GolfGTIforum.co.uk
Model specific boards => Golf mk6 => Topic started by: Rolfe on 02 February 2010, 23:25
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After all that effort clearing snow, it's back. Not as much as at Christmas, but still a significant fall. So I thought I'd try the AutoSocks.
They took a bit more effort to fit than I'd expected, but it's not that hard. I didn't even break a fingernail. My main problem was that there wasn't really enough room to get at the near-side wheel in the garage, so I had to run the car out on to the snowy drive to get access to it.
I think they'd be significantly easier to fit to narrower tyres; I found getting them right over the GTi's wide tyres a bit of a fiddle. The elastic is quite a tight stretch. However, it was definitely doable, and although I pushed one sock a bit too far over the top at first, they tend to correct their own fit quite well once you've got to the point of running the car forward. You strong men should have no trouble.
Just as I was finishing, a neighbour walked past and told me the main street of the village was gritted, and if I'd known that I might not have bothered, but it was worth it just to see how they worked.
Down the hill and turn on to the minor road, and the car held the road like glue. No sign of the yellow skid-mark light coming on at all. This was through about 2 inches of snow. As I said, the main street was gritted, so I don't know how well the socks would have handled the hill up to the main road if it hadn't been. However, no problem anyway, it all felt very very stable all the way to the main road.
There I stopped to take them off, though next time I think I'll go on to a layby for safety. They were easy to get off, but by this time they were soaking, dirty and very gritty. I threw them in the boot.
The main road was still quite snowy all the way to work, and I did wonder if I'd done the right thing taking them off, but I was doing 40 without too much trouble so the answer is probably yes. It was when I got to work and had to drive the last section on an ungritted road I really noticed the difference. Even though it was flat, my wheels were slipping and sliding, and the skidding indicator came on several times. I didn't need the socks again, obviously, but the difference in handling was marked.
As it happens, we have a washing machine at work for overalls and lab coats, and I just chucked the wet, dirty, gritty socks in and ran them through. They came out of the spin cycle only a bit damp, and dried on my office radiator by mid-afternoon. I'd have been happy to put them on again like that, but I seriously don't fancy the job of getting them back on in their wet and gritty state. They're folded and back in their bag now. They're not clean as the original colour, but they don't seem damaged at all. Of course I only drove about half a mile in them.
I don't think they're a complete substitute for winter tyres, and if this sort of winter was a regular occurrence I'd definitely get the latter - mainly for the condition of the main road, which happened a lot this winter, gritted but still a lot of snow lying, or occasionally not gritted and a little snow or ice. That's the sort of circumstance where you don't want to crawl at less than 30 on auto-socks, but where summer tyres don't feel entirely safe. However, as a get-you-over-a-bad-section, they're excellent.
As I said, getting them off isn't a hassle. I'm more concerned about getting them on, in the open in a snowstorm. The evening I nearly didn't get home (22nd December), it didn't seem that bad when I left work. However, the further south (and into the Pentlands) I got, the worse it was, until I was crawling on fresh snow, following the tyre tracks of the cars in front. I think foresight is needed, in that sort of situation, to realise you need to find a layby before you can't see anything any more, and get them on. Something to kneel on is also a good idea, as you really need to kneel and it will probably be in snow.
All in all, I'm really glad I have them. If the weather forecast is close to right, I may need them to get me home tomorrow night.
Rolfe.
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No sign of the yellow skid-mark light coming on at all.
Rolfe.
Sorry to be childish but that line made me chuckle!!! :lipsrsealed:
That's a really good review though Morag, and they definately sound like a good investment.
Where I live we're lucky to get snow in the city once a year and then it's only a couple of mm but it snows a bit in the hills around and something like these could be a wise investment.
Winter tyres only work their best at very low temperatures so wouldn't be needed that much in most of Britain (I appreciate things are different for you blue skinned northern types :laugh: ) but something like the socks would come in handy to keep in the boot/garage for extreme weather conditions without having to resort to spending hundreds on a new set of tyres for a few months use, and could well prevent skid marks when your car loses it in the snow
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Thanks for taking the time to post a great review.
Though how about snow chains? They're pretty cheap and easier to clean I suspect.
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Rolfe
Great review.
Sounds like a good emergency item to have.
Did you use the socks on just the front wheels or all four?
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Winter tyres only work their best at very low temperatures so wouldn't be needed that much in most of Britain (I appreciate things are different for you blue skinned northern types
Actually winter tyres work their best in temperatures of 7 degrees C and lower so they are actually very much useful to have living in Britain it's just so few people have em given the cost of an extra set of tyres, alloys or steels to put em on, somewhere to store them and the fact your insurance company will rob you 20 odd quid every time you put em on or take em off (changing the appearance of the car & other BS).
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There's a comparison of the AutoSocks and actual snow chains on the web site of the company that sells both. Summary, snow chains are more expensive, harder to fit, and clank a lot. They may also damage your alloys. On the other hand they are industrial-grade items, and preferred for very extreme conditions like the Alps. Actual measured performance of the two items was broadly comparable though.
I didn't know insurance companies would make any sort of fuss about fitting winter wheels. It probably wouldn't have occurred to me to tell them. On the other hand, I'd be more inclined just to put winter tyres on my 17" wheels anyway - or rather, get Andrew at the garage to do it for me.
Rolfe.
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Have you checked they haven't shrunk after the wash? :nerd:
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Have you checked they haven't shrunk after the wash? :nerd:
surely the greater risk is losing one and ending up with an odd pair? :laugh:
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Rolfe
Great review.
Sounds like a good emergency item to have.
Did you use the socks on just the front wheels or all four?
You only need them on the front (drive) wheels.
