Hello All,

Got a couple of questions related to my Mk1 Fabia as I'm heading to Germany at Easter to do some skiing.

German law requires winter tyres to be fitted, so was thinking about getting a new set of steel rims and putting the winter tyres on those, as I'll use them again next winter. Does anyone have any ideas where I can find a cheap set? I've looked on eBay to no avail. Would I be better off just changing the tyres over themselves?

Also, I'll need to sort out fluids in the engine to cope with potentially colder weather. I'll look to change the coolant and washer fluid. Do I need to sort out anything else?

Cheers

wg

Try mytyres.co.uk and get them deliverd and then fitted locally to yourself.

I'm running Nokian all weather plus which have the snowflake in a mountain and are V rated, so should be more than good enough for the fabia's top speed.

Very good tyres and if you want they also have the WR, WR G2 and the vredesein wintrac xtreme.

In terms of fluids make sure your antifreeze is up to strength (possibly have it changed if it's old or been diluted).

If you're near to an oil change point it's worth having new oil and filter as that will be thinner at cold temperatures so put less strain on the starter etc.

If the car has done over 50k on the gear box oil then it's possibly worth doing, but that's as a general thing anyway and the only reason i mention it is if you have hard gear changes now, they will be even harder in the cold.

HTH

Anything from a MK4 Golf should fit. Widen your search to that, Seat Leon, Octavia etc...

I would recommend Vredestein winter tyres for the Fabia. I would suggest their all-season Quatrac (2 or 3) or their winter Wintrac tyres. We have Quatrac 2's on my mums fabia and they are good in snow. The only problem is they do not make them for the vRS.

Vredestein summer tyres (Hi-trac and Sportrac) always come top of the Auto-Express tyre tests. As mentioned above Nokian also make decent all-season/winter tyres.

Hhmm... Winter tires thread in Briskoda?! I cant' believe it! :eek:

Now seriously - here we use winter tires from end of October to end of March, so I have some experience.

I have had Pirelli Snowsport SN210 and GoodYear Eagle Ultra Grip on the Fabia (205/45/16 size). Both were pretty good, but had some disadvantages.

The Pirellis are good on dry and wet asphalt, also snow, but performance on ice was poor. Braking was not bad, but could be better. They are also quite heavy and difficult to be balanced on the rim.

GoodYear Eagle Ultra Grip is the high-performance model and is really great for high speed dry and wet asphalt driving, good on aquaplanning as well. Not bad on snow and ice. They have one major disadvantage that you need to keep in mind always - when it gets warmer than 9-10° grip magicly disappears and braking becomes mediocre. :( Quite lighter compared to the pirellis, but louder (scarilly loud sometimes, if you are not prepared) . Otherwise, if it is below 10° they are superb.

Other winter tires that I can recommend highly are Nokia WR G2. I haven't tested them in the Fabia vRS size though. My old man's got them on his Outlander, which I drive when going skiing or for fun in the mountain. They are really great in the snow, doesn't really matter that they are huge - 235/50/18. Also, they behave very well driven on dry and wet asphalt. Performance is all the same with all sorts of temperature. They are loud, but not so bad.

Several friends of mine that I trust, have rated very high Michelin Pilot Alpin 2 and Yokohame W.Drive, so consider them as well.

As for all season tires - I had a set of the best on my Astra GSi, which were GoodYear Vector series. They were quite good during the summer, but a compromise during the winter. I don't recommend them.

Winter motoring with the Fabia is great. No problems for me, expect one - keep the window washing solution with high concentration. Otherwise it freezes and the hoses pop off the pump, you loose the washer jets and to pop them back on you have to remove the front bumper.

Enjoy your ski trip.

Dont forget in Germany left side movement:)

Forgot to add - if you are buying new steelies they can be 15' with 185/55/15 tires.

If you know some German you can check these tests, the best by far: Winterreifen-Test, der ADAC-Winterreifentest