I’ve owned VW since 2000, never a problem in the snow. This Jetta however is hopeless. First measurable snow fall this week, I could not get to work! Slid and slipped all over the place, after getting stuck in the middle of a hill I gave up and went home. I have 14" wheels and Michelin tires with 27000 miles. Possibly bigger wheels and different tire?
Install four new Michelin X-Ice winter tires. Tires are 90% of winter driving. Summer tires and all (read “three”) season tires are not designed for snow or ice.
Twotone
Crappy tires…take twotone’s advice or shop around with reviews on all seasons that are better in snow if you think you’re too cheap to do the winter tire change over.
Remember this though; most people don’t realize that if they are going to depend upon their all seasons for winter, they had better have very good tread which yours don’t, and buy new more often for winter safety. People who run winter tires can actually save on tires by keeping their summer tires much longer than they could safely drive them in winter.
I can speak for many here and say, we have always spent less for tires and driven more safely during the life of our cars in snow country, by doing the winter tire change over with dedicated steel rims (if you can find them cheaply enough for your car).
My guess would be that, if those are factory installed tires, you’ve gotten a lot of miles out of them and they’re either nearing their life, or they’re really summer tires.
Visit Tirerack.com to find new tires or a rim/tire combo for winter driving.
Yep, it’s just a tire problem, and you don’t need to change the wheel size, just get the same size tires in a winter design, like the Michelin X-Ice that twotone mentioned. Take a look at tirerack.com, they’ll send you a set of tires mounted and balanced on a spare set of wheels, ready to bolt on. If you want to stay with ‘all-season’ tires, get new ones of the same brand and model that have worked for you before on your previous VWs.
First off, the Jetta doesn’t come with 14" wheels, it came with 16" wheels stock, or if you got one of the packages, it then came with 17" tires.
Second, the typical stock 16" tire on the Jetta were Continental ProContacts, which, I hate to tell you, are absolutely horrible in the snow.
Third, by 27k miles, those ProContacts are nearing replacement time, and are probably 80% worn out. That makes them even worse in the snow than they were when brand new, which isn’t saying much.
So, go to your local Firestone, or other Tire shop, and spend some money on some decent snow tires, and make sure when the spring comes, you then switch back to a good all season tire for the rest of the year.
BC.