A1 North was rubbish at 0915, Northbound between the Ram Jam Inn and Grantham; mostly stationary but could not see or hear why. Got off and went home Southbound on a parallel B road Southbound which was way better. Home back to Home was 45 minutes for 6 miles. FWD KA, couldn't back up the slope from my newsagent's car park - had to go forward and round on the pavement, 200 yards later stopped at a slight gardient at a 'T' junction; had to back off and take a 20 yard run at it. Getting nowhere trying to start on the uphill gradient
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My RWD MB no problems whatsoever, no wheelspin at all in 6" of snow, it's not which end is driven it's the tyre compound that matters, low profile's too.
2 badly pranged cars abandoned on the A14 today 'tween here (Northants) and Felixstowe, both FWD.
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My RWD MB no problems whatsoever no wheelspin at all in 6" of snow it's not which end is driven it's the tyre compound that matters low profile's too.
And also how the brain is wired to the hands and feet!
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Southerners are wusses when it comes to snow..
And anyone in a BMW in snow without winter tyres is a great source of amusement..
(but then I save my taunts on this subject for this time of year - every year... It's great fun).
Anyone with a rwd drive car in winter without winter tyres is a tighfisted numpty - or has a fwd car in the garage.
Edited by madf on 18/12/2009 at 16:03
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It's all to do with pressure on the road from driven wheels on 2WD. So an old style Mini is better than a new one in the snow. Wide tyres are bad news RWD or FWD.
Assuming it is well set up, judicious tweaks on the handbrake holding the ratchet button can make a big difference to most RWD cars in getting moving. Not to hard to learn how do either although not a practice found in most books..
(I am of course assuming a handbrake on the rear,. Not true for a few generally older cars as I've got one).
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Anyone with a rwd drive car in winter without winter tyres is a tighfisted numpty - or has a fwd car in the garage.
I've never needed winter tyres on any car. Snow has never been bad enough. Roads are generally gritted and cleared. The problem comes with compacted snow and ice so unless you have studded tyres you are doomed anyway. Several inches of fresh snow is pretty easy to drive on. Doddle in a 4wd car compared to rwd but rwd is ok if you don't mind a little opposite lock now and then. I tend to choose tyres with big V shaped grooves for better water dispersal and this seems to help with snow.
I think the problems are caused by people not daring to go out in snowy weather to somewhere deserted and just play around with their car and see what happens. The whole news media acts like everyone will die the moment they get out on the roads. Meanwhile the rest of northern europe just gets on with it.
Genuine all season tyres that can cope with hot summers and cold winters would help a lot.
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When the FWD Mini came out in 1959 driving practices changed overnight it was fabulous compared to the RWD cars of 1959. Think beam axle on cartsprings or possibly swing axle rear supension. It was probably not that long since indepentant fron suspension had become widespread.
Thw FWD did make it easier for most people to use the road behaviour but the half decent suspension gave it the behaviour in the first place.
Haveing said that I reckon that a Mini built today with a nice light engine,dare I suggest a good 'K' series, would be as good a small car as you could devise.
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The best car I ever had for snow was a 1958 Austin A35.(I was a student then .. cost £50 iirc)
RWD, zero power (about 42bhp,) narrow tyres and Town and Country tyres on the rear . And high ground clearance.
It got through Aberdeen to Stonehaven one winter. The next car got stuck in the snow drift I (just) got through. After that the road was closed. (the drifts were 6 feet deep at the side of the road: the road itself had been ploughed and was only 9 inches of hard packed snow plus a top layer of loose snow)
Narrow tyres, no power, ground clearance.
That rules out ALL BMWs and explains why they are useless in snow...
And of course BMW drivers don' t know what "gentle on the accelerator and brakes " means.
Edited by madf on 18/12/2009 at 16:57
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"On mine it starts (in an auto) in 2nd gear. Reverse also seems higher geared as well when in 'W' - not sure how it does that though.
As well as starting in 2nd, the general sharpness of response against throttle seems softer & damped in some way - overall it gentles out the whole power delivery so you don't break traction as much."
A pressure relief valve usually opens within the autobox, which lowers the hydraulic line pressure from the fluid pump. This greatly reduces the transmission's ability to transmit torque and makes it feel very shushy. Very effective, more so than ESP/ASR I dare say.
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>>Reverse also seems higher geared as well when in 'W' - not sure how it does that though.
Some newer MB automatic gearboxes actually have two reverse ratios. Because of the way automatics work, this doesn't mean that there are any more physical gears in the gearbox, just that the gears that are there can be locked or driven in more combinations.
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Talking of gearboxes and snow, had to rock my truck clear this afternoon to get going.
What a useless pile of junk these automated manual gearboxes are.
As you know rocking forwards and backwards means quick gearchanges between the two to maximise the 'trench' you are rolling...great until it involves the wonderful automated manual in which competent gear selection doesn't compute.
Another reason to avoid the things like the plague...tat.
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>>>What a useless pile of junk these automated manual gearboxes are.<<<
I couldn't agree with you more GB, I spent more time stuck last year and did more miles with the wheels spinning than I'd done in the previous 28yrs.
And to add insult to injury, it makes us look like incompetent beginners too.
They should some with a sticker on the back that says 'It's not me, it's my gearbox'
Pat
Edited by pda on 18/12/2009 at 17:53
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Went up a steepish hill last night, covered in snow, in the S type. Three quarters of the way up and it wasn't having it with traction control gradually cutting power until I stopped. Didn't think i'd get going again, but TC off and up she went, wheels were spinning, but she still made it...just.
Which is more than can be said for the clown in the old white Nissan Micra who was revving the nads off it and slipping from left to right, but getting nowhere.
The kid in me usually comes out, but it was so touch and go that I just wanted to get home without bending it...or more likely someone else bending it for me.
Remarkably little traffic on the road for 9.30pm at night on the outskirts of our capital city. Heeded the warnings? Surely not!
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Early sixties, in gung-ho youth, went to Plymouth and back in a hired late-fifties Vauxhall Victor. Worst winter for years, but the Victor was ideal - fairly gutless and light - for the conditions. Jaguars, Humbers and big Fords were all over the place and unable to get up hills, but that car just sailed past them. It was only stopped once, by freezing rain on packed snow. The handbrake wouldn't even hold it on a slope and it wouldn't drive in a straight line. Fortunately there was a pub with a room nearby. I got stuck in the car park but a squad of friendly marines drinking there bounced the car sideways into a parking place.
Edited by Lud on 18/12/2009 at 18:26
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Early sixties in gung-ho youth went to Plymouth and back in a hired late-fifties Vauxhall Victor. Worst winter for years.
If it was 1962, then I understand it was a particularly bad winter. My parents got snowed in, in their cottage for quite some days. I won't go in to too much detail obviously, but middle of 1963 I appeared.
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I won't go in to too much detail obviously,
I would be quite surprised if you were in a position to go into much detail Wp, although the essentials of the narrative are easy to deduce...
:o}
Yes, it would have been 62-63 winter. My first marriage. The Plymouth trip was a brisk honeymoon combined with a bit of Monte Carlo rally-style sideways motoring. The Victor ran a big end but got us back to London. The hire people had told me it had a 'new engine' but I suppose it was a rather rough rebuild really. They took the knocking big end philosophically.
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And to add insult to injury it makes us look like incompetent beginners too.
Thanks Pat, i knew you'd understand.
That blasted box and all the other things like TC which depending on the speed/condition you have to turn off to get any traction at all (which is what it's supposed to be there for in the first place..aaarrrgh).
The only saving grace is the drive axle tyres are M&S rated and almost new, so despite the 'puters wanting to prevent movement i was able to force it...hah;-)
Never had any of this pita with the old stuff which were tough, driveable and fit for a days work.
