Snow tire mileage

cVolt2013 said:

You guys are scaring me about driving my 2018 on snow/ice. I drove a 2013 for 3 winters without any problems. Thru snow so high I basically plowed the street. No problems on the original tires.

Is everyone saying the Gen2’s with original tires aren’t as good?

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I don't know where you live, but where I live there is considerable snow, freezing rain and lots of hills. While I love my Volt, I will be the first to admit that it is not best car made for winter conditions. 1) there is not enough ground clearance for avoiding "plowing" through snow if it snowed 3" or more. Plowing is not nearly as safe as not plowing. 2) The car tends to understeer when loosing traction, which is not as desirable as oversteer. 3) running high tire pressure to maintain economy isn't the best thing to do when searching for traction. (Snow tires do help immensely) 4) the cabin heating system is lacking compared to an ICE car.

If you live on flat land, and only drive on plowed roads, the Volt will suffice, but even then it is stretching it to say the car is a good car for winter driving compared to many other vehicles.

All that said, I still love my Volt, but drive my old 4wd truck or will drive my wife's new Hyundai Kona when the weather gets really bad.

I’ve been driving for 31 years now and never had snow tires or 4wd. Always had small FWD cars and one 2wd truck. Always did fine, I just know the way to drive in the slick stuff. I think I’ve gotten stuck once in the truck and that was a bizarre situation where nothing would have helped. It was one of those storms where the snow got rained on and froze and there were tire ruts like driving a slot car, the differential got hung up it was so deep! I needed a tug from someone that time! No tire would be any better if they aren’t touching the ground

Anyway, snow tires are a great idea but I don’t see them as a necessity


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OK, my millage is getting worse now. Keep in mind I am a new volt owner so this is my first winter.
I went from 120 MPGE round trip to 90 MPGE. It happen after the temp dropped from 50 in the morning to 40 and I put on snow tires (all in the same week).

When I leave my house in the morning I am seeing 80 MPGE! was seeing 100 in the morning and by the time I returned from work I was at 120 MPGE round trip.
I am sure its due to both the snow tires and the slightly colder morning temps but is this normal? the change was so drastic I'm thinking the tire guys found a way to install the tires backwards.

What MPGE are you guys getting in the mornings? and what temp outside?

Chrisby18951 said:

I’ve been driving for 31 years now and never had snow tires or 4wd. Always had small FWD cars and one 2wd truck. Always did fine, I just know the way to drive in the slick stuff. I think I’ve gotten stuck once in the truck and that was a bizarre situation where nothing would have helped. It was one of those storms where the snow got rained on and froze and there were tire ruts like driving a slot car, the differential got hung up it was so deep! I needed a tug from someone that time! No tire would be any better if they aren’t touching the ground

Anyway, snow tires are a great idea but I don’t see them as a necessity


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I agree.

Driving for over 40 years in Minnesota, and have never owned an AWD vehicle. Probably a 50/50 mix between fwd and rwd vehicles. For the last 25 years I've used snow tires. They are very helpful and much cheaper than the extra cost of an AWD vehicle.

Yes, the low ground clearance on the Volt can be a problem, but we live in the city and streets get plowed quickly.

It seems that every winter I see a large number of AWD vehicles in the ditch. They drive too fast, falsely believing they can stop better in an AWD vehicle, just because they can go better. It's a tested fact that an AWD with all seasons can't stop as well as a fwd or rwd vehicle with snows.

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I went decades without snow tires.

But once I bought a set, I was hooked. The handling is superior when crossing slushy lanes, plowing through a plow pile when crossing an intersection, driving through snow covered streets, making turns or stops, even on dry roads on cold days. Are they absolutely necessary? Obviously not, people scrape and slide by without them just like I did for many, many years. But for me, the cost of avoiding an accident (with a set of snows) is minor compared to the cost of even a small accident.

Eagleco said:

Driving for over 40 years in Minnesota, and have never owned an AWD vehicle.

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I have driven through a few winters in rural Northern Minnesota too. While it gets really cold there, it is fairly flat and relatively easy to drive there in the winter. I can believe a Volt would do OK there. Move to a rural mountainous area in Western Montana, Idaho, Eastern Washington and Eastern B.C., Western Colorado, etc. where there are long steep uphills and downhills, lots of curves, not regularly plowed roads and little traffic; I would bet you would change your tune in a hurry about the value of AWD cars. From my 50 years of driving, I would say that 4WD is by far the best in winter weather, followed by AWD, then Front Wheel Drive, and Rear Wheel Drive is the worst. Driving too fast for conditions is a problem with the driver, not the vehicle. So is driving too slow. If the road is flat and plowed, you can drive most anything with most any tire. But snow tires are always safer than regular tires in winter conditions.