Driving an M4 in the winter

[nickfrog]

Sounds brilliant if you have smooth throttle input.

[rs4al]

RS Grant said:

I am still struggling to understand how some of your F8* cars sound like such lairy beasts in all but bone dry warm weather?!

Assuming that all of us posess a fair~middling level of driver skill, all I can put it down to is that ours is a manual gearbox, so there is no chance of kicking down 1,2,3 gears and unsettling itself; or because ours is an LCI, it came with Continental tyres rather than the Michelin tyres, which might operate a bit more effectively in poor/cold weather??


Cheers,
Grant

Totally agree Grant, it's a shame that the reviewers never road tested a manual properly.

I don't have much problem with lairyness, yes if you boot it out of a wet roundabout but then very high powered rwd car will do the same. It must be the DCT box !

[RossP]

My manual M4 is a 2016 model too but came with the MPSS

[garethld]

theboss said:

JNW1 said:

garethld said:

its all about the tyres!

So if it's all about the tyres they're more important than driver ability then? Might just be me but in difficult conditions I'd far rather be a passenger in a car on summer tyres driven by a competent driver as opposed to sitting next to someone clueless on winters.....

I wouldn't feel comfortable being a passenger of anyone who was clueless, in any situation on any tyre... but at least in that latter situation I could offer to drive if things got bad on summers you may as well abandon the journey in the wrong conditions, which is something I've never had to do with winters.

Of course there is no doubt that ability is an important factor in making safe progress in bad conditions, but I try to avoid unnecessary compromises. Driving an M car on summers in snow (if that's what we're talking about essentially) is like driving the same car on ditchfinders in the summer. Sure, you can adapt to driving with the inherent limitations, but you can also improve things considerably by fitting a better tyre for the conditions.

Whether they are 'worth it' is of course another matter entirely and depends on personal circumstances, I would never argue otherwise. As somebody who is very heavily car dependent for business and domestic duties *and* living in an elevated rural area prone to snow in the winter, they are worth having. If I lived in town and didn't drive nearly as far on a day to day basis, I'd probably decide they weren't worth having. I'm still in two minds about buying a set for the M5 this year but I do have a set ready to be fitted to the Golf R so at least I have one usable vehicle if we do have a proper cold spell.

Edited by theboss on Wednesday 25th November 19:28

With the difference in the tyre compounds in mind, It comes down to science... Not driver ability.