RE: PH Service History: Snow bother
Discussion
That should do the job - light, narrow tyres, plenty of ground clearance - and a replica appears to be for sale:
https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C892885
Or there's this...
PoopahScoopah said:
Just to add another angle to the debate......power delivery.
Had an Alfa 166 3.0 V6 back when we had the last really bad snow in winter 2010/11. I was one of the only cars not getting stranded on the day I stupidly drove to work, not knowing that everywhere including our office had stayed closed. OK, so this was within the city (Edinburgh) so I'm not talking about traversing 3ft deep drifts on country hills, but the point is everyone else was getting stuck and I was sailing by, and it's not down to driver technique either (as much as I'd love to take credit). I even had barely legal summer tyres on it, as I'd only just bought it and hadn't got around to replacing them yet. What I think was in my favour was the fact that being a torquey 3 litre NA meant that when pulling away all I had to do was slowly let the clutch out and let it crawl at idle speed until it was going, no throttle required. The weight of the engine probably helped too. Now in comparison......
Current car is a Ph2 V70 T5. Similar weight to the Alfa. Probably similar weight over the front wheels. Brand new decent tyres, albeit still summers. Bit more torque and power. In the V70 I struggle to get traction in the snow in the same sort of circumstances that I'd driven the Alfa in before. And I put this squarely down to the the fact that with the T5 it's not as happy to pull away at idle like the Alfa was, and really it needs at least a tickle of the throttle. That "tickle" can be difficult to get right though, whether that be due to the turbo, the mapping, or the fly by wire throttle I don't know, but there seems to be no happy medium. It feels very "on or off" in the snow, and the lightest application of the gas has the tyres spinning.
Probably not at the top of the list for things to consider when choosing your ultimate snow survival vehicle, but power delivery (or rather torque curve) is a factor.
Anyhoo, apparently if you want something really unstoppable it's a Unimog you need ;-)
Might be something in this.Had an Alfa 166 3.0 V6 back when we had the last really bad snow in winter 2010/11. I was one of the only cars not getting stranded on the day I stupidly drove to work, not knowing that everywhere including our office had stayed closed. OK, so this was within the city (Edinburgh) so I'm not talking about traversing 3ft deep drifts on country hills, but the point is everyone else was getting stuck and I was sailing by, and it's not down to driver technique either (as much as I'd love to take credit). I even had barely legal summer tyres on it, as I'd only just bought it and hadn't got around to replacing them yet. What I think was in my favour was the fact that being a torquey 3 litre NA meant that when pulling away all I had to do was slowly let the clutch out and let it crawl at idle speed until it was going, no throttle required. The weight of the engine probably helped too. Now in comparison......
Current car is a Ph2 V70 T5. Similar weight to the Alfa. Probably similar weight over the front wheels. Brand new decent tyres, albeit still summers. Bit more torque and power. In the V70 I struggle to get traction in the snow in the same sort of circumstances that I'd driven the Alfa in before. And I put this squarely down to the the fact that with the T5 it's not as happy to pull away at idle like the Alfa was, and really it needs at least a tickle of the throttle. That "tickle" can be difficult to get right though, whether that be due to the turbo, the mapping, or the fly by wire throttle I don't know, but there seems to be no happy medium. It feels very "on or off" in the snow, and the lightest application of the gas has the tyres spinning.
Probably not at the top of the list for things to consider when choosing your ultimate snow survival vehicle, but power delivery (or rather torque curve) is a factor.
Anyhoo, apparently if you want something really unstoppable it's a Unimog you need ;-)
My old Saab 9000 2.0t on very worn summers was fantastic: lots of low-down torque, low-pressure turbo so no lag-and-go, chassis tuned in a snowy country. Classic 900s are even better: the end-on engine means the driveshafts are of equal length, so no torque steer even with ~200bhp and antiquated, laggy delivery.
Agree about narrow tyres too: my current S-Max has 235s, so not massively wide, but even on brand new summers (fitted the week before) it was rubbish, if fun, in the recent snow.
It’s the first winter for over 5 years we’ve been without 4wd or winter/ all weather tyres (yep our fault...). I did invest in a set of snow socks and all I can say is that they were brilliant. Biggest problem was trying to get them on when the car couldn’t be rolled or moved without spinning up the wheels. My old Impreza certainly got around on summer tyres but stopping was a different matter
Edited by r159 on Monday 5th March 16:13
How about this for an interesting winter car?
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201...
ok, even with a v8 they're not particularly fast and the fuel consumption is crap and they do have their faults and there's probably loads of other reasons to go with something else but think of it as the RS6's lazy stoner brother on ice skates and it's at the very least an interesting choice. It's got the ground clearance, proper torque sensing differential type 4wd system and easy power delivery.
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201...
ok, even with a v8 they're not particularly fast and the fuel consumption is crap and they do have their faults and there's probably loads of other reasons to go with something else but think of it as the RS6's lazy stoner brother on ice skates and it's at the very least an interesting choice. It's got the ground clearance, proper torque sensing differential type 4wd system and easy power delivery.
The type of diff makes a big difference so to speak. In the first bit of snow in December I watched a golf r spinning opposite wheels on the front and rear axles trying to get up a driveway and fail. The old wrx had an open diff at the front and lsd at the back it was not difficult to end up with 3wd. Launch control was fun though...
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