The worst car to drive on roads in heavy snow? Best Tactics?
Discussion
Gave my friend a lift this morning to collect his car, Little Aston to Oldbury (WMids) in my Freelander about 12 miles briefly on the M5 and M6. Oh joy, a drive with anxious commuters about to be late. Getting to Oldbury was pretty straight forward. Dropped off my mate in a good hour which is not bad. M6 and M5 were excellent. However snow was falling all the while and the roads were steadily blocking. On the way back I decided to avoid the snarled up commuter roads and to cut down the unused ancient Chapel Lane in Great Barr, a shortcut from Junction 7 of the M6. The road was a doddle no cars lots of snow ideal for me. Then it got interesting. There is a quite serious dip in Chapel lane and as I trundled down the hill five big RWD BMW’s and three Volvos were parked at the bottom all unable to go either forward or back. All completely bandjaxed and immobile. I managed to get past each one in turn and then faced a Mercedes 500 similarly suck and two small FWD vans who were equally stuck, Struggled past them. Got back in 80 minutes.
My question is which is the worst car in the snow? In other words which car has the least chance of effectively getting any power onto the ground. I did suggest to some of the drivers that dropping the tyre pressures to 6 lb might assist and it would but really a big AWD recovery truck is what was needed. What do other PH’ers think? Are there other ways of improving the grip particularly with automatic boxes and RWD? What are the worst cars in these conditions? Or is most of the problem down to drivers not realising that different techniques could improve grip? If so what are the best snow driving techniques?
My question is which is the worst car in the snow? In other words which car has the least chance of effectively getting any power onto the ground. I did suggest to some of the drivers that dropping the tyre pressures to 6 lb might assist and it would but really a big AWD recovery truck is what was needed. What do other PH’ers think? Are there other ways of improving the grip particularly with automatic boxes and RWD? What are the worst cars in these conditions? Or is most of the problem down to drivers not realising that different techniques could improve grip? If so what are the best snow driving techniques?
The best technique i've found, over a few hard winter spells of driving BMWs (2009,2010 and now this one) is momentum.
If nothing slows me down i've never had a problem with hills etc...
However, if something forces me to walking pace or below on the slightest of inclines, i'm doomed - I have to then back down and take a run up.
Works well, got caught out in what must've been 10 inches years ago, in a (Heavy) e34 530i V8 Auto. It was an empty country road and not too far from home. So I just went into full on attack mode, the snow was flying over the bonnet and out of the sides - Like going through a big puddle. Probably felt faster than it was. Massive fun, made it home no problem. 4x4's where having trouble with this road.
ps. always on summer tyres.
If nothing slows me down i've never had a problem with hills etc...
However, if something forces me to walking pace or below on the slightest of inclines, i'm doomed - I have to then back down and take a run up.
Works well, got caught out in what must've been 10 inches years ago, in a (Heavy) e34 530i V8 Auto. It was an empty country road and not too far from home. So I just went into full on attack mode, the snow was flying over the bonnet and out of the sides - Like going through a big puddle. Probably felt faster than it was. Massive fun, made it home no problem. 4x4's where having trouble with this road.
ps. always on summer tyres.
In my reasonably limited experience, BMW's, of which I've owned five, and currently drive one, with summer tyres on, are the worst.
I don't fit winter tyres because of the expense versus the amount of time you need them.
I knew all this when I chose that type of car , so I don't drive it in the snow ........ simple !
I'm quite happy with the fact that for the other 364 days of the year, they are by far the best car I've ever driven.
I don't fit winter tyres because of the expense versus the amount of time you need them.
I knew all this when I chose that type of car , so I don't drive it in the snow ........ simple !
I'm quite happy with the fact that for the other 364 days of the year, they are by far the best car I've ever driven.
My old E38 is excellent in the snow. Until I got my AWD Lexus GS it was my "snow car" for many storms.
The secret is to lose the 285-30-20s and 255-35-20s and bolt the 215-65-16 snow tires on. With good quality snow tires the car does very well. With pilot sports its undriveable. Where I live its somewhat hilly and we can get serious snow. I remember as a kid growing up you'd see the then current W126s and E32s struggle to get up the hill and often end up sliding down the hill sideways. They'd be sliding down on summer tires. Then all of a sudden you'd see one with snow tires sail up the hill like nothing was wrong.
The secret is to lose the 285-30-20s and 255-35-20s and bolt the 215-65-16 snow tires on. With good quality snow tires the car does very well. With pilot sports its undriveable. Where I live its somewhat hilly and we can get serious snow. I remember as a kid growing up you'd see the then current W126s and E32s struggle to get up the hill and often end up sliding down the hill sideways. They'd be sliding down on summer tires. Then all of a sudden you'd see one with snow tires sail up the hill like nothing was wrong.
Haha, pretty hard to say specifically which the worst car would be. It took me 2 hours to get from oldbury to Burton on Trent via great Barr yesterday lunch. the quesllet road quite slippery,waning average speed was 6mph up till asda island. After that, it was nose to tail single file in left lane as people wouldn't risk the outside lane. Even now, people still have little regard for stopping distances. I was finding my new quatrac 3s to be nicely capable of propelling me up the hill in this deadly outside lane. What I think is, it doesn't matter how capable your car is, there will always be someone less capable. Even cars you'd expect to be 'okay', say, fwd hatchbacks, or even the 'unstoppable' Quattro audis, will get stuck when driven unsympathetically.
Did you see the poorly mx5 on the m5 adjacent to junction 1? Poor little mite. First casualty I had seen. There was an a4 near it. I wonder who took out who.
Did you see the poorly mx5 on the m5 adjacent to junction 1? Poor little mite. First casualty I had seen. There was an a4 near it. I wonder who took out who.
Seems most drivers don't realise that they will need to turn traction control completely off. If they leave it on the wheel will slip Half a turn and then the power gets cut.
Switching tc off allows the wheels to spin and get traction in snow.
Works for me in an e60 auto on 275 rear summer tyres.
Lock it in 3rd traction fully off and boot it - got me everywhere I wanted to go including very steep hills.
Downhill was more of a problem - just had to make sure the front wheels were pointing where I wanted to go and the back caught up eventually.
Switching tc off allows the wheels to spin and get traction in snow.
Works for me in an e60 auto on 275 rear summer tyres.
Lock it in 3rd traction fully off and boot it - got me everywhere I wanted to go including very steep hills.
Downhill was more of a problem - just had to make sure the front wheels were pointing where I wanted to go and the back caught up eventually.
Steffan said:
unused ancient Chapel Lane in Great Barr, a shortcut from Junction 7 of the M6.
Have to disagree with the unused bit Steffan! I live less than a minute from the Sutton Road exit and the number of idiots flying down those narrow lanes never ceases to amaze me!At the very first turning (by that big rock) heading down the lanes from the Sutton Rd exit I once needed up sideways across the road in an m3 during snow. That was the worst car I've ever been down there in during bad weather. The only way to keep it in a straight line was to turn all the driving aids off and drive it by the seat of the pants. Scary!
I bought a cheap Frontera for less than the price of a set of winter tyres, used it for four years then sold it last year. I am missing it this week especially as I still see it running around. I now have spare wheels for the BMWs but it is such a pain to keep swapping over that I have not bothered and so far we've managed fine on normal tyres.
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff