok with this BS from Sixt, but I bet these would be the very same people screaming bloody murder if Ryobi did it.