Hey everyone.

I just purchased a 2017 GLE43 (106k miles) a few weeks ago and I had it on some wintery roads for the first time this week.

I was pretty excited to try out my 'new' 4MATIC. We had about a 4" snowfall during the night before and it backed out of my driveway and over the plow line at the driveway with ease. And that is about where the positive review stopped. The temperature was about 23° F and the roads ranged from a coating to an inch or two of snow/crust. They weren't crunchy and icy and they weren't wet slush but somewhere in between. It didn't take long before the squirming feeling was unsettling. The motion was more of a 'yaw' type movement with quick jumps left & right within the lane. I'm driving trying to keep the wheel straight and just feeling the 43 shift around in the lane.. One time I had a little understeer and got some pucker factor that I wasn't going to make a turn (going about 25-30 mph). By the end of my commute (~20 minutes) I was starting to get a seasick feeling from the amount of motion my body was feeling despite what my brain was expecting.

This morning the roads are still slick in some places, so I tried to get more insight. I could be rolling along and off the gas completely and if I came across a place in the road that had some 'winter' on it from the night's drifting it would shimmy around and make me want to counter steer.. somewhat subtle but way more motion than any vehicle I've ever had. Also this am I found that I got the same feeling when driving over cinders on a curve. It was similar to that feeling of when you slide and then your tires grip on dry asphalt.

Both on the first day and today I never saw the traction light come on. I never felt vibration in the brake pedal like it was correcting via brake pressure. I was just driving in a normal reduced speed for the weather. The tires are CrossContact LX25 which seem to have good reviews online. On dry roads the thing handles great and on twisties I don't get any sense that there is something worn out.. It had an alignment check during purchase. Having driven in the winter for a couple decades now, it really feels like it is just tire traction but when I research the tires it seems like people love them. I need to check date codes and pressures yet. Was hoping you guys might have some insight.

Update: I checked the tires at lunch today. Only found a date code on one of them. 47th week of 2021.. So I don't think it is a hardened compound issue. Although the tread looked good five feet away, up close I saw the that 'S' on the rears was worn away. Maybe my answer is as simple as running an all-season tire worn passed the tread depth recommendation for snow.

 

There's a couple of things working against you:
1) thinking an all season tire is at all a snow tire (it isn't).(*)
2) these cars generally have a wide tire. That is, the tire can't cut into and through the snow nearly as well as a narrow one. As such, more snow/ice/water/slippery crap gets UNDER the tire as you're passing over it, and your contact with the road disappears. Even a brand new top end snow tire will have this effect, but not nearly as much as the same size all season tire.

To wit: My ML350 has VERY good snow tires on it. it is squirrely on bad roads, but has never let me down. My Chevy has decent snow tires, but they're a bit narrower and the truck weighs about 3000 pounds more than the ML. It is stable on crappy roads, since the tires are able to cut through the slop right down to the hard layer where the tires can get a grip.

* Last year my MIL got herself a new subaru outback with new all seasons on it. She absolutely would not put winter tires on it because "they're NEW TIRES!". I pulled her out of being stuck - on a flat road - a time or two last winter. This winter I put a fresh set of Continental Viking Contact 7 winter tires on her car and she's had no problems.

My 2c.

 

I'm tempted to get two new all-weather (CrossClimate2) tires on the rear and see how much that improves the situation. I'm ok with a true winter tire/wheel set-up but I'd hate to drop the money on that only to find out there is another issue. I have a Ram for the worst PA weather days so for one season I don't need it to be amazing in the snow, just not scary.

Anything special with these only changing tires on a given axle?

 

Mixing tires on an all wheel drive vehicle isn't recommended practice due to the wheel speed sensors getting mad about differences in tire characteristics, rotations per mile being the main one. There's a little bit of tolerance, but where that threshold is can be hard to define.

 

10-4. Makes sense. I could always sell the old set (fronts have good tread) and recover a little. I'd go for a true winter set but I don't want to run them over the summer, don't want to run these nice oem wheels always in the winter, and rather not buy winter wheels in the spring and swap everything. Decisions, decisions.

I believe these are 50/50 power distribution. Do the rears wear quicker with weight transfer on accel, or the fronts since there is more weight on them?

I need to do some searching on this, but is there a consensus on a good all weather tire? I'm leaning towards CrossClimate2 (know someone that has a set) I would end up leaving them on the OEM wheels as the spring-fall set after getting proper winter set up.

