How is a std Jimny in the snow and does it need socks?

Hi All,
Only owned our Jimny for 8 months and its totally standard, running 205 70 15 road tyres, nothing special. With winter approaching I wounder if its worth putting a set of snow socks in the back, or will I be supprised by its ability?

I had a VW Polo (on road tyres) that just left the road or stopped when it snowed. My Series Land Rover is unstoppable in the snow, but it has agressive MT tyres fitted, so I am unsure how the Jimny will drive on snow (or not) with road tyres.

Don't want to fit off road or winter tyres on the Jimny, but looking for your feedback on how the std aJimny will get around in snow.

PS I only plan socks for the front wheels in 4x4 mode should I get stuck. Not needed or worth thw £40 cost?

Mike

I fitted a set of Yokohama Geolanders All Season tyres - they've been brilliant in the wet on tarmac.
I've yet to try them in snow, but others here reported good performance which was why I chose them. I'm hoping they will be a good "halfway-house" for both road and snow-use

The jimny will fair better than most on standard tyres but they are the difference between good and nigh on unstoppable.

BFG All Terrains were laughably good, driving round all sorts, only stopped by bumper high drifts.


The jimny's lightweight is it's biggest attribute, 1 ton of mass fairs better than 1.5 on ice. Most other cars as capable as the jimny weigh a lot more....

sniper

I can't comment on how a Jimny handles snow with road tyres, as I've only been in that situation with all terrains. And with ATs my Jimny has felt unstoppable, even on steep inclines in pretty deep snow.

I will say that when I moved from the standard Bridgestone Duellers to Goodyear Wrangler ATs I noticed a dramatic improvement in grip on-road as well as off-road. The Goodyears tend to be one of the cheapest well known brands for ATs and they were a huge improvement in every aspect, I didn't feel like I was compromising anything with them. I have since moved to General Grabbers which feel possibly a little less grippy on road, but are still great. So my general advice is to upgrade to good ATs even if you don't plan to off road, and I'm not really sure why Suzuki don't sell them on ATs from the factory.

But if you like the tyres you've got, and you expect to encounter snow, I think the socks/chains sound like a very good idea. I know from other vehicles how much difference they can make and £40 seems like good value. I used to carry chains but never needed them with my ATs.

I've got stock Jimny on road all season tires. Last winter I was the only person who drove off our estate with no/little struggle.
Just for fun I went to an empty parking lot covered in snow to do some doughnuts and on the way back home I decided to drive into side of the road pile of snow. I was surprised how easy it was for Jimny to go though deep snow, even stock and on road tiers.
It was som much fun that I cannot wait for snow this winter

Until recently Ive had the HT duellers on since new and they have been great through the last 5 winters on the North Yorkshire Moors.. Only thing that halted me was deep drifts etc.. I still had 4mm left on back 2 (44000 miles) but they were becoming skitty on bends etc.
Ive just changed to Yokohama Geolandars AT. I know already they are better in wet than the duellers so looking forward to the white stuff now to test them out.

Here in Norway you loose your drivers license if you cause an accident or incident without proper winter tires
All Season (M+S) is a minimum but if they have little thread, or they are to blame, your license is gone.
Your snow on these pictures looks the same as ours though

Just ordered some Nokia WRD3 winters. Live on a 1 in 4 hill and it's the ice that gets us. Had the Nokians on a previous vehicle and they grip on surfaces you can't stand on. Had snow socks before the Nokians. Snow socks work well but putting them on and off gets annoying on really cold morning's . Plus once you get to gritted glad you have to take them off . If it's just for emergency use though they will get you anywhere.

Compared to a normal car, a Jimny on standard road tyres is almost twice as good at getting going in the snow but no better at stopping. It's worth investing in some good tyres because not only will they help you go better, they will also help you stop better!

Thanks for the feedback, my gut feeling is it should be ok so long as I dont go head first into snow drifts.

Its not on the Duellers everyone appears to hate, its on a mix of unknown brand road tyres all of which have good tread depth left at the moment. Even though they are no name tyres the Jimny holds the road very well in wet / dry conditions, so I am not going to change them just because they are unbranded. Next year I will look into all season tyres, so keep any feedback on the good / bad coming.

Busta wrote: Compared to a normal car, a Jimny on standard road tyres is almost twice as good at getting going in the snow but no better at stopping. It's worth investing in some good tyres because not only will they help you go better, they will also help you stop better!

^^ This is the most important thing to consider regarding any 4x4 on standard tyres. While it's great having the traction to accelerate without spinning in the snow by using winter tyres, their real value comes in being able to stop you properly once you're up to speed.

The other thing to consider with a Jimny, especially in the UK, is that very often you're moving from gritted roads that are relatively snow-free to snowed-over roads on a single drive (at least that's the case here in upland Aberdeenshire). So it's difficult to use 4wd consistently as you're constantly moving from snow to tar and back again.

The same applies to black ice when there's no snow around, which only occurs in patches. You would never be driving in 4wd in this situation, and things will go pear-shaped very quickly. Having proper winter tyres will make this situation loads safer.