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On days when you got real snow I used to tuck in behind a truck in preference. Far enough back to stop of course but a heavy one would compact the snow enough to make it easier for a car to negotiate. Also took the view that if some numpty coming the other way decided to get out of shape there was a gert big truck between me and him.
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On days when you got real snow I used to tuck in behind a truck in preference. Far enough back to stop of course but a heavy one would compact the snow enough to make it easier for a car to negotiate.
Indeed thats what I did on the two lane sections of the A1. Follow the truck. Mind the outsaide lane was sometimes snowbound so that was the only option.
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Not bad AE, not bad at all given your geographical handicap.....Keep it up, there's a good chap....you'll soon have the hang of it....
;-)
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I don't agree with the prevailing view that RWD are useless in snow. I think what has happened is that very few people now have experience of driving them, and don't understand the need for proper loading, low power, and a light touch. Perhaps it's just that FWD are more forgiving.
Nor do I agree that the rule to use the highest gear possible is always correct. A powerful engine can spin a wheel in any gear on a slippery road. A low gear however at virtual idling speed is much less liable to spin a wheel, and is a good way of getting a grip.
Look at the sand dune scene in Ice Cold in Alex, quoted here once before.
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Alas Global warming has yet to turn the UK into the North African desert.
Driving on deep sand requires a unique style of driving and is not to be confused with snow
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Deep sand, which fortunately is rare (and obvious) in most of the Sahara, is to be avoided in any ordinary vehicle. Even a Land Rover with big tyres can easily get stuck in it. When crossing sandy places it is essential not to stop. A warrior I used to know told me that on one long-range operation he took part in it was thought impossible even to stop for calls of nature. He said they just hosed the vehicle out afterwards.
I have been a passenger in a stripped Land Rover carrying a heavy load driven by an experienced desert driver up a sand escarpment about 50 feet high. The three-foot lip at the top was pretty well vertical. The driver took a run at the cliff in second gear, in 2wd to my great surprise. He didn't make it and we ran backwards down to the bottom. The second time he made it, just. At the top the Land Rover stood on its rear wheels pawing the air for what seemed a very long time, then crashed down on the table above. It felt as if it was going to roll over backwards and fall on us. Being under artillery fire later that day felt quite a lot safer.
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I always knew you were a rat Lud. Didnt realise it was the desert variety!
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Not quite that old, or that respectable, AE!
A dilettante observer of small wars in later times though.
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its Ok lud. We all know you are secretly Kate Adie...
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Well finally got snow in deepest Lanarkshire.
I took my seat in the stadium at Hamilton Accies at 2.30 with the rain pouring down.
By 2.45, the place was a total whiteout and, unsurprisingly, the game was called off at 2.50pm.
The 15 min drive home took an hour with the wet road rapidly turning to ice under the snow.
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having been weaned on rear wheel drive but having mainly driven front wheel drive for the past 20 years i can safely say that in the main front wheel drive with skinny tyres is the way forward in snow
and not backwards in a twirl with rwd :-0
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What the advantage of wide tyres, first car (fwd) had if i recall correctly 145 tyres and could go nearly anywhere, all subsequent cars have had larger tyres (all fwd)and have been interesting in the snow.
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Just listening to a neighbour with a corsa failing to reverse off the drive. All I can hear is wheelspin! He's all over the place. I don't think the going nowhere in snow is down to the cars drive train at all. Think it's more to do with the driver and a lot of people's total inability to feel what the car is doing.
Got to go out later. Can't decide whether to take the rwd to make a point or the 4wd as it doesn't have abs which I think might be better in current conditions :-)
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Alas Global warming has yet to turn the UK into the North African desert. Driving on deep sand requires a unique style of driving and is not to be confused with snow
Quite possibly. I just mean the analogy was that a very low gear when creeping forwards avoids disturbing the delicate structure of the sand/snow. The way to get a LandRover moving in snow is low range and idling speed.
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