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Does anyone take their beast to the snow?
Snow driving
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Is the car actually controllable on snow tires? What is the exact size of the tire you are getting for the front and rear? Thanks
I'm also planning on driving my car all winter, but this will be my first season with the M5, and i've put pirelli Sottozero on the OEM 19" rims so i'm looking forward to the handling 
Last winter i had an RS4 Avant also with 19" but that car had so amazing grip with the 4 wheel drive. And before that i drove and M3 E46 convertible for two winters and it was all right once you got used to it.
Last winter i had an RS4 Avant also with 19" but that car had so amazing grip with the 4 wheel drive. And before that i drove and M3 E46 convertible for two winters and it was all right once you got used to it.
With snow tires the M5 runs just fine in the snow, as long as it's not too deep. I run OEM M6 staggered wheels with non-staggered tires. The tires are Bridgestone Blizzack LM-22 with size 255/40-19 all around based on a recommendation from Luke at tire rack (check out his annual winter tire post). He recommended the smaller front size for the rears for better snow performance with the added benefit of being able to rotate front to rear to prolong the life of the set.
This is bad advice....I live in an area called "the snow belt" that averages over 100" of snow...https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/handle/1811/23329 and you will go absolutely nowhere on summer tires...
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In 100" of snow i'd expect nobody to be going anywhere in anything other than a Skidoo, BV206 or similar 'oversnow' vehicle (or maybe ski's or snowshoes). Thats over 9 feet of snow, about as tall as a bus. Are you sure your not tunneling under the snow? lol. Driving on ice or snow is all about knowing how ice and snow works / reacts and how your car can affect it. Once you have grasped that its easy (ish). lol True, not all cars are suited to snow or ice conditions but that doesnt mean they cant be used.
Here in Britain we dont really get much snow so to speak. What we get is actually worse. We get snow (normally a wet and warm flake), then freezing rain, then a deep freeze. The result is a lovely thick balnket of sheet ice with a crust of frozen snow on top. Then the gritters come along and either turn it into slush (which is ok but filled with salt and stones), or plough off the top layer to reveal a fine sheet of slick black ice. No car, no matter what the tyres its running (unless studded) is good in these conditions. As i said above, learning how the ice, snow or crust can work for you is the best way to being able to drive safely in these conditions. Simple skills is all it needs.
Eddie
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Just picked up Michelin PA3's and while we've had no snow yet they have been excellent in the downpours recently.
I am positive the car will perform well.
I am positive the car will perform well.
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last year in the UK you had what some people in the US would consider a mild snowstorm, and the whole country stopped functioning for days on, did you drive the M5 with summer tires in those days ? and how far from you garage door did you go ? 1 meter, 2 meters ? ........2.5 meter ?
Lets not make this a cock swinging match about who had the biggest snow storm. I too have seen real snow. Ive spent many months working and living (sometimes only just surviving) in the arctic circle. Ive operated in temperatures of -62c, suffered weeks of constant white-out, driven across glaciers, through snow drifts and over frozen lakes and rivers. Ive also driven standard cars in the same conditions with a near perfect success rate.
Asking me how far i got out of my garage is neither funny, clever nor welcome. This is a site for constructive commenting / criticism, not belittling people you have never met and know nothing about. I'd challenge you to take your experience of dry snow over here to the **** we have to deal with. Youd need a whole new set of rules and i'd imagine youd be stuck faster than you can say, 'ah crap!'. Im not saying your environment is easy to operate in, its just different. I just dont like people telling everyone they need to spend hundreds of dollars / pounds on snow tyres they probably wouldnt need if they knew how to drive correctly in the conditions.
My last car was a 510bhp / 550lbft Audi RS6. Granted it was a Quattro, but it still had summer tyres on with 275/30/19 profile. Thats a lot of torque to put through any car (Quattro is rear drive biased too). I never had a single problem with the snow we had last year, or any year for that matter. I drove from the south coast of England right up to the North of Scotland in appalling conditions without a single issue and felt very safe in doing so. There were cars abandoned everywhere and the roads were 'so called' closed due to the conditions but as per usual it was down to poor skills by drivers that the closure calls were made.
As i said before, its simple skills that are required.
I drive mine in the cold too. The trick to remember is straight out of the manual - you can't break the laws of physics even with the most advanced stability control systems in a car possible. Take corners easy. Don't drive like an idiot. Assume everyone else is an idiot and give them all the caution you can give them safely. Get the best set of winter tires you can get (I love me some Bridgestone Blizzacks LP-60s). Before you go driving think do you really need to? I've driven in some horrible horrible blizzards because I was young and foolish and I made a promise to myself to never drive in one again if I can help it. Get a cell phone. Keep safety gear in the car. Make sure your clevis is in the trunk in case you biff it into the ditch somewhere. Keep track of where you are in case you need to dial 911 (I am ~3-4km east of this town etc.) Always keep at least a half a tank of gas in the machine in case you get trapped somewhere and have to wait. Take the cruise control off when going up hills when they are icy. I bet there is more advice to give, but most of it is just second nature for a guy coming from the middle of no where in the great white north. I signed up for the BMW Canada Winter Driver training in Montreal this February and I hope they will teach me some more ways to not die out here in winter.
