I've just remortgaged my house to get 4 snow shoes for my Disco and a new front for my bike this week.

Pneuhaus RTR gave me excellent service - 40 francs to store my tyres until March/April and a decent price for tyres + fitting.

Yokohama 265/60 R18s are almost as tall as me

And FWIW I asked if I should get snow chains....."if the Landy can't go any further in snow with these tyres then nothing's going to be moving" - a definite No then

Corona speaks German and Italian; I should ask him if he or someone speaks English there as I can only recommend the excellent service and price they offer - they're on Rautistrasse in the Flur area of Altstetten.

okay, this might be a totally retarded question coming from a chick, but:

- is there a regulation that you HAVE to changer your tyres?
- if you have a 4WD, don't they usually have all year tyres?



Snowy

(who is hoping it won't snow below 800m before she has figured this out)

answer #1: Winter tyres - regulations and discussion
answer #2: sometimes they do, sometimes they don't have all-weather tyres. You can buy these compromise tyres - I did not change summer-winter on an old Jeep but someone I know had a similar car and after an accident in snowy and icy conditions they did decide to go for winter tyres

thanks for that!

Okay, I needed new winter tires and after letting my fingers to the walking I finally settled on www.reifendirekt.ch

They had the best prices and their price includes taxes and shipping.

The new tires arrived at my place less than a week after I bought them and I took them to a local garage recommended at the reifendirekt website.

The only thing is that you can only buy tires - if you also need the rims, they do not offer them in Switzerland - just Germany.

I bought the same type of tires 3 years ago from a local dealer and using this site I ended up saving over 400 francs on 4 tires. Now I can buy something else with the savings

very good doktor.s - you should also note that they will deliver to their partner garage directly and you can simply turn up and have them fitted... They have a good list of partner sites - which is how I found and still use RTR

The Swiss automotive club (www.tcs.ch) has published its annual winter tyre test. This year I ordered my tyres through www.reifendirect.ch which has very competitve prices.

A summary of the 2007 results:



Dimension 155/70 R 13

• Dunlop SP Winter Response
• Continental WinterContact TS800

Empfehlenswert (recommended)

• Bridgestone Blizzak LM 20
• ESA Tecar Supergrip 6
• Fulda Kristall Montero
• Goodyear Vector 5+ (Ganzjahresreifen)
• Pirelli W160
• Sava Eskimo S3
• Vredestein Snowtrac

Nicht empfehlenswert (not recommended)

• Pneumant
• Toyo (Ganzjahresreifen)

Dimension 205/55 R 16

• Michelin Primacy Alpin PA3
• Dunlop SP Wintersport 3D

Empfehlenswert

• Bridgestone Blizzak LM25
• Continental WinterContact TS810
• Goodyear Ultra Grip Performance
• Hankook W440
• Maloya Cresta 220
• Pirelli Winter 210 Sottozero
• Semperit Speed Grip
• Toyo Snowprox S952
• Uniroyal MS plus 66
• Vredestein Snowtrack 2
• Yokohama W.drive

Bedingt empfohlen

• Fulda
• Firestone
• Avon

More here: http://www.tcs.ch/main/de/home/auto_...ts/reifen.html (german)

Thanks for putting this in the right place... Hope its of value in any case..

I need to buy winter tyres. I know nothing about such things. I would like to buy through reifendirect.ch and get them to deliver to a garage.

The wheels on my car are 15x16JJ

I don't see any reference to this size on the site. Does anyone know how this translates to tyre sizes?

If Google is my friend, they should be 195/65 R15 91T, but I would appreciate a confirmation if anyone knows.

I've just been to see them.

I cannot recommend these guys enough. I bought my tyres off them too. For new yokohama tyres, balancing, work, storage of my summer tyres adn insurance it cost me 600CHF.

The thing is, these guys look scary, but they are the best mannered bunch I have encountered in a long time. They are top, tip-top.

Also, I got quite a bit of attitude from other places when enquiring about getting online purchased tyres delivered. Also, many other places had a waiting list of upto 10 days. Even though I opted for buying my tyres from them instead of online... less fuss and I like the personal approach these guys have. They clearly love tyres and their customers. I think they are very fairly priced.

These guys had me fitted and ready to do drive-through style in an hour.

Word of warning, it is drive-through. you have to wait so you can't leave your car there.

I beleive I have found all of my tyre needs with these guys, simply brilliant.

So recommended 10 out of 10!

Well its time to change the tyres over again.

I called up my local renault garage to enquire about them changing my winter tyres back to summer tyres and was told that i would have to wait three and a half weeks and that they are not open on a saturday. I have a complete set of summer wheels stored in my garage but I do not want to change them over myself.

Anyone know anywhere in zurich where i can go on a saturday and without the months wait?

krlock3

Go to RTR. You can email them from the site in English and Corona will get back to you.

Be prepared to get there at 9am though

The Ruckstuhl chain had a deal with wheels, wash, balancing etc for 55 chuffs.

I can't find it on their website though: I saw it in the 20 mins a few weeks ago so the offer may have expired.

Thanks to everyone on the forum for recommending pneu-haus in Zurich. I drove there from Basel last week and got my new winter tyres fitted all for 700 CHF when my dealer was quoting me ~2000 CHF for the same. The Yokohama tyres look good and saw some positive reviews on the W drive version which I got now.

Check this one here http://www.wheels.ca/article/254328

Looks like I am well set for snowy roads in winter

I am going to recommend www.e-pneu.ch . I checked the prices of the recommended TCS against reifendirekt and also French shops and they were competitive. The ordering and lieferung was a breeze. Plus they appear to be Swiss and it is nice to be able to buy lokal from time to time.

Thanks for recommendation Litespeed. I did it the same way. Delivery was very fast. Delivered to the garage pneu-rtr recommended earlier in the thread. The only problem was that somehow my name was missing on the delivery. So, when I called the garage to check the delivery they couldn't find them right away. I think ordering complete set to the garage is not so cost-effective. E-pneu.ch charges for fitting tyres on rims plus garage charges for changing the wheels. I guess if all work done by garage it should have been cheaper.
Regarding pneu-rtr garage: the guys are very friendly which for me (foreigner and car newbie) is very nice. I speak basic German, so I don't know if they handle English well. The only thing I didn't like is that I couldn't make an appointment and had to wait in the queue.

It's that time of year again. I'm thinking about ordering my winter tyres online and having them delivered directly to a fitting shop. I'll need them mounted on my spare rims and fitted to the car.

Does anyone have any recommendations of who might do this for me in Basel?