How Would Your Car(s) Fare In Very Snowy Conditions

[WhiteXmas]

Morning everyone,

Hope all you lucky bandits down south enjoyed your coverings of snow!

Anyway moving on, the question I have today for the good people at Netweather is......

How do you think your vehicle(s) would manage in very snowy conditions; ie: on hilly, winding roads etc?

Personally my Toyota Avensis would probably curl up into a ball and die! lol! However my mums Range Rover was brilliant a couple of years ago whilst I was still in school. Everyone was sliding all over the place and it just cruised through with ease! I was very impressed as I never thought the newer Range Rovers at least were capable of truly handling off road/treacherous conditions. Then again who would want to try it? I mean what is the point in getting a car of that ilk and destroying it off road? Well not unless you are a premiership footballer who could just go and buy another 10 lol!

Anyway, sorry for going off on a bit of a tangent there :lol:

Thought this would be a good bit of banter for us today. Maybe have some stories of how people have fared in the past and also future preparations that you may make!

WX.

[Polar Continental]

Not very well

Paul

[Storm Animal]

Not very well

Paul

HaHa, I love it!!! My car is dreadful in the snow, nothing to do with my driving like!! I have just bought a new convertible, over a Nissan 4x4, so you can guarentee another dreadful summer, and lots of snow til May!!

[Iceni]

Morning everyone,

Hope all you lucky bandits down south enjoyed your coverings of snow!

Anyway moving on, the question I have today for the good people at Netweather is......

How do you think your vehicle(s) would manage in very snowy conditions; ie: on hilly, winding roads etc?

Personally my Toyota Avensis would probably curl up into a ball and die! lol! However my mums Range Rover was brilliant a couple of years ago whilst I was still in school. Everyone was sliding all over the place and it just cruised through with ease! I was very impressed as I never thought the newer Range Rovers at least were capable of truly handling off road/treacherous conditions. Then again who would want to try it? I mean what is the point in getting a car of that ilk and destroying it off road? Well not unless you are a premiership footballer who could just go and buy another 10 lol!

Anyway, sorry for going off on a bit of a tangent there :lol:

Thought this would be a good bit of banter for us today. Maybe have some stories of how people have fared in the past and also future preparations that you may make!

WX.

We used to have a big Defender (while we were building a house) which I loved (actually felt quite tearful when we sold it to get a camper van). It was starry in snow and managed a 1:5 hill with ease in 6" snow, my husband to be came down to see us in Sussex in it and take us out food shopping when we'd been nearly snowed in for a couple of days (our car couldn't do the hill if someone had got stuck).

We have a Freelander (automatic) now and it's pretty ok, but the best of all in snow is our SORN Series III Landy got nice narrow tires which slice through it like a knife through butter. Of course we won't be able to afford to have any Landy's if they bring in the £400 VED... all very well for townies, but what about country people who depend on them — look out into lane this morning, no-one's gritted it for 2 or 3 miles and it's an ice rink with a layer of snow on top.

[WhiteXmas]

Not very well :lol:

Paul

Haha! Imagine waking up to that in the morning! I'd be worried about cornering :lol:

We used to have a big Defender (while we were building a house) which I loved (actually felt quite tearful when we sold it to get a camper van). It was starry in snow and managed a 1:5 hill with ease in 6" snow, my husband to be came down to see us in Sussex in it and take us out food shopping when we'd been nearly snowed in for a couple of days (our car couldn't do the hill if someone had got stuck).

We have a Freelander (automatic) now and it's pretty ok, but the best of all in snow is our SORN Series III Landy got nice narrow tires which slice through it like a knife through butter. Of course we won't be able to afford to have any Landy's if they bring in the £400 VED... all very well for townies, but what about country people who depend on them — look out into lane this morning, no-one's gritted it for 2 or 3 miles and it's an ice rink with a layer of snow on top.

Very true Iceni they are very dependable cars out in the countryside. Well what can you expect? The government's decisions just get worse each day that passes. I have heard the BMW X5 is actually very poor in snow! Surprising considering is it supposed to be designed for those sort of conditions. And a car that is surprsingly good is the Jaguar S Type Estate that does very well in snow! (Courtesy of Top Gear!)

[Kiwi]

Spent Christmas/New year in Austria. Arrived on 20 Dec in a horrendous blizzard.

Mercedes Van with winter tyres and chains. All fine to the village we were staying in -- winter tyres great most of the journey and then chains on for the last bit in the Mts. The ploughs were keeping the main roads fairly clear but as soon as we looked to leave the main road it all went pear shaped.

Doesn't really help what vechile you've got .... 2 feet of fresh snow on the roads and we weren't getting any further. Nothing could move except these massive tractorised snow plough thingies that they were using (I want one!).

Still we were lucky we made it to within 500m of our house.... just had to lug the 3 kids and all our luggage the last 500m uphill in a blizzard at 10pm .... we finally made it into our nice warm bright house ....only for the village power supply to promptly cut out for the next 24hrs!!!

Hence I can't say I'm getting very excited by the current weather here.