 

cheriff2,
I currently have the Continental cross contact LX25 tires on my 2016 350 4Matic… I leave them on all year round and live outside Chicago so our winters are kind of snowy. They have been a great all around tire for all four seasons. My previous set was Goodyear assurance weather ready 2. These tires are severe snow rated…These were also great tires all year round.
One of the differences might be that I have the 19 inch size tires and you might have the 20 or 21 inch size tires. As one of the previous posters already wrote, a thinner tire slices through the snow/slush much easier.
I guess in the end it doesn’t really matter because in your post you stated that you were going to put a winter set on your automobile. I assume this means you’re going to have one set for summer and another set for winter. This is the optimum set up, but I never wanted to go through the hassle.
hopefully this helps in some way…
Be well!

 

Thanks for that insight. Makes me wonder if I should do what I should have done (ha) and have it looked over by my local Indy. Maybe I also have something worn out which is combining to make a little more lateral movement then I'd like.

This is my first air suspension vehicle. Dry and over larger bumps I've noticed some old suburban like waggle. IF the air suspension has a different feel to common types maybe that is factoring in as well.

Long term (next winter) I'd like to go to 2nd setup solution. And yes, 20 inch option . 265s.

 

Cheriff2,
I forgot to write… I really don’t have a lot of lateral movement in my car in the winter. You might wanna have it checked out.

 

Never mix tires on any vehicle.
Never expect 4WD/AWD to compensate for crappy tires.
When you're cruising down the interstate at 75mph, your life is riding on those 4 rubber donuts and their compliance with the laws of physics. Buy tires commensurate with your life's value.

 

The OP is describing lateral and yaw symptoms. These are principally tire-related and vehicle speed-related. Not drivetrain-related. Slow down when conditions require it.

 

Thanks everyone.

For a little more context. I've been driving in this same general area for 25+ years. A lot of those years I've had rear wheel drive vehicles with all season tires that I'd use until it was bad enough to be a 'truck day'. My all-season experience has mostly been limited to extreme Contact continental dws06s. My expectation of these LX25s from Continental is that they would be better than those DWS06s.

With more time to ponder it's almost like it was balancing on the edge of grip and slip.. imagine it's a dry road with some drifted slippery sections. If I let of the gas and coast over those (in any car) I'd expect to either glide straight over or more likely have some kind of yaw that catches only when you get back to the dry asphalt. Instead of that experience it's like I'm catching and sliding like 4 times across there. It's that extra 'jerking that makes it seem worse.

I'll do some tread measuring and get numbers to how much lower the rears are. Then determine if matching LX25s on the rear is closer to the fronts than it currently is. Maybe things are improved enough to get me through this winter and then time to save to comfortably get a winter set together..

Thanks again.

 

Wanted to provide an update in case this provides value to someone else in the future.

I had the time to take a closer look at the tires today and well, that's very most likely the problem. If I average the tread depth across each tire it looks like this: LF 0.2", RF 0.2", LR 0.07", RR 0.06".

The ContactContinental LX25s come with 12/32 or 0.375".

While the fronts have some life left, getting 4 new tires and giving it proper rotations is my next step. The shoulder on the rears gives an impression of good tread but nope, they suck. Now I'm surprised it did as well as it did.

Edit: Yes I feel stupid for not throughly checking this before posting

 

I have the DWS06 I have no issue in heavy snow. I had them on my old Subaru Legacy AWD and now on the wife Q3 S-Line Quattros. I have Pilot Sport All sessional 4 on my W166. So far no issue in light to moderate snow.

 

@cheriff2 What was your daily driver prior to the GLE43?

 

Mostly a 2002 BMW 540i (RWD, 6 Speed). Ran the DWS06s on that. If the weather was bad enough I would take my Ram 2500. I had driven the BMW enough that I knew its capabilities and limits and when it was time to take the truck.


Ordered a set of Goodyear Assurance WeatherReady 2s. Should be on next week.

 

Tires go on tomorrow morning. Im really curious if this takes care of it. My road has a lot of cinders on it and the car moves around so much. Hard for me to believe it's just tires. Maybe the diameter difference and the tires have the 4matic taking action. We'll see.

 

Tires make an incredible difference -- not just the tread and siping, but the rubber pliability in cold temps.

 

Update.. i think things are ok now. I haven't had the same conditions for a 1:1 comparison but in what wintry weather i have been in it has felt comfortably acceptable.

 

Year old thread but I have some new insight today..

I thought probably the new tires solved the issue last year, but come this winter I can 100% say that it didn't. Long story short it was an alignment toe problem. The vehicle had supposedly been aligned prior to purchase so I put the tires on without getting an alignment. Fast forward a year later and accelerated tire wear and poor winter performance gave the toe theory.. Took it to my independent and had them check. Over 0.5" toe in on the front and 0.75" toe in on the rear. The two different sides of that thing were having a civil war every time it went down the road. It only really became when traction reduced on the road and whichever side had more traction in that moment won the battle.

Happy to finally put this behind me as it was so uneasy driving that in the winter.