The info says put them on the drive wheels, but if you have a rear-wheel-drive car you may need two sets because the steering may be bad. It also says that doing the front wheels only on a four-wheel-drive is fine.
They're not that cheap (just under £70 the pair for the performance-car sizes, including postage), so I wouldn't fancy buying two pairs.
I haven't seen 7oC here for a couple of months. We did reach the dizzy height of 5oC for a short period one afternoon, but mostly it's been struggling to make positive figures at all. There's absolutely no doubt that winter tyres would have been an excellent investment this year.
I don't think they make the AutoSocks redundant though. My impression is that the AutoSocks will get you up snowy hills that winter tyres alone won't handle.
Rolfe.
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I didn't know insurance companies would make any sort of fuss about fitting winter wheels.
The logic being that you have a set of good summer tyres on the monzas and a set of winter tyres on another set of wheels (i.e no monzas, unless you want to shell out on to sets of monzas) so changing the wheels is classed as "modification" which requires declaring.
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Winter tyres only work their best at very low temperatures so wouldn't be needed that much in most of Britain (I appreciate things are different for you blue skinned northern types
Actually winter tyres work their best in temperatures of 7 degrees C and lower so they are actually very much useful to have living in Britain
They may be useful but hardly essential for us southern types. It's about 10 deg here today and we've only had a couple of mm of snow twice now all winter. Hence my reply that the socks would be good for the two days a year I might need them. :smiley:
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They may be useful but hardly essential for us southern types. It's about 10 deg here today and we've only had a couple of mm of snow twice now all winter.
I'm in the south and we were under a foot of the stuff twice in the last 12 months! Honestly, the progress of global warming has been very disappointing :grin:
Good review Rolfe, thanks for letting us know how they worked out.
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really useful review Rolfe thank you for posting
the only thing missing is some photos!
it's the first time i've heard of this thing, and it seems a worthwhile product to have in emergencies, at least for the temporary fix, and chains won't be as abrasive on beloved alloys. and with snowy British winters that only come for a relatively small number of days, fitting winter tyres isn't a viable option.
a few weeks ago when there was quite deep snow, i grabbed the empty rice bags i keep in the boot to line the boot floor to keep the actual boot floor from getting dirty and tried putting it under the drive wheels of my car to help traction. the rice bags are made of this fabric material but still quite tough (if you wondering how i got them, lets say i 'acquired them' from a take-away shop!)
i have to say it didn't work very well because as soon as i applied power to get up the drive, the rice bag just went under the tyre, and spun round and flung the bag into the middle of the street. also i was a bit worried the bag might get stuck under the car somewhere. probably not safe, but i was kinda desperate to get the car up the drive by myself so i was thinking all crazy ideas.
obviously i needed a way to wrap the bag around the tyre, which i neither had the time or implements or the necessary thought-power to think how i could do it.
but this Autosock obviously takes this idea of using fabric to grip and puts it in a convenient product that seems to be easy to install and requires no special modifications to the vehicle. it's maybe a bit too late for me to consider getting one now as the snow in Greater Manchester hasn't been that bad lately, but maybe next season would have to check it out - by then i would hope i will actually have a real GTI to drive :undecided:
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Here's the web site where I actually ordered the product. There are several pictures there.
http://www.roofbox.co.uk/car-snow-socks/
Click on the tabs and look at all the pages relating to the product. There's a lot of information there. The "performance" version you need for the GTi is a bit more expensive, presumably due to the wheel width. It also has extra stabilising straps across the wheel diameter.
I think the comment about "more effective than winter tyres" is a bit disingenuous. It's obviously true, and elsewhere on the site they show how the performance of winter tyres is improved by the AutoSocks. However, they're a lot more comparable to snow chains, in that you can't simply drive all winter (or even for a whole journey if a lot of it is going to be on treated roads) on the things, you have to keep taking them off and on. You're restricted to 30mph while you're wearing them, and there's a warning about car handling due to the huge difference in traction between front and rear wheels.
They're a practical and cheap (though I imagine less durable) alternative to snow chains to get you around in severe snow, especially up hills. Once you're actually driving (as opposed to carefully negotiating very bad conditions), off they come. And as I said, putting them back on again after you've been driving on a gritted section without having shown them the inside of a washing machine first, isn't something I fancy much. I'm also a little nervous of getting them on at the side of the road, in the dark, in a sub-zero snowstorm.
Rolfe.
PS. This page
http://www.roofbox.co.uk/car-snow-socks/autosock-company.php
has a good picture of the performance version of the AutoSocks. The ones in the photo are clearly brand new, they don't stay that white.
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Before my AutoSocks arrived, I saw my new neighbour (moved into the house at the top of the road on about 15th January, but was running up and down before then) with a pair on her small hatchback.
The road where I live is a fairly short cul-de-sac which rises to a hill at the far end. I saw the neighbour who has one of the two end houses in serious trouble a couple of times in his estate car. He would get about half way, over the less sloping part of the road where there was also more traffic, then completely stall on the last bit. He had to call for help on his mobile phone, and I saw a lot of digging and shovelling going on.
The other end house is the one that was changing hands. The previous occupants got out just in time the day before the very heavy snow. The new people were reported to be stuck at their end, in a rented house three miles up into the hills above the village at the end of a single-track road which is fairly steep in places. But hey, they showed up, driving that very ordinary little hatchback, and negotiated our road apparently with no trouble at all. They were even turning into the drive, which hadn't been cleared. That was when I noticed the AutoSocks on the front wheels of that car, and boy, the difference was very obvious. Apparently they were managing to get up and down that three-mile road up to the house they were renting, using these things. And knowing that road (some of it is very exposed and was bound to be affected by drifts, I wouldn't have gone near it), this was seriously impressive.
Rolfe.