[trickydicky]

Horribly, its an Audi A3 with stupidly wide tyres that just flatten snow itstead of cutting through it. At the start of December I slid off in it down a bank and had to be pulled out by a tractor! My girlfriend used to have a Fiat Punto, it was class in snow, it had little piddly wheels, when I worked in Wales it snowed a fair bit and on one occasion I had to overtake someone in a 4x4 struggling up a hill. The wee Punto just sailed on.

[CLH the red dragon]

Very well I reckon.

Toyota Aygo with bugger all wheel width. I'd take that over a Freelander any day of the week.

Defender certainly a good bet. But remember, once you slide you have a lot of weight to stop!

[Polar Front]

No problem this am!

[WhiteXmas]

No problem this am!

That's insane! Surely the icicles couldn't possibly be like that! That photo must be doctored :lol: I don't think anyone would be going anywhere fast if that car belonged to them!

[LadyPakal]

Not at all doctored - typical ice storm outcome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_storm

http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=ice+st...=4&ct=title

[WhiteXmas]

Never seen icicles you know! It's about time I did :lol: !

[Polar Front]

Never seen icicles you know! It's about time I did !

Only joking about this being my car!!! My car would be stuck permanently! This was around Lake Geneva in Switzerland, 2004/5 I think?! It was caused by sub zero temperatures and gale force winds! Believe it or not but there was NO precipitation!

[paul tall]

Yeah it was all the water blown off the lake that just froze on contact.

As for my car, an Astra Estate, its alright but the tyres are a little wide.

[Andy Bown]

My Fiesta wouldn't cope in the opening posts's descripbed conditions.

However I cannot believe there were people struggling around here this morning. There was only 1cm of fresh snow on the road and it wasn't freezing solid when I went out at 08.00 so was easy to drive in, however you'd have thought some of the drivers were encountering Arctic conditions!

[V for Very Cold]

well I used to have a Honda S2000 - which was a wonderful.........................until 3 or more flakes of snow landed in which case the only 2 things it could do were either travel ONLY in a straight line, or merely slide rond and round in circles :wacko:

Nowadays, I have a battered old Freelander that performed wonderfully when we had the sudden snow dump - 3-4" of snow on ice and it ploughed through up and down hill and dale with not a problem

[osmposm]

Not at all doctored - typical ice storm outcome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_storm

http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=ice+st...=4&ct=title

You're right that it's not doctored, LP, but it wasn't really an ice storm - at least not in the usual sense of super-cooled rain freezing on contact with surfaces at or below zero. That picture is of the mid-January 2006 lake ice event at Versoix near Geneva, on the SW edge of Lac Leman (Lake Geneva). Here's a good set (of many on the net - search Google images for 'versoix ice') - http://www.flickr.com/photos/siamesedreams...57594049284704/ .

When there are strong, very cold winds from the North & East, the lake's normally placid waters can be forced into high waves, and the spray from them is blown on to the shore, quickly coating lakeside Versoix in layer upon layer of ice. It is not that rare - the 2006 event was particularly impressive, but in fact it also happened quite dramatically in late January 2005. See here http://www.skyandsummit.com/Glacegeneve/index_en.html . This latter set is very good as it shows more of the freezing-spray mechanism:

Ossie

EDIT: Sorry, just seen that others had already talked about this.

Edited January 5, 2009 by osmposm

[hilldweller]

mine is perfect :winky: . And yes that is what i use for getting about in when the white stuff arrives it really does go anywhere

[WhiteXmas]

mine is perfect . And yes that is what i use for getting about in when the white stuff arrives it really does go anywhere

I guess you can tank it to your work eh?

[Albion Snowman]

Well we've got a mondeo estate and today (twice) it struggled to get up a hill through a gateway althought he snow was compacted so it made it more difficult. It did it in the end but put it like this, we spun the front wheels so much (being FWD) that we'll need new tyres . And it has got pretty wide, summer tyres on which did no good at all. For the record the tyres are 205-55-r16 for you technical people out there!

As i say though, it made it in the end being a diesel monster!

[WhiteXmas]

Well we've got a mondeo estate and today (twice) it struggled to get up a hill through a gateway althought he snow was compacted so it made it more difficult. It did it in the end but put it like this, we spun the front wheels so much (being FWD) that we'll need new tyres . And it has got pretty wide, summer tyres on which did no good at all. For the record the tyres are 205-55-r16 for you technical people out there!

As i say though, it made it in the end being a diesel monster!

Well I must congratulate you then Albion Snowman! Or should I call you the Stig??? Some say he is half man half monkey

[PersianPaladin]

Tyres are not what they used to be.

[chrisbooth0070]

I drive a Lotus Exige every day.

Very tricky in the ice but much better now that I have changed from slick tyres

Heres my baby:-

P.S. the 3 inch ground clearance with the front splitter would mean that window wipers are a must when driving through deep snow

Edited January 6, 2009 by chrisbooth0070

[WhiteXmas]

Let me know everyone how you all get on tomorrow in the lovely conditions

[Zenarcher]

Not very well :o

Paul

Good one