UKFranceSpain in January Winter tyres? Chains?

[IdiotRace]

I'm planning to spend 3 weeks in southern spain at the start of January. But instead of flying over I was thinking of just driving as would save on flying and hiring a car. However after doing a bit of searching it appears that France has some sort of winter tyre rule from November till March.

https://www.service-public.gouv.fr/particuliers/ac...

To be honest I'm not looking to actually spend any time in France aside from stopping for fuel or maybe a hotel for the night. Really I was going to take the more southerly route which would go by Perpignan and then past La Jonquera.

Initially my idea was to take my gt86, but it's on cup2's, but they are covered in trackday runoff, also just very loud and unplesant to drive on. So I was just going to take my Mini instead which is on whatever the OE spec hankook tyre is.

So the law just says you either need winter tyres or have snow chains available, looking up the specs it appears you need 3PMSF spec tyres. I thought might not be so bad just to get a set of crossclimates as they meet 3PMSF standards for winter. This is fine but the size that I need (195/55/16) don't have runflats available. As much as I don't like runflats I'd much prefer them if I was driving on a random autoroute and got a puncture.

So the other option is some snowchains? From the text it appears you'd only use them when necessary and just need them in the car. Like I said I'm pretty much going to be sticking to autoroutes all the way there and completely avoiding cold mountainous areas.

So my options are

1) Buy a set of crossclimates and hope I don't get a puncture
2) Stick with the oem tyres and just keep some snow chains in the boot
3) Look for some other tyre that meets my stupid criteria

https://www.mytyres.co.uk/rshop/tyre/Bridgestone/T...
https://www.mytyres.co.uk/rshop/tyre/Goodyear/Vect...

Both of these tyres are runflat and also meet the winter rating, it's just I'd much rather go with the crossclimates. Or am I just worrying too much about requiring runflats, like every modern car it only has a little electric pump and some tyre goo.

[nutsyH]

Until covid, I used to drive to Spain in January towing a caravan - autoroutes to Bordeaux, Henday, then Spanish autoroutes via Pamplona, Zaragoza to Valencia. No requirement for snow chains, although my Cayenne was on all weather tyres. Back in the day, we had an apartment near Perpignan, and no chains required if going via the autoroute via Toulouse, Carcassone. If going via Clermont Ferrand - Auvergne, again no chains or special tyres if sticking to auto routes. Dont judge snow clearance by what happens here. Over the Pyrenees autoroutes, the road is kept clear, and snowploughs are strategically placed to deal with fresh snowfalls.

[IdiotRace]

I've only really had a quick look at routes on google maps, but there appear to be two routes to my destination. The one that goes past Perpignan and down into the AP7 and the other one takes me past Bordeaux, the later route being a bit less preferable as it seems to want to take me all the way through the centre of spain even going via Madrid.

The other route even being a bit longer is prefferable just because I've visited lots of places up and down the AP7 so it's very familiar to me. Would it be plausable to be able to make it into Spain going that way before having to stop somewhere to rest?

[nickfrog]

IdiotRace said:

To be honest I'm not looking to actually spend any time in France aside from stopping for fuel or maybe a hotel for the night.
(...)
So the law just says you either need winter tyres or have snow chains available, looking up the specs it appears you need 3PMSF spec tyres.

It's the law only in certain parts of certain Departements so if I were you I would choose tyres based on needs and just have some cheap compliant chains or whatever they're called.

[nickfrog]

You could take the boat straight to Spain. If you go West (Bordeaux) you shouldn't have issues with snow nor even tyre constraints and then no need to go Madrid.

Where in the UK do you start from and what's your destination?

[RustyNissanPrairie]

We have a pad in Perpignan so have driven many times, the Millau route has some elevated sections that can get a covering of snow - I can't remember exactly what time of year it was but I was glad our trusty V70 had cross climate's. The snowploughs were out but the snow was still sticking.

Our Volvo had a full size spare but in our subsequent Cayenne that doesn't I take a bottle of Slime repair, Tiptop repair kit, Slime 'anchovies' repair kit and a decent 12v pump. This is as well as the pump and repair fluid that come with the car.

If I was doing off-roading then I'd have a spare wheel but for long distance autoroute drives not having a spare wheel is fine.

[omniflow]

I had a similar plan for mid-Jan next year, but Nazare in Portugal rather than Spain.

Then I looked into flying and hiring a car in a bit more detail - for 2 of us, it's £200 return including one checked bag to fly to Lisbon and renting a car is £340 for an entire month including full insurance for a "VW Polo, or similar".

I know it's not all down to cost, but the more I thought about it the less fun the idea of a roadtrip in January sounded. Mainly down to the fact that for us it's all about the stops and I couldn't get over the thinking that pretty much everywhere en-route would be absolutely dead apart from Winter Sports places, which are not my thing anyway.

[IdiotRace]

Thinking about it a bit more maybe driving isn't going to be the best option, I think adding the cost of the euro tunnel, toll roads/fuel etc maybe I should just not bother and rent a car out there. It's going to be more expensive than 340 in spain though when you add all the insurance on.

Part of the reason was going for 3 weeks with part of that working would mean bringing more stuff with me. Also maybe can just get away with renting a car some of the time I'm there instead of for the entire time.

I think maybe it's something to save for the warmer months and also with a slightly more fun car.

Edited by IdiotRace on Tuesday 11th November 15:47

[omniflow]

IdiotRace said:

Thinking about it a bit more maybe driving isn't going to be the best option, I think adding the cost of the euro tunnel, toll roads/fuel etc maybe I should just not bother and rent a car out there. It's going to be more expensive than 340 in spain though when you add all the insurance on.

Part of the reason was going for 3 weeks with part of that working would mean bringing more stuff with me. Also maybe can just get away with renting a car some of the time I'm there instead of for the entire time.

I think maybe it's something to save for the warmer months and also with a slightly more fun car.

Edited by IdiotRace on Tuesday 11th November 15:47

We used Easyjet car hire very successfully in Crete a few weeks ago. We ended up hiring 2 different cars from 2 companies as it was too expensive to extend the first hire. Apart from that minor niggle, no issues with either rental.

For the upcoming trip we used Holiday Autos. It appears to use the same engine as Easyjet car hire (cartrawler or something like that) but the prices are cheaper. The additional insurance is provided by AXA but it's part of the booking and not totally standalone. The additional cost per day varies according to class of car and also the rental company in question. It makes you wonder whether AXA vary their pricing depending on the number / price of claims they have to cover for each company. For our rental the additional insurance ended up slightly less than €2 / day.

We also found that renting a car from the airport is much cheaper than renting a car at our destination. So much cheaper that it even if you're not planning to use the car the whole time you're there, it's cheaper to rent from the airport for 3 weeks than in resort for 1 week.