I tell you one thing though, I'd much rather drive my M5 in the snow than most other vehicles out there. Last year I was driving along the highway and I saw a few vehicles in the ditch from the snow and I was happily just driving along. Then I saw a cop car in the ditch getting pulled out. I was laughing for about 2-3 km down the road about it till I saw why the cop was in the ditch. He was trying to do a u-turn to go help out an accident that was very bad. I just happened to get there when I saw the ambulance with no lights on and people not running that hard lift up a body bag into the ambulance. Winter driving is a serious matter and as long as you do it safely, you can do it without any problem, but don't be stupid about it.
I tell you one thing though, I'd much rather drive my M5 in the snow than most other vehicles out there. Last year I was driving along the highway and I saw a few vehicles in the ditch from the snow and I was happily just driving along. Then I saw a cop car in the ditch getting pulled out. I was laughing for about 2-3 km down the road about it till I saw why the cop was in the ditch. He was trying to do a u-turn to go help out an accident that was very bad. I just happened to get there when I saw the ambulance with no lights on and people not running that hard lift up a body bag into the ambulance. Winter driving is a serious matter and as long as you do it safely, you can do it without any problem, but don't be stupid about it.
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Thanks but, I don't need reminders about the code of conduct in this site. I was not trying to be funny, just stating the obvious facts. Fact is you have not driven the M5 with summers in the snow, although you had good experiences with the RS6, so you assume it is the same.
Second, the M5 manual pretty much explicitly states that the car should not be used with summer tires in the winter.
Quote from the manual:
" BMW recommends winter tires for use in cold winter driving conditions. Although all-season M+S tires provide better winter traction than summer tires, they generally fail to provide the same levels of cold-weather performance as winter tires."
According to my US dealer the car should not be driven with the summer Pilot Sports if the temperature is below 4C....period
Driving with summer tires over snow covered roads in the middle of nowhere, is totally different that trying to keep up with fast moving traffic in a 3 lane US highway during a snowstorm....the SUV's with snow tires do not even slow down....same for the salt trucks....
Finally, I lived in the UK and still travel there very very often, actually last year when you had the big snow storms I was there, so I know ....
My drive is Milwaukee/Oshkosh/Minneapolis. This is not the snow belt but we get plenty of snow.
There is a world of difference with snow tires on my 530i and should be beneficial for the M5 as well.
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So, DSC on or off, or MDM when driving in snow? This will be my first year driving on LM-22s. In the dry they seem quite normal. I REALLY hope they perform good.
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A lot of good info here. Shopping for tires at tirerack as we speak. Thanks!!!
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I am not judging others' winter tire and winter driving experiences, but I know when a member from Saskatchewan (frieseke) talks about winter driving that they are fully up to speed on what a real winter is. Last year when I lived there, my 335xi was frozen in the driveway for a week when temperatures dropped to lower than -40 C for four days in a row. That's the point where C and F temperatures meet. And I proved definitively the BMW bullshite about their vehicles not needing a block heater because they use synthetic oils is complete crap...
Anyway, I had a fun M5 experience this week. I drove my Sepang Bronze beauty with Hankook V12s on the last nice day of the year, and parked in front of the house overnight. Over the next few days it snowed 8 or 10", then temps dropped to -25 C. Weekend rolls around and I went to drive around to the garage to put on the winters. The car is sitting on bare pavement as it was parked before it snowed, I packed down the snow in front of it so I could get a run at the alley but the car just sat there and spun up. It took several minutesto negotiate it out of the spot and into the snow covered alley, and another several attempts to get up the 4" rise from the alley into the garage. When I got the tires off and took a good look at them, I couldn't believe how hard and slick they were. That's pretty extreme though, as summers are not really designed to work at -25 to say the least. But on go the Pirelli Sottozeros and presto magic, I can drive again!
Anyway, my firsthand experience says if it is cold and/or snowy, winter tires are required.
Anyway, I had a fun M5 experience this week. I drove my Sepang Bronze beauty with Hankook V12s on the last nice day of the year, and parked in front of the house overnight. Over the next few days it snowed 8 or 10", then temps dropped to -25 C. Weekend rolls around and I went to drive around to the garage to put on the winters. The car is sitting on bare pavement as it was parked before it snowed, I packed down the snow in front of it so I could get a run at the alley but the car just sat there and spun up. It took several minutesto negotiate it out of the spot and into the snow covered alley, and another several attempts to get up the 4" rise from the alley into the garage. When I got the tires off and took a good look at them, I couldn't believe how hard and slick they were. That's pretty extreme though, as summers are not really designed to work at -25 to say the least. But on go the Pirelli Sottozeros and presto magic, I can drive again!
Anyway, my firsthand experience says if it is cold and/or snowy, winter tires are